Curtain goes up on Guernsey Festival of Dance

A big dress rehearsal took place at Beau Sejour at the weekend, and each group was given 20 minutes on stage.

Festival committee member Catherine Webster said the dancers were all very excited, and it was a great opportunity for them and a chance to celebrate dance.

Thousands of pounds have been spent on all the various costumes for the performances and the last five months have seen lots of preparations take place for the festival.

There are more than 1,000 dancers, aged between three and 20 years old, who will be taking part in the event, which runs until Sunday.

It is expected that the evening sessions will be very full, but some tickets were available for the day sessions.

There will also be a box outside the theatre, where some tickets should also be available – if anyone has a ticket for one of the sessions, but is will be leaving before the session ends, they can put their ticket in the box.

Anyone turning up without a ticket can see if any are available for that particular session.

'We want to give the children an audience,' Mrs Webster said.

'It is lovely that it is really well-attended.'

Among the disciplines on show will be tap, modern, ballet and classical Greek.

All six island dance schools will be taking part, along with competitors from Jersey.

The Guernsey Press will be photographing every dance entry in the festival and a selection of these photos will appear in a supplement, which will come with the paper, on Wednesday 1 February.

All photos taken at the festival will also be available to purchase online by visiting http://guernseypress.e-printphoto.co.uk/.

For information on tickets see www.guernseytickets.gg.