I wake up at 7:15am, which is considered late in comparison to the other students at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s Professional School. To get ready for the morning, I eat a small breakfast, shower and finally put on my uniform for ballet class. The uniform consists of a bodysuit, navy blue tights and finally white socks with white ballet shoes. I arrive at the studio at 7:45am and begin warming up for class, which starts at 8:30am. This process is long and arduous, but the warm up is necessary for the extensive ballet class to follow. Morning ballet class is an hour and a half long, this includes, of course, barre and centre practice. Barre, warms one’s muscles up and allows an individual to concentrate on their technique so they can recreate their technique in centre practice. After centre practice is finished and the class is dismissed, there is a fifteen-minute break between ballet and the second, final class of the morning, which could be either character, modern, or a coaching class. These are all an hour long and end at 11:15 am. Modern and character only last for a semester, while coaching lasts throughout the year. Character as a class, focuses on folk dances from around Europe, mainly Russian, Spanish, Polish and Hungarian. Modern explores movement in a contemporary sense, and finally coaching teaches ballet variations and more complex moves, such as grand pirouette, or grand allegro. After second class and lunch, we the students, head to school and take class like regular high school students, however this regularly only lasts about three hours. Rehearsal and more classes follow school in the evening and we usually finish our dancing around 7:30 or 8:30 depending on the day.

The training at the RWB is of the highest caliber and intensity. I’m very happy to say that 5678 Dance Studio prepared me for the challenge. The training I received at 5678 was what allowed my passage into the RWB. My teachers at 5678 gave me proper technical training and perhaps more importantly, the proper determination to train at the professional level. Katherine Mazurok and Ricky Beaulieu oversaw my formal ballet training, what was required for ballet exams. My teacher Claude Marc Forest mentored myself and a young man named Daniel in pas de deux and male ballet technique. He advised us to audition for our respective schools and it is in no small part thanks to him that I am currently training at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. The training the teachers at 5678 gave me, plus a hefty amount of encouragement got me to where I am today. The staff of 5678 Dance Studio are a prime example of an excellent training facility with an excellent group of teachers.