LOUISE BENNETT

I am a Ballet Teacher, Artistic Director, Rehearsal Director and Choreographer. I trained at The Royal Ballet School and danced with the Norwegian National Ballet, the Royal Swedish Ballet and English National Ballet. In 2020 Demis Volpi invited me to become a ballet master at Ballett am Rhein in Düsseldorf, Germany. I worked with the company for two seasons, before returning to the UK to take up a post as Artistic Director of the National Youth Ballet of Great Britain’s summer 2022 season, and to pursue a range of creative and pedagogical opportunities.

My history in the dance world has not been entirely straightforward; after a serious back injury halted my training at age eighteen, I completed a BA in English Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London. I then worked as Artistic Coordinator of The Royal Ballet for a year while exploring choreographic opportunities under the guidance of Wayne McGregor. I took part in choreographic platforms at the Royal Opera House and The Place and completed commissions for organisations including The Royal Ballet School and Ballet Central.

At age twenty-three I returned to my dance training, which led me to discover my passion for teaching. I trained intensively for eighteen months with Renato Paroni in open classes in London, and began teaching alongside relearning my own ballet technique.  

I then danced with the Royal Swedish Ballet, Norwegian National Ballet and English National Ballet, and was fortunate to dance in productions such as Giselle, Onegin, Don Quixote, Swan Lake, Alice in Wonderland, Midsommarnattsdröm and Artifact Suite, amongst others. I had the opportunity to work with leading figures in the dance world including William Forsythe, Christopher Wheeldon and Alexander Ekman. I took classes with some of the world's best teachers, including Yannick Sempey, Svetlana Ballester, Olga Evrienoff, Yannick Boquain, Cynthia Harvey and Kathryn Bennetts. During breaks I would return to London and teach ballet classes at open studios.

At the end of the 2015/16 season I decided to stop performing and return to London. After dancing some wonderful repertoire with major companies, I felt the time was right to explore what I could offer the dance world in other ways.

Soon after leaving Stockholm I joined BalletBoyz on their tours as Company Manager, while starting to teach more and more ballet classes around London. I became a guest teacher at companies including Company Wayne McGregor, Ballet Black, Rambert and Matthew Bourne's New Adventures, as well as teaching students at Laban, Rambert School, London Studio Centre and BalletBoyz Dancers Course.

While based in London I started to work internationally, with engagements including teaching at Ballett Zürich, Zfin Malta, Ballettakademien Stockholm and Zürich University of the Arts. In 2018/19 I also had the opportunity to work on the film ‘Cats’, as an on set ballet teacher and personal coach for Francesca Hayward.

In 2017 I worked as Rehearsal Director for Sisters Grimm's original dance musical Voices of the Amazon, choreographed by Helen Pickett and performed at Sadler's Wells and in Moscow, Singapore and at Latitude Festival.  I returned to Sisters Grimm to work on a new production with choreographer James Cousins, and I also worked as Rehearsal Director and Company Manager for Richard Chappell Dance.

In 2017 I was commissioned to choreograph for National Youth Ballet, and my piece 'A Frosty Fable' was performed at the Crescent Theatre in Birmingham and in a gala performance at Sadler's Wells. I returned to NYB in 2018 to create ‘Ada’, a piece for thirty-two young women, inspired by the life and work of mathematician Ada Lovelace, and in 2019 to create ‘Flora’, a neo-classical piece set in a magical garden.

In 2019 I also had the pleasure of working with Outside Edge Theatre Company on ‘Check-In/Check-Out’, a piece devised by company’s ensemble of professional actors, based on their own stories of addiction and recovery. I worked in collaboration with the company to develop a dance sequence to represent the final three steps of the twelve step program put forth by Alcoholics Anonymous.

In the same year I was invited by Central School of Ballet to redevelop ‘Twin Figures’, a piece I had made ten years earlier for Ballet Central. I re-staged the piece for the first years at the school, adding ten people to the cast, and it was such a pleasure to revisit a piece after a decade with new perspectives and ideas.

As many experienced, in March 2020 most of my planned work disappeared due to the national lockdown. I started to teach classes on Instagram for free, and asking for optional donations if participants’ financial situation allowed it. I spent several months teaching ballet classes from my kitchen and was overwhelmed by the kindness of those who took part.

In August 2020 I relocated to Düsseldorf, working as a ballet master at Ballett am Rhein, with the company’s new artistic director Demis Volpi. Ballett am Rhein is a wonderful neo-classical company, and was very happy to be part of the artistic team. I had the great fortune to work on repertoire by Demis Volpi, Sharon Eyal, Aszure Barton, Hélène Blackburn and Andrey Kaydanovskiy, as well as working on my own choreography and taking guest teaching engagements. At Ballett am Rhein we had to be very adaptable due to the ongoing Covid-19 situation, but we continued to work, develop and create, and completed a full season of performances in the 2021/2022 season.

In 2022 I returned to the UK to join the National Youth Ballet of Great Britain in a freelance position as Artistic Director of the 2022 Residential Performance Company. I was very happy to take on this position, having been involved with the company as a choreographer for several years and believing strongly in the company’s ethos and approach to delivering opportunities for young people. The season, titled ‘re|generation’, marked a triumphant return to the stage after a very difficult few years and culminated with a gala performance by 105 young dancers at Sadler’s Wells, comprised of a combination of NYB repertoire and new works.

I am now based in London working in several areas of the dance world on a freelance basis, continuing to build on the ideas and experience I have gained over the past few eventful and incredible years. I am always interested in developing my relationship with dance artists, companies and educational institutions - if you would be interested in collaborating with me please do not hesitate to get in touch at louisefrancesbennett@gmail.com.