Press Release: ELMHURST BALLET SCHOOL TEACHER KEEPS DANCERS ON THEIR TOES DURING LOCKDOWN

[Jan McNulty]

 

ELMHURST BALLET SCHOOL TEACHER KEEPS DANCERS ON THEIR TOES DURING LOCKDOWN

 

 

Belgian-born Sander Blommaert is a former dancer with The Royal Ballet and a qualified, award-winning ballet teacher who splits a busy career between teaching at Elmhurst Ballet School, Birmingham with his own summer school, workshops and private coaching in and out of the Midlands.

 

Before the UK went into lockdown, Sander noticed many artists in Italy were providing free tuition online. Inspired to do the same and in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and Government guidelines closing dance studios at home in the UK, Sander started free ballet classes online, Monday to Saturday at 11am on his Instagram page.

With thanks to his successful career in dance performance and teaching, Sander has built up an impressive online presence, seeing over 52,000 followers turning to his Instagram page to be inspired, motivated and now instructed in ballet from their living rooms, kitchens, bedrooms and gardens at home.

 

Aimed at dancers of an intermediate experience level, but drawing interest from ballet professionals to those who are inquisitive or new to dance, the virtual teaching sees over 400 dancers regularly turning to their computer and TV screens as Sander takes participants through daily class.

 

 

Teaching from his home in Birmingham, Sander said: “I am amazed at how many people are following the classes and taking part. I am impressed by the whole ballet community who have come together at this difficult time to reach out and help others. As generous as it is for professional dancers to be sharing classes online for free, I also felt there was a need for experienced ballet teachers to be offering classes, so that students, especially full-time vocational ballet students, could receive the same information they benefit from in a school setting and enable them to maintain their training at home.”

 

Although Sander insisted his online classes during lockdown remained free of charge, many dancers and parents of those taking part asked if they could make a donation to thank him for his support at this time. Feeling grateful to still be in paid work, Sander set up a Justgiving page so people can donate if they wish and all money raised will go to charities and organisations affected by the shutdown.

 

Following the success of the classes, Sander started to think about other ways he could keep dancers interested and informed during lockdown. ‘In conversation with Sander Blommaert’ invites renowned names from the ballet world to be interviewed on his Instagram Live on Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings at 7pm. Many dance illuminati have agreed to join Sander ‘in conversation’ – coming up in the next few months, are: Mara Galeazzi (17 April); Céline Gittens (20 April); Edward Watson (24 April); Christopher Wheeldon (27 April); Gary Avis (29 April); Elmhurst’s Principal Jessica Wheeler (1 May); César Morales (4 May); and Aaron Robison (8 May).

 

For more information and regular updates please check out Sander’s Instagram and Justgiving pages: www.instagram.com/sanderblommaert and www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/sander-blommaert

 

 

[Foreverdrivingtodance]

What a really lovely thing to do! 

[DreamChaser]

My dd just loves his daily class.  She’s been with him since day 1 and hasn’t missed a session.  In the afternoon she picks and chooses from other dancers/company’s but thinks his class can’t be surpassed 🥰

[Kate_N]

I've been doing his class when I can get away from work (yes a lot of us are still working from home!)  - he is such a good teacher. The barre is very clean technique & basic, but with enough challenge whatever your level of achievement. 

[Holly]

My dd has been doing this everyday too. She never misses it. We know to leave the kitchen at 11am everyday! 

[Jan McNulty]

16 minutes ago, Holly said:

My dd has been doing this everyday too. She never misses it. We know to leave the kitchen at 11am everyday! 

 

Hello Holly and welcome out of the lurking shadows.  I hope that we'll hear more from you now that you have broken your posting duck.

[Penguinboysmum]

DS has been doing his class every day too. He thinks it is excellent 😊

[alison]

Webfoot posted this in the News forum in relation to Sander's Instagram chats with dance personalities, but it's so useful that I thought I'd copy it over here as well:

 

  

1 hour ago, webfoot said:

I have managed to watch Instagram live classes on my PC. You need IG stories for Chrome (no idea what you might need to do for other browsers). I used this link which gives you instructions on how to load the Chrome Add-on : https://sociallynina.com/instagram-web-how-to-watch-instagram-live-and-instagram-stories-from-your-laptop-pc-or-desktop/

I've no idea who Nina is, but grateful for her assistance in this case. You need to scroll down to the heading "Install IG stories for Instagram".

 

As Instagram is designed as a mobile App, it's really clunky on the PC, but I am able to do Sander's classes and watch at least some of his conversations with various people from the ballet world.

Once I managed to get on to Instagram, I chose to "follow" Sander. His picture then appears at the top of my home screen. If the picture shows a play button (triangle on its side) there are video(s) to watch. If you want to join in live you have to wait for another picture to appear with a "LIVE" button.

If you have missed the live class but want to join it later (it disappears before the next day's class starts), click on the play button. There may be several videos as Sander does so much for the ballet community.

The first thing you are likely to see is the class - you'll find Sander sitting on the floor waiting for people to join the class (one class I joined, there were over 200 other people also doing the class from all over the world!). On your browser window, outside the Instagram image which is mobile phone shaped, you will see a right arrow, if you click on this it takes you to the next story, which is usually Sander doing a 15-minute stretch after the class - this is saved as a separate video. If you then click the right arrow again, you get to the conversation - if there is one.

The conversations are on Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings at 7:00 p.m BST and are available for the following 24 hours, but then disappear.

 

Hope this helps someone. Apologies if I'm repeating someone else's answer to this, it's taken me a while to compose the whole message.

 

[Michelle_Richer]

Hi Alison

 

Many thanks for posting webfoot’s link, I will try this later in the week as I’ve had real problems with receiving live Instagram streams on a new Win 10 Laptop. It will be interesting if I can access my cameras on Instagram Direct Messenger too. I ended up using a different system completely for the occasional on-line class I’ve done with Sander, I like his style especially as he was one of my old teachers.

 

[Michelle_Richer]

Hi Alison

Brilliant, receiving live streams worked first time, many thanks x