Student Success

Lucie…Words aren’t enough…. Beyond PROUD of this beautiful ballerina. 🥹 Lucie has just made her debut professional performance dancing with The Birmingham Royal Ballet in their production of Cinderella. 🤩 Lucie danced with us from a tiny dot and made her way from babies up to Advanced 2. I remember her saying she wanted to be a ballerina and from that day on she was all in. If there was a masterclass, intensive course, performance she was there. Dancing with the London Children’s Ballet, Ballet boost, National youth ballet, Yorkshire ballet Seminars, Performance platform competition, You name it… she was there! Huge credit to her wonderful mum who supported and drove her to all these opportunities. At Sixteen she graduated from us with not 1 but 4 amazing upper school offers. Deciding on Elmhurst and moving up to Birmingham there were plenty of tears at our final show! We have continued to support and follow Lucie through her 3 year course, welcoming her back to perform at our prize givings and being amazed every time at her progress and loving watching her dance at the international Margot Fonteyn ballet competition. Graduating from Elmhurst this summer the hard work really began going out into the big wide world and auditioning for jobs. But Wow 😳 what an amazing first job! Signing a contract with The Birmingham Royal Ballet Lucie is currently on a tour of the UK in their production of Cinderella before going to perform in Tokyo. Then on to a tour of Japan dancing in Sleeping Beauty 😳 We can’t express how proud we are of you. You are so so deserving of this. From the tiny little girl who said she wanted to dance to the beautiful lady you are now living your dream. The saying goes hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work…. BUT … combine hard work with talent and there is no stopping you! Super star 💫

Ruan Crighton

We were devastated and shattered to hear Ruan was on the Yeti Flight that tragically crashed in Nepal 2023, where he was working during his physiotherapy studies. Ruan studied ballet at Central School of Dance, Brentwood from the age of 10, initially to enhance his gymnastic training. However, his love of ballet grew and he dedicated himself to his dance training adding Modern Theatre Dance to his schedule and achieving outstanding examination results. He successfully auditioned for Central School of Ballet at 16 where he continued his vocational training. Graduating in 2008 he joined the Slovak National Ballet where he lived and performed for 4 years becoming a soloist in the company. 2013 Ruan moved to the prestigious Finnish National Ballet in Helsinki. Having turned 30 Ruan decided on a change of career enrolling at the European School of Physiotherapy. Ruan remained in contact, supporting Central, often giving his time to attend and perform at our annual Prize Giving. We have wonderful fond memories of Ruan in class, assisting and inspiring younger pupils, performing and working backstage in our school productions. Central followed Ruan’s career which grew from strength to strength and we are so totally proud and feel privileged to have known Ruan, to watch him grow into the most wonderful, caring young man. Thank you Ruan for the catchups and laughter over tea they will always be remembered.