About Me...

I’m Laura and I work for a company called New English Contemporary Ballet, under the direction of Niall McMahon. It is a relatively new company, with the aim of exploring a “contemporary direction” through classically-trained dancers. NECB “encourages its dancers to travel beyond the traditional boundaries of [our] art form, and asks [us] to perform as solo artists capable of accepting a wide range of physical and stylistic challenges”. There is always a great deal going on here, with an NECB school now in its second year, plus a second company ‘NECB2’ for recent graduates, that launched this September. I will always update my blog with any performances/events that are coming up, as I would love some of you to come and see us perform if you are interested! In the meantime though, please feel free to take a look at the company’s website: http://www.newenglishcontemporaryballet.co.uk/ to find out a bit more about us.

So that’s my life as it stands today, but I will write a little about my training too as –at twenty years of age- it is still a big part of who I am. I trained full-time from the age of eleven, at Elmhurst School for Dance in Birmingham. I recall having always loved dancing, but still don’t quite know why I wanted to leave home at such a young age to pursue it as a career! I didn’t fully understand at the time just how life-changing a decision I had in my hands. All I know now, though, is that I would not have changed my eight years at Elmhurst for anything! I had such great experiences there, and relished in both the training and the independence of living away from home. I am also very grateful to have found work as dancer since graduating. Had I known just how few of us starting out at Elmhurst would continue all the way to a career in dance, I would probably have run as fast as possible back to my home town and straight into a regular secondary school! But here I am, having gone through many highs, just as many lows, and an obscene amount of hard work and dedication... all of which will certainly continue throughout my career!

I hope you enjoy my blog as it develops over the coming months!...