Community / Community ballet school set to bring live music and dance together
SHETLAND Community School of Ballet will host a weekend of workshops next month with visits from dancers and musicians from across Europe.
Matthew Lawrence has been teaching ballet in the isles since 2007: “I used to drive all over Shetland teaching in community halls… some of those children are now my adult pupils, or they’re bringing their children to my dance classes,” he told Shetland News.
He said the workshops have now become an “annual fixture” in the dance community’s calendar after hosting them for the first time in 2018.
This year Lawrence has applied for funding from Creative Scotland, and he is still eagerly awaiting to see if he was successful as the deadline to apply has been extended.
He said: “I’m on tenterhooks… if it happens, I can make [these workshops] free and we can do other projects in the new year.
“If we do get this money, it would be something major, so we could do quite a lot of exciting things.”
On 12 and 13 August, there will be workshops for a variety of ages and experience levels, even those who have never tried dance before.
“Anyone can come along,” Lawrence said. “There’s contemporary classes, modern classes and jazz classes, so they’re quite free flowing and easy to do.”
Musicians will be joining the dancers to provide live instrumentals for them during the workshops.
Shetland-based percussionist Renzo Spiteri will join forces with teacher-in-training Emily Briggs, a former pupil of Lawrence’s, for the modern dance classes.
“She’s now living in Edinburgh, and training and teaching,” Lawrence said. “She’s coming up to teach for me to do a workshop.
“Renzo is going to play for her classes, so that’s quite exciting.”
Visiting dancer Danila Marzilli from Italy will be joined by English pianist David Plumpton.
“She’s done quite a lot of work with Scottish Ballet, and she’s done teaching in Europe too so she’s a professional dancer,” Lawrence said of Marzilli. “I just thought that’d be really nice to have for the girls here.”
He described Plumpton as “a very modest man, but he is actually world famous”.
The musician previously visited Shetland to take part in Lawrence’s workshops in 2019.
“He doesn’t carry any music with him, it’s all in his head,” Lawrence said. “You can just whistle a tune to him and he’ll play it, he’s absolutely amazing.
“It’s something that brings a little bit extra to a class.”
Local performer Kathryn Gordon will be running contemporary dance workshops and Lawrence will also teach some adult ballet accompanied by Plumpton.
Full details can be found on the community ballet school’s website .
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