Allegrodance - When the Ballet came to St Monica's

A Journey to Narnia

To round off a wonderful half term at St Monica’s Catholic Primary School, we were fortunate enough to be audience members for the day for KS Dance’s touring company, Allegrodance.

The morning was full of preparation and the dancers were hard at work to transform our school hall into a theatre, which was set out with lino, lighting and music. The children (and staff) were in awe as they arrived at school to find dancers scuttling to and fro as they prepared for their performance.

Our KS1 children were first to enter the hall to see the spectacle, followed by our KS2 children in the afternoon. They were greeted with colourful lighting and props of all shapes and sizes. The narrator of the company guided the children through her script of the variety of genres that they were going to be watching. This included, Classical ballet, Jazz, Contemporary, Spanish, Tap, Modern dancing and Musical theatre.

This was a first for many of our children at St Monica’s, seeing a theatre production in full swing but from the comfort of our school. This enabled the children to see and understand the components of a production. They experienced the variety of dance genres as well as music of different tempos, partner work and solos.

The children really seeing the icy snowflakes and the sword that was used as a prop in their ballet production, Narnia, was inspiring and exciting, as well as the array of talent shown by the dancers of KS Dance school.

St Monica’s feel that performance and exposure to the arts gives the children a wonderful opportunity to express themselves as individuals and shine as brightly as they wish to shine.