When dreams become reality...

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Last year whilst working on Alice in Wonderland I came up with an idea for what I thought would make the perfect dance show story for our partners in creativity WYTDC…I had this really strong image of Aurora waking up, still surrounded by a forest of thorns with a conspicuous absence of true loves kiss.  I had a vision of a fairytale land with two conflicting forces of light and dark magic with a Queen of each domain at war…and I had great fun piecing together an adventure for a tribe of questing fairytale characters headed by a determined Peter Pan as they unite and rise above anything they have achieved before to save the land and their Queen of Light from the clutches of Dark Magic… 

By July of last year the principle characters were cast and over the summer the script written, ready for the start of rehearsals in September…

Yesterday I was in the Wakefield Theatre Royal for one of the final rehearsals of the play that had sprung all that time ago from nowhere into my head.  What a pleasure of an afternoon it was…beautiful dancers, colourful characters and gorgeous choreography have brought my initial story to life in the loveliest way.  So much work from so many people has gone into it from costume makers that have literally stitched and sewed hundreds of creations in satin and net and sequins and sparkly things to dance teachers who have envisioned sequences of steps that capture the story of the production perfectly, inspiring their students to expressive greatness.  From the parents of performers who taxi and timetable their lives to enable their talented children to take part, to those who plot and plan to make sure everyone and everything is in the right place at the right time. Yesterday was a victory to all those people and more importantly to the children and young people who have learnt lines, created characters and drilled dances…


The sheer amount of alliteration in this blog is testament to how delighted and thrilled I am at the prospect of performance week of “Once Upon a Fairytale,” where we can finally share our endeavours with an audience.  It’s also a testament to how very grateful I am to every person who has helped make that initial idea a reality…

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