Over the last 3 years, we have been working with The Royal Ballet and Royal Opera House to develop ballet in school. Children from across the key stages have created some fantastic pieces of choreography as part of the Create and Dance project.

We were invited to work on an exciting project based on Alice in Wonderland. Our children had a number of live face time dance sessions with the professional dancers at the Royal Ballet, which have included both structured and improvised dance. The purpose of these sessions was to build up to a live, mass dance performance outside CAST theatre in Doncaster City centre.

Over the course of the project, we were fortunate enough to have both professional dancers and choreographers in school working directly with our children.

What a truly amazing experience for all involved.

Throughout our dance journey, the Royal Opera House sent a professional film crew to document our progress. A number of our children were interviewed and spoke about their development in ballet, what it means to them to be ‘Team Alice’ and how their perception of dance, in particular, ballet, has changed.

We met the prima ballerina for the event who was playing Alice…and she was from Doncaster! A real life ballerina from our own home city. This was a real inspiration for the children. Dreams can come true!

The final performance saw more than six hundred children gather to perform a mass choreography dance.