Dance is taking one Manning Valley teenager around the world.
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Charlotte Reece will attend two international summer intensive ballet programs in June and July, spending three weeks at the San Francisco Ballet School in the United States and two weeks at The Royal Ballet School in London.
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It’s a dream come true for the 14-year-old from Mitchells Island who has been dancing since she was two, a student of the Andrea Rowsell Academy of Dance in Taree since she was four and now in her sixth year of The Australian Ballet School interstate training program.
She sees her future in ballet and with the help of one of her teachers, Miss Kesby, put together a 10-minute video audition that was submitted to six international dance schools for acceptance into their summer schools.
She was accepted by all six, meaning she needed to make some choices.
Deciding to attend The Royal Ballet School program in London, which is considered the world’s top dance school, was easy.
“That was my number one that I really wanted to get into. They’re kind of just perfect and I love the idea of London.”
Charlotte was one of more than 2000 dancers to audition, with only a few hundred selected. For the two weeks of the summer school she will be living and studying at White Lodge.
She also chose San Francisco, which offered her a partial scholarship and housing for the three weeks of the summer school.
“I’m really excited,” said Charlotte. “I’m hoping for a lot of correction and to come back and work on that at school. I’ll be learning from different teachers and to be in the classes with teachers from The Royal Ballet School is amazing.
“Just the experience of it all,” she said.
Going from San Francisco to London she will have an opportunity to see the different styles of teaching.
“They’ve got different types of syllabuses,” she explained.
The experience will also help her make an informed decision about her future direction.
Charlotte is set to leave Australia on June 15 and will fly to San Francisco with her mum Terri, who will head home before flying back to pick her up and travel together to London.
“She’s going to do it herself,” said Terri.
“If this is what she wants then she needs that, to get that independence.”
The Reece family, including Charlotte’s two older siblings who are currently backpacking, will be reunited in London for the duration of her program.
Describing herself as a bit of a perfectionist, Charlotte said classical ballet is her favourite style.
“I do other things but I love ballet. There’s always something to improve with classical.
“Jazz and lyrical you can get away with a lot more but classical is about technique and there’s always something – the upper body, pointed foot, turnout, expression on your face – to improve on.”
Her dancing has taken her overseas on other occasions.
Last year she competed in the Alana Haines Awards ballet competition in New Zealand and three years ago she went to the United States with the Andrea Rowsell Academy of Dance to perform at Disneyland and other locations.
Her bond with Andrea sees them in regular contact.
When Charlotte is at home she will take any opportunity to take a class with her.
Andrea also travelled to Sydney to watch Charlotte’s end of year concert.
“Miss Andrea is really good. If she could come down to Sydney it would be great, she’s such a good teacher.
“I definitely didn’t move because of the dance school. The main reason was to have more dance and ballet.”
Charlotte enjoys the fact she can spent the majority of her time dancing.
She has five school subjects she must do at the college but instead of electives she does ballet. “We get to do a lot of ballet,” she smiled.
Last year she was dancing for 20 hours a week, this year it is between 25 to 30 hours a week.
“I’ve been improving a lot, especially since we’ve been doing a lot of pilates, which helps in ballet as it strengthens your muscles.”