Hector Moore is a 16 year old Ballet Dancer at Tring Park School of the Arts and has been busy training there for the past few years. He was initially funded by the Isle of Man Arts Council to attend part-time training at the Royal Ballet School associate as a young boy for three years from 2012-2015. He has just finished GCSE’s and has been offered a traineeship with the Bolshoi Ballet Academy. He departs for Moscow full-time in September.
Hector was also offered a full scholarship to Ellison Ballet summer school in New York and leaves to train with them very soon over the summer. He was also offered the English National Ballet School and a full scholarship with Ballet Theatre UK. Hector's mother Catherine tells us: "It took him about 2 seconds to decide on accepting Bolshoi!"
We caught up with Hector for some updates about his time so far training as a Ballet Dancer. Read his blog below:
All images by Johan Persson
My first introduction to ballet began at when I attended Dancer's Barre in my reception year at Laxey School. The class was held in the school gymnasium and taught by Rachel Withington. Lots of my school friends also attended and I remember really enjoying the structure of the class. After moving from Laxey to Onchan, I began RAD ballet and contemporary classes at The Academy of Dance in Ballasalla taught by Marie-Louise Brit and Pippa Salter.
It was around this time my mum spotted an advertisement for auditions to The Royal Ballet School held in Manchester. We decided to go for more of a day out to attend a fun dance class and visit the Lego centre at Old Trafford than anything else. I don't remember much about the audition and we were really surprised to receive a letter some weeks later offering me a place as a Junior Associate of the Royal Ballet School. We accepted the offer which supplemented my island training with weekends spent training with the RBS in Manchester. The cost of travelling to Manchester most weekends to access training would not have been possible without a generous bursary from the Isle of Man Arts Council.
Thanks to the 3 year Junior Associate program and my wonderful teachers on The Isle of Man I was offered a scholarship to Tring Park School of Performing Arts. Towards the end of my time at Tring Park which offers ballet training alongside commercial dance, I really connected with Russian ballet at a summer school and left Tring Park to study at Masters of Ballet Academy, a Vaganova based school in London.
I'm pleased to say I've had a successful audition round this year with further training scholarships to Ellison Ballet in New York and Ballet Theatre UK and offers from the English National Ballet School and the Bolshoi Ballet Academy. I'm really looking forward to relocating to Moscow at the end of this month to commence a 4 year traineeship with Bolshoi.
Early specialised training is absolutely crucial to developing as a ballet dancer and I am grateful to the Art's Council and my IOM teachers for supporting me on this exciting journey.
