Hello! SoΒ after my many years at The Demerics, I spent the last past two years at Tring Park School for The Performing Arts. I must say my first few weeks were difficult, not only was the dancing extremely challenging, leaving me to feel a little out of my depth, but I found it hard living away from home.I’m not really sure where to start, there is so much i could tell you about the school and my personal experience there but I’ll do my best to give you a brief idea of what it was like!I took my a level class in the morning (French, English and Theatre Studies) and then 4 and a half hours of dancing in the afternoon, often followed by rehearsals. Although it was at first a little daunting being surrounded so many talented students, watching some of the older students dance was SO inspriring! My favourite class soon became contemporary. I had a range of teachers, and I think i had 3 different teachers for contemporary, all of which were brilliant, but my favourite was called Mr Alex. Having not done much contemporary before I didn’t know exactly what to expect, but I absolutely adored it. Mr Alex was so inspiring and I learnt so much from him!We studied a technique called Horton with him twice a week, which is extremely strengthening and really helped my dancing as a whole. My two years flew by, but I am so glad I went despite all the ups and downs and knocks to the confidence, I very much enjoyed it, and learnt so much! While I was at Tring I went along with a friend to do an audition to get a feel for auditioning, The Audition was for the Closing Ceremony of the Olympics, the ballet section on pointe. This scared me a little at first as I will be auditioning for contemporary and not ballet companies, and although I have done a lot of ballet I was worried I wouldn’t be able to keep up.The audition was exactly how teachers at Tring descibed it to be and very different to various mock auditions in contemporary and jazz I had done at Tring (which were good fun and not too crowded). There were a lot of us, taken in group by group, I think about 20 or 30 at a time, and we were very quickly taught a short sequence and then told to improvise at the end. Once we all danced we were hearded out and the next lot was in straight away. A few weeks later I found out that I had got it, and I was thrilled. To be part of something so amazing felt very special, and I am eternally grateful that I was given such an incredible experience.The actual performance was so amazing to be part of, I struggle to put it into words, it was just the best!I was not nervous at all, just extremely excited. I grinned through the whole performance and I did not mind one bit that my pointe shoes were a little painful! And finally, I must also mention what I will be doing next. In mid september I will be starting at London Contemporary Dance School for a 3 year course, at the end of which I will gain a B.A in contemporary dance. I am extremely excited, though a little nervous, and can’t wait to focus on contemporary dance, work with new people, and of course be in london! That’s all from me, hope you have all had brilliant summers and are looking forwards to getting back to dancing! Love katie x