👍New Partnership | The Royal Ballet School x Dance Base 🩰

The Royal Ballet School and Dance Base Scotland will work together to deliver a wealth of dance opportunities for young people, aspiring dancers and dance professionals.

With this new partnership, The Royal Ballet School and Dance Base will collaborate to deliver the highest-quality Royal Ballet School programmes in Scotland, including for children trying dance for the first time, dance students who want to train at a recreational or pre-vocational level and those who wish to teach dance in various settings. These programmes will all take place within Dance Base’s award-winning studios in central Edinburgh. 

The Royal Ballet School and Dance Base are both committed to widening access to dance, whether as an art form, a potential career, a way to exercise, or simply for enjoyment. As charities, each organisation works to offer opportunities for people to engage with dance, regardless of their experience, background or means. Both organisations also work to raise awareness of and promote the benefits of dance for everyone, and so this new partnership is an obvious and exciting opportunity for all.

Christopher Powney, Artistic Director of The Royal Ballet School, said:

‘Dance Base, as Scotland’s National Centre for Dance, is the perfect partner for the School. We share a mission to open up the dance world to as many people as possible. With our expertise as a world leader in classical ballet training and Dance Base’s wealth of knowledge and experience in the region, I’m excited to see what we can achieve together.’

Jim Hollington, Chief Executive at Dance Base, said:

‘We are delighted to welcome The Royal Ballet School to our studios and to partner with them to host their Regional Training Hub for Scotland and the North of England. With our world-class facilities, we’re the natural home for this opportunity. The partnership really complements our existing activity with the community and professional dance artists, and we’re excited to see how the collaboration will develop for us and the broader dance sector in Scotland.’ 

Carol Dray, The Royal Ballet School’s Commercial Director, added:

‘As a charity and in increasingly tough times, we are delighted to have formed a partnership with Dance Base, who match our ambition to widen access to dance in regional centres sustainably and with the opportunity for growth.’ 

The Royal Ballet School has delivered its Associate Programme, for gifted young dancers considering further training or a dance career, in centres across the UK since the 1980s. It currently has nine centres in England and Scotland. 

The School will now expand this work by creating regional training hub partnerships in these centres and new locations that are easily accessible so that more people can engage with and experience dance. The School will establish hubs in the UK, with worldwide hubs to follow soon.

The Royal Ballet School’s partnership with Dance Base is based on the two organisations’ shared values of accessibility and inclusion and their complementary knowledge and experience. Established in 1926, the School brings to the partnership nearly 100 years of delivering excellence in dancer and dance teacher training. The School also brings its commitment to empowering dance teachers and professionals to create nurturing studio environments and take a student-centred approach, ensuring all dance students feel supported and able to express themselves.

The partnership will benefit from Dance Base’s local knowledge and standing in the community, its connections across the Scottish dance industry and beyond, and its reputation as an inclusive centre where all are welcome to explore their relationship with dance. Dance Base also offers world-class studios and an inspiring environment in which to dance.

 
The partnership will commence with an Insight class on 18 February, a class for keen dancers aged 7-10 who may be interested in joining the School’s Associate programme, followed by a recreational dance workshop for dance students aged 8-11 and dance teachers on 3 March.  The School will deliver its full Junior and Mid Associate programmes at Dance Base from September 2024.