Dancing success for local performers

A trio of performers from a Bacup dance studio, including a pupil from Rochdale and a former Whitworth High student, have taken giant leaps towards their stage goals.

Former Whitworth Community High School student Jasmine Clayton, 16, has landed a place studying musical theatre at Shockout Arts Academy in Manchester.

Ava White, nine, from Norden, is now a junior associate at The School of Ballet Theatre UK in Leicester.

And Sam Hughes, 15, has been accepted at a prestigious Centre for Advanced Training (CATs) in dance at Salford’s The Lowry.

Principal at Dansworks Dance Academy of Performing Arts, Karen Connearn said: “I am delighted for all three. They have achieved this success despite lockdown because they have all continued to work so hard on their dance and performance skills using out online Zoom classes.”

Ava, a pupil at Caldershaw Primary School, Rochdale, will be attending 10 sessions with The School of Ballet Theatre UK. She has been dancing since she was two-and-a-half and been at Dansworks since she was five.

She said: “I love everything about dancing, the way it makes me feel, seeing all my friends and having a lovely dance teacher. I also want to thank my dance family for pushing me really hard.”

Ava would love to become a ballerina and has already learnt all the moves to the two roles she would like to play - that of the Sugar Plum Fairy or Odette in Swan Lake.

She was the youngest of 150 to audition for the Northern Ballet in Leeds, but won a place on the reserve list. After the lessons with the ballet school, she hopes to secure a place at Northern Ballet at the next audition.

 

 

Jasmine, who has been at Dansworks from age four, had just two days to film her audition, a monologue, a song and a dance routine.

She said: “I had a monologue already recorded, Karen allowed me to use the dance studio and helped me to improve my dance before filming and my dad borrowed a microphone from my school and recorded me singing.”

Jasmine was shocked in the middle of her interview to be told she had a place.

Her dream is to appear on stage on Broadway or the West End, realistically she hopes to secure a role in a touring production or on cruise ships and maybe start her own YouTube Channel.