Master Class with Céline Gittens
The Vancouver Ballet Society is pleased to present a Master Class with Birmingham Royal Ballet’s Principal Dancer, Céline Gittens! Sunday, July 29th from 10:00-11:30am, all levels are welcome! $25 for VBS members and $30 for non-members. Contact us to register today: 604-681-1525, vbs@telus.net, or fill out the form here:
https://fs22.formsite.com/vbstelusnet/form3/index.html
Céline Gittens joined Birmingham Royal Ballet in 2006 and is one of our most recently promoted Principals. She was born in Trinidad and grew up in Vancouver, Canada, where her training, both with her mother and at Vancouver’s Goh Ballet Academy, led to her winning the gold medal and audience choice award at the prestigious Royal Academy of Dance Genée International Ballet Competition in 2005. Céline is a dancer of immense strength, her powerful technique being redolent of the kind of dancing we most readily associate with North America and which has already been seen to such strong effect in performances as the Striptease Girl in Balanchine’s Slaughter on Tenth Avenue, Fortuna in Carmina Burana and the leading role in Elite Syncopations. Having spent all her professional life with a British company, however, Céline has developed a more understated side to her performances which is standing her in good stead for the classics. She debuted the dual roles of Odette / Odile in Swan Lake in 2012, but her big breakthrough came during our 2015 tour to Japan when, due to another dancer being injured, and with only one day’s notice, she stepped in to perform this most taxing ballerina role on opening night in Tokyo to great acclaim. Other leading roles which are garnering her plaudits include the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker, Swanilda in Coppélia, the Gypsy Girl in The Two Pigeons and most recently a very demure and youthful Juliet in Romeo and Juliet. Celine also gained a Master of Philosophy from the University of Birmingham in 2012.