View from the Green Room: A ballet school 20 years evolving
Dungarvan and Waterford School of Ballet performed Evolution at the Tower Hotel in Waterford city.
Evolution seems the perfect title for the twentieth anniversary of Edel Quinlan’s ballet schools in Dungarvan and Waterford. A school two decades in the making is constantly changing, adapting, inventing, re-inventing. Evolving really from humble beginnings to the school of some 200 students that Edel trains today.
Edel Quinlan has always been passionate about dance. Beginning at the ripe old age of three, Edel studied dance at Wexford initially before taking her teaching diploma from the Royal Academy of Dance.
There’s not many Fulbright scholarships awarded to Ireland but Edel was awarded one to enable her to study dance, performance and choreography in the USA.
Edel has also been actively involved with Wexford Light Opera, Wexford Opera, Wexford Panto and recently won Best Choreographer for her work on The Phantom of the Opera with Carrick-on-Suir Musical Society in the Waterford News & Star Green Room Awards.
Tonight is all about performance as Edel showcases her talented stars on the Tower Hotel stage. There’s every grade here from adorable tots to sophisticated senior ballet students, who all care for the younger students.
Edel’s experience as a choreographer really shows in the clever and inventive use of space on the confined Tower Hotel stage. A colourful opening of Stars and Stripes from Grade 4/6 Ballet, dressed in Roman purple, features two principal dancers who move in and out of ensemble for an exciting march-time opening.
Edel mixes old and new in her soundtracks. 'The Way You Make Me Feel' is a jazzy, blues concoction with some gutsy, in-yer-face moves ala Micheal Jackson, complete with his moondance that has the Tower rocking.
Hot Honey Rag gives us flapper frills and fun with a honky tonk feel that finishes to cheers.
There’s a Footloose that’s danced by former hoofers from Edel’s academy that has the audience on its feet and clapping along, and a Revolting Children gang that make plenty of noise as they all delight in being rowdy-rude, and a Hand Jive from Grease that’s full of energy and teen feisty attitude.
Ballet is all over the programme with some really special performances in Shadowland (featuring Aoife Simms), Music Box Dancer (featuring Ellie Louise Corbett) and a Backstage Romance that is a show stopper. There’s also a couple of cameos that feature the talents of Holly and Ella Conroy in Dancing Fool and a tour-de-force modern dance routine from Allanah Marchelewska Sheehan in No Choice.
The Ugly Bug Ball features the smallest ballerinas as colourful bees and red and black dot ladybirds and vivid insects.
Highlight of the night is the Daddy’s Little Girl number with fathers strutting their stuff with their young daughters as the relatives cheer their charges on.
Edel Quinlan has done well in growing her ballet school and in nurturing the talent and the love of dance that is everywhere tonight in the Tower Hotel.
Well done Dungarvan and Waterford School of Ballet and here’s to the next 20 years.
