John Weaver Dance Festival returns to Shrewsbury

The John Weaver Dance Festival returned to Shrewsbury last weekend for another weekend full of incredible performances. 

John Weaver is considered to be the Father of English ballet. He was a highly esteemed chorographer and producer, creating works such as ‘The Lovers of Mars and Venus’ and ‘Orpheus and Eurydice’ which were preformed at the Royal Court in the West End.

Last weekend we celebrated Weaver’s legacy with a series of dance events. We started the festival with performances of the Dance Showcase on Friday and Saturday evening. With over 50 pupils taking to the stage, it shows that dance has been the fastest growing sport over the last few years.

Under the guidance of Head of Dance Sian Stanhope and Dance teacher Olivia Newton, the dancers were able to showcase great skill, enthusiasm and enjoyment, from Saara W (EDH, IV) and India Q’s (EDH, IV) duet to the Hamilton classic ‘Burn’ to an impressive ‘Peaky Blinders’ trio from Cordelia H (MSH, V), Massimo W (R, UVI) and Will O’H (Ch, V). The finale of the showcase was a fantastic contemporary number ‘All the Lonely People’ performed by our Intermediate Competition team.

The weekend came to a close on Sunday with a fantastic ballet workshop and the John Weaver Competition. The workshop was run by Daisuke Miura, who is a former professional ballet dancer with the Serbian National Theatre and Ballet Cymru. The workshop was attended by not only our dancers, but dancers from across Shropshire. It was a challenging session, but everyone enjoyed it and worked extremely hard.

Once the workshop was over, we moved into the John Weaver Competition, which saw our competition team compete for The Weaver Cup. This year the team came 2^nd overall, with Daisuke commenting that the piece was skilful with great musicality.

We would like to thank all those that helped with the weekend and made it the success that it was. We look forward to next year!

Sian Stanhope

Head of Dance