8 September 2022 12:05

2020 14+ Dance Scholarship winner update - Asa Waller

Lovely to hear from Asa on what she has been up to since winning the 14+ Dance Scholarship in 2020.

 

Dear Bronwyn and members of the 14+ scholarship foundation,

"I am writing this email to update you on both my trip and my plans going forward! I would first of course like to thank the board so much for your support which enabled me to be able to go on this trip. It has truly been such an invaluable experience and I cannot even begin to express my gratitude.

I flew out from Auckland at the end of at the end of June and started my first course at the Academie Princess Grace at the beginning of July in Monaco. There were only eight girls in my class, including myself, and three boys, so it was really great as we received a lot of personal corrections and  everyone became really good friends. The days were not too intense and the whole week was super enjoyable. We also had to choreograph a contemporary solo which we each performed at the end of the week which I really enjoyed. I loved experiencing the European contemporary style as it is so different to what we learn here and I quite liked it. The studios were all just incredibly beautiful - just being in the space alone made me want to dance.

 

I then caught the train to Paris where I spent at week at the Paris Opera Ballet School. Something I really took away from this trip as a whole is the differences in styles and being able to actually experience them firsthand I also definitely realised what my own preferences are. I think this will be so helpful for me in the future. Elizabeth Platel was explaining the French methods to us in her repertoire class (which was absolutely incredible!) and she talked about how first the choreography must be learned and each movement must be performed accurately. Then after this you work on the artistic side, coached by the choreographer - almost thinking as though the artistry is a part of the choreography. I thought this was super interesting, as I had not really heard about this idea before, and it was a good challenge to try to switch my brain around to try the different French methods as much as possible over the week! The groups were much bigger here, but this was great for pas de deux! I really enjoyed these classes. Mr Romoli took most of the pas de deux classes and he was possibly my favourite teacher. He gave us each personal corrections and gave us new and challenging partnering sequences each lesson, with some interesting lifts I had never even seen before - let alone tried!

After finishing my time in Paris I then went to Amsterdam to audition at the Dutch National Ballet Academy. Earlier in the year I had gotten through to the final round of auditions but unfortunately I could not get to Amsterdam to attend that final round. So I have actually been in contact with the school and pleaded with them to allow me to audition again. They initially actually told me there were no spots left, but when I mentioned I was coming to Europe they said I was able to audition by attending one of their classes. So that is what I did! After the class Ernst (the director of the school) took me to his office and he offered me a position in the graduating class! Of course I am incredibly excited about this opportunity, but the school year would also start the week I would be in Prague!

So then I arrived in London late at night and started the next morning at the Royal Ballet School!

The Royal Ballet school is really just so iconic and I am so glad to have been able to experience training there. I found the style to be really similar to what I have learned back home, and definitely found the RAD training to be super helpful as I felt really comfortable with the classes, which was really nice. Staying in Covent Garden was of course incredible as well! And I was very lucky as only the most senior group were able to eat at the opera house - so we would get to go backstage and into the opera house across the road every day for lunch and dinner! Because of this I got to see backstage, the beautiful studios, even hanging costumes and things like that were just so inspiring! And of course I was absolutely speechless and totally beyond mere excitement when Marianela Nunez came into the canteen while we were there!

Unfortunately I did have to leave the course early, and have luckily been able to defer my masterclasses in Prague program to next year. I also have been offered a discount to return to the Royal Ballet School course next year which I would really love to do, but am not sure this will be very likely financially. This is because I have decided that I would really like to try to make the offer from Dutch National Academy a reality and move to Amsterdam and join the graduating class as soon as I am able, and after a lot of discussion my parents and I realised that my best option was to defer the course in Prague and try to sort out these details as soon as we can.

Again I would just like to say I how incredibly grateful both myself and my parents are for the support of the 14+ foundation - I certainly would not have made this trip without the very generous scholarship money, and am so grateful to hopefully be able to take this next step."

Thank you very much,

Asa Waller