Finding new Billy Elliotts
Last updated 18/03/2008 12:35:22
Photo by Hugo Glendinning
In a new initiative backed by the Government children from inner-city schools are to be encouraged to take up ballet and dance in a move to find a new generation of Billy Elliotts, and a means of keeping youngsters occupied and out of trouble.
This week, the Culture Secretary, Andy Burnham unveiled new plans for six new ‘Centres of Excellence' to be given the go ahead for youngsters to receive intensive dance lessons in after school hours and at weekends. Youngsters showing promise and potential will subsequently be offered opportunities to apply to study further dance tuition through the Royal School of Ballet.
It was decided that a number of specially selected grant funded schools will assess youngsters taking up dance and feed their results direct to the Royal Ballet School in London as a means of help the more talented youngsters a chance to pursue dance as a profession.
This new Government initiative came about after ministers were asked to look into providing dance as extra curricular activity at schools in a firm belief that there are thousands of eager school children interested in taking up dance should they be given the right opportunities but mainly due to a general lack of facilities and tuition that has proved impossible. Clearly youngsters need to be given the necessary support to take their interests in dance further than the local disco.
Similar to other minority activities, the government has realized that unless improvements are made, inevitably this would lead to a continuing declining number of children attending ballet classes and fewer British ballet stars taking up posts in big ballet companies such as The Royal Opera House.