Held ahead of the encore performance of Land & Sea on Sunday, the free workshop gave local dancers the chance to learn the production’s choreography.
Attending the workshop was Cara May Chedid, who said the company fills a gap for dancers who trained locally and are living in Guernsey as adults.
‘I think it’s about time that Guernsey has a company that represents people who grew up here and trained locally, because then a lot of people have gone to the UK to continue, but there’s not much here after that,’ she said.
‘When you’re training in dance, it’s generally people in your age category, so it’s nice to have people from different techniques and schools come together.’
She said the opportunities for adult dancers can be limited outside of professional routes.
Ms Chedid danced competitively at university, but it lacked the teamwork and camaraderie that dance schools had when she was growing up.
She said the company had potential to grow much further in the future.
‘I think they could expand massively, and perhaps in the future bring the islands together and work with Guernsey,’ she said.
‘The big goal would be to travel and perform in major cities, but I think they’ll always keep the Guernsey local feel which is really unique.’
Fellow dancer Grace Castle agreed that it was difficult for adults to find opportunities to be part of a dance company.
‘It’s so nice to see everyone having the opportunity to perform. It’s so rare to be dancing on a public stage and have the opportunity to be part of a company, especially once you finish training,’ she said.
‘You can tell even from the theme of the show, Land & Sea, that it really connects the landscape and what Guernsey is. It’s so natural and wild and you can feel that through the choreography.’
The dance workshop consisted of going through some technical exercises and then some choreography from the actual show, which was inspired by the island’s coastline throughout the season.
The first performance in July was a sell-out, prompting the autumn encore.
‘When you’re watching it, it looks so beautiful, but actually doing it is when you can appreciate that doing that for 40 minutes is extremely difficult,’ said Grace.
‘It’s rare for all six of them to do that long of a stint on the stage. You would normally get little breaks and have people in and out of routines, so for them to be consistently on stage for that long is really impressive.’
Molly Paul grew up dancing locally.
She said the event was great because it was accessible for everyone to get involved and was free to attend.
‘It’s the perfect mixture of passion meets business and for myself, being from Guernsey and dancing four times a week from a young age, and as you grow up you hit a roadblock as you get into adulthood,’ she said.
‘You don’t get the camaraderie and different age groups where you can share that passion and see the different kind of love for the dance.’
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