Ballet Malvern is a school enabling all students the chance to dance and become the best they can be in a friendly supportive family atmosphere. Our teaching family is of the highest of calibre assisting our students to achieve their personal goals within the industry they choose to follow.
Ballet Malvern was born out of Rebecca Sloan-Kirton's professional knowledge of both ballet and acting. Rebecca's professional ballet career had a premature ending after injuring her ankles badly and then retraining as an actress she worked on many TV programs from Top Gear to Chuckle Vision. Because of Rebecca's vast career in the performing arts Ballet Malvern understands the need to teach various genres of dance as well as musical theatre, drama and singing to a very high standard.
Ballet Malvern has won Ballet School of the Year 2022 - 2023, Ballet Provider of the Year for 2020-2021, Performing Arts School of the Year for Central England 2021-2022 from Prestige Awards.
In order to produce the very highest standard within our ballet students Ballet Malvern has spent years honing a unique syllabus based on Dame Lucette Aldous's (one of our patrons) research and teachings. It 's origins come from the vocational ballet training within Russian techniques (Kniaseff), Paris Opera School, Royal Ballet School and Royal Danish School, it also includes the principals of Alexander Technique and teaches students to have incredibly strong technique alongside developing their artistry. (Something we felt was lacking in other syllabi we had previously taught) Ballet Malvern students are taught from the inside out so they have a full understanding of how their body moves and reacts. We have ballet professionals to examine our students as we feel professionals who are current within the industry are best to examine how well our students are learning for their futures. It is a beautifully flowing syllabus and we have had huge success and support from industry professionals for our method. Our students have successfully auditioned and gained scholarships for The Royal Ballet Schools JA & MA programmes as well as Elmhurst School and Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Dance and Music. Thirteen of our students have also worked in Birmingham Royal Ballet's Dream productions as well as being chosen to perform with them at a special VIP event.
As well as exams in ballet, tap, contemporary and musical theatre, our students get the chance to perform in a full performance at a theatre every year, all students are included. We are very much in favour of giving everyone opportunities, we do not have favourites. We also do an invitation ballet, which is a full length production of a classic ballet as well as separate performances for our performing arts classes. We support our students through every step of their training and beyond.
We have recently become a Rambert Teaching Centre, we are very very excited as this is one of the top contemporary dance companies in the world and we are thrilled to now be working with them to give our students the very best up to date learning experience possible.
We also take our Performing Arts side of the school equally seriously and use our previous professional experience to prepare students for auditions, having great success over the years in various productions having students successfully audition and perform professionally in A Christmas Carol, Peter Pan, Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dream Coat, Evita, West Side Story. Our singing teacher is also currently coaching the main performers of SIX the Musical. Ballet Malvern students are given huge opportunities to perform as well as numerous workshops, most recently Jodie Steele, Ruth Brill, Lachlan Monaghan, Anna, Rapunzel. We do annual performances with our acting, musical theatre and singing students.
All students are given lots of great opportunities. We proudly do not follow the norm, this allows us to move and adapt with our students and situations like covid in order to enable our students to continue their progression. Our core ethos is everyone should be able to access dance, drama and singing lessons no matter their background and everyone should be taught to be the best they can be, focusing on a combination of technique, support and fun. Our teachers have all either performed professionally and or trained vocationally within their field of expertise bringing a very high standard of achievement across the whole school. Some of our teachers also have Psychology Degrees, and Sports Massage Qualifications bringing further expertise to their teaching.
Classes are held within our studios on Cowleigh Road, Malvern, which host three studios with sprung dance floors.
We believe everyone should have the chance to dance. We feel privileged to be able to pass on our vast knowledge of the industry to future generations and adults alike. We LOVE what we do!