Full Time Classical Dance.
Excellence in dance.
Our premiere Full Time Classical Dance program prepares dancers for their next chapter.
Our proud history.
Alegria’s Full-Time Classical Dance Course offers a thorough preparation for entering a company or company school. Alegria's first year of full-timers graduated in 1999. Former Alegrians are now dancing, or have danced, with prestigious companies throughout the world including The Royal Ballet, The Australian Ballet, The Canadian National Ballet, Rambert, Hamberg Ballet, Zurich Ballet, Dutch National and many more in Europe and the USA.
Steven McRae graduated from Alegria at the end of 2002 and is today a Principal Artist in the Royal Ballet, UK. Harry Churches has now been promoted to First Artist and Brayden Gallucci is in his 3rd year with the Company, having graduated in 2019.
Students have progressed from Alegria directly to The Royal Ballet School, the Australian Ballet School, the New Zealand School of Dance, the English National Ballet School, Rambert, the Scottish Conservatoire, Budapest and various German company schools, to name a few.
Our training.
Alegria’s Full-Time Course offers students tuition in ballet (Royal Academy of Dance and Cecchetti Society syllabi), Alegria's own technique and methodology, all aspects of the classical ballet technique including:
Pas-de-Deux and competition Classical Solo Variations;
Contemporary (a minimum of three classes a week);
Spanish and other Character dancing (Spanish Dance Society syllabus, Italian, Russian, Polish, Hungarian groups and solos);
History (includes studying outstanding classics on video) as strictly relevant to appreciating and performing various styles of ballet in preparation for a professional career;
Music - as strictly relevant to classical dancers and including rhythmic notation;
Composition - this involves analyzing, writing out and discussing the stylistic characteristics and merits of selected solos and group numbers from existing ballets, and encouraging any students with choreographic talent and inclinations to create new works.
Our faculty.
The core of the Full-Time Classical Dance Course is taught by Hilary Kaplan and Archibald McKenzie with regular or guest teachers (all distinguished dancers and teachers) taking classes in Contemporary (Cass Mortimer Elipper, Jessica Goodfellow, Damien Grima, Angela Hamilton, Naomi Hibberd, Shelly Moore and Brigitta Oldereid) and open classes and pas-de-deux (Adrian Burnett, Joshua Consandine, Cathie Goss, Fabio Lo Giudice, Victor Zarallo).
Our methodology.
Alegria’s own highly effective technique and methodology (senior UK ballet critic Clement Crisp keeps referring to the Australian training of former students of Alegria such as Steven McRae) is a product of ongoing collaboration, discussion and practical experimentation by Hilary Kaplan and Archibald McKenzie. The main ingredients are our interpretations of the Old French School of Auguste Vestris through the mediation of Bournonville, the Cecchetti Method and the synthesis of the two in the hands of Vaganova and Vera Volkova, as well as certain aesthetic values of our own.
Our guest teachers contribute their wide professional experience and mature artistry.
Alegria’s history goes back only to 1998, but when it comes to auditions in Australia and overseas, students find that our contacts are extensive and that our name carries considerable weight.