BRECON FESTIVAL BALLET
WELCOME TO BRECON FESTIVAL BALLET
PROFESSIONALISM INSPIRATION COMMUNITY
A registered charity bringing high quality professional live dance and music to Mid Wales,
providing opportunities to the community for participation, education and performance.
FOLLOWING A SUCCESSFUL NUTCRACKER SEASON IN 2023, BFB PRESENTS TWO PRODUCTIONS IN 2024!
Our regular Christmas Nutcracker season was a great success, with more tickets sold than in 2022 and fantastic audience feedback, including these comments:
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Utterly fabulous!! Thank you both and all your team for such a wonderful show. Can’t wait for 2024
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Just wanted to say how much I enjoyed the Nutcracker. You have created something so special and the atmosphere and quality of the whole show reflects that pride and joy of the whole community involved. And the whole audience from what I heard felt the same. I think it’s a rare thing these days for a professional company. I really felt quite emotional at the end!
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Well done everyone. We are still hearing people talking about the ballet and saying how wonderful it was.
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I loved the ballet. It was a wonderful cocktail of colour, fun and professionalism, a real treat.
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Congratulations, we loved it. We will certainly come to future performances.
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A standing ovation says it all! Wonderful show, congratulations to you all.
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What an utter triumph the Nutcracker was yesterday. Such a credit to Brecon and a testament to the hard work which had clearly gone into the production. Well done everyone.
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We’ve just arrived home from our first ever visit to live ballet and are utterly and completely enthralled! What a life-changing experience it was. We just adored it and were totally absorbed from beginning to end.
You can read the review of the Nutcracker HERE
On the basis of this, and following our first 5 successful years, BFB is now, for the first time, planning to present 2 different productions in one year. On April 6th and 7th 2024, we will perform a double bill of ballets, featuring Act 2 from Swan Lake (the “white act” from probably the world’s most famous ballet) and a new ballet entitled “Tanio’r Ddraig”, created by our Artistic Director, Katy Sinnadurai. This new ballet is based on well-loved Welsh songs that will be familiar to our audience (such as Sospan Fach, Tros Y Garreg, Men of Harlech and Myfanwy), with additional music composed and played live by local pianist Penny Hughes, and with original designs by local artist Phil Clark. Tickets go on sale in early February (with priority booking for Friends and Patrons, see below) - exciting times for Brecon Festival Ballet!
If you wish to support our charity, please follow the link **HERE**
(please click the "Gift Aid" box if you can - it makes a huge difference)
or you may be interested in joining the “Friends and Patrons of Brecon Festival Ballet” 2024 scheme.
Thank you.
2023 Gallery
All photos by Amy Azais
ABOUT
Brecon Festival Ballet is a registered charity, originally established to present a brand-new production of Tchaikovsky’s famous ballet, “The Nutcracker” at Theatr Brycheiniog for Christmas 2019. Not only was this the first time a full-scale professional version of this iconic ballet had been produced in Wales, but it was also the first time that Theatr Brycheiniog had presented a full-length ballet with a live orchestra!
The Nutcracker is probably the world’s most popular ballet – performed to packed houses all over the globe each Christmas. The ballet is a winning combination of Tchaikovsky’s beautiful music featuring famous and very familiar tunes, and a magical story involving a Christmas party, a journey through the Christmas Wood and a feast of iconic dances in the Kingdom of Sweets, ruled over by the Sugar Plum Fairy.
Our production was created by Artistic Director Katy Sinnadurai, a ballet dancer and choreographer based in Brecon. All principal roles were performed by professional ballet dancers, with children’s and character roles taken by local dance students and actors. The corps de ballet roles were performed by full-time students from King's International Ballet Academy. The Snowflakes chorus was sung by a local choir, and the production was accompanied by the Welsh Chamber Orchestra.
This extremely ambitious project was made possible by grants and a fund-raising campaign which helped cover the costs of this exciting production. All performances played to sell-out audiences, and such was its success that Brecon Festival Ballet is now booked at Theatr Brycheiniog for future years to present Brecon’s very own regular Christmas ballet. In 2020 Katy Sinnadurai was awarded a British Empire Medal in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours List for services to Dance education, training, and performance.
WE ARE CONTINUALLY ADDING TO THIS WEBSITE AS THE PRODUCTION EVOLVES,
SO PLEASE BOOKMARK IT AND RETURN FOR REGULAR UPDATES.
WHO WE ARE
Brecon Festival Ballet is a registered charity no. 1194326
Copies of the following policies are available on request:
Child and vulnerable adult policy. Equality, diversity and inclusion policy.
Data protection policy. Conflict of interest policy
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Orchestra
In 2023 the newly created Brecon Festival Ballet Orchestra accompanied our Nutcracker performances, under the baton of our new Musical Director, Eugene Monteith. We look forward to welcoming the BFBO back in 2024 for our Christmas season!
CORPS DE BALLET - Spring 2024
COMMUNITY
There are lots of ways you can become a part of the Brecon Festival Ballet community...
Although the principal roles are danced by professional dancers, The Nutcracker is also a community production and there are plenty of opportunities for local dancers, dance students, actors and singers to get involved. For more information, please see the Audition section below.
There are also plenty of opportunities to get involved behind the scenes with the creation of costumes, scenery and props.
Please contact lesley@breconfestivalballet.com for more details.
AUDITIONS 2024
Brecon Festival Ballet’s annual full-scale production of the Nutcracker returns to Theatr Brycheiniog in December 2024, accompanied by the Brecon Festival Ballet Orchestra.
This is your chance to perform alongside professional dancers and musicians!
SUNDAY 8th SEPTEMBER – CHILDREN
(some dance experience is an asset but not essential)
2.00pm - Girls aged 12+
3.30pm - Girls aged 8–11
5.00pm - Boys aged 8+
SUNDAY 15th SEPTEMBER – ADULT ACTORS
(no dance experience necessary)
4.30pm – 6pm Adult actors (aged 14+)
SUNDAY 10th NOVEMBER – CHOIR
5pm – 6pm
5 PERFORMANCES
20th – 22nd DECEMBER 2024
Rehearsals: every Sunday from September to December
Children 10am – 4.30pm: Adults 3pm - 4.30pm
Production week: evenings w/c 16th December and dress rehearsal 2.30pm Friday 20th
WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT
In 2019, our inaugural year, thanks to your generous support, we raised the full cost of the production through grants and donations. The income from ticket sales every year now goes part
of the way to paying for our professional dancers and orchestra in the following year, with the remaining costs met by our fundraising events, grant applications and donations. Whatever we raise goes back into the production, helping us to create new scenery and costumes in Brecon, not only reducing our hire costs, but also making it a truly local production and moving towards our eventual aim that our entire production will have been sourced and created in Brecon. Income raised also pays for things like dancers’ transport and accommodation - and pointe shoes, which cost around £70 per pair and last on average only 1 or 2 performances!
Despite the challenges thrown up by Covid and the post-Covid cost of living crisis, we continue working hard to keep Brecon Festival Ballet going; for the benefit of you, our audience, for the local community – especially the children that gain so much from being involved – and for the highly skilled professional dancers and musicians that lost 18 months of work and income due to the pandemic and are now thrilled to return to the stage to entertain you!
Please support us if you can.
Thank you.
THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS
Brecon Town Council
Community Foundation Wales
Foyle Foundation
Theatr Brycheiniog
The Audrey Tyler Trust
The Gibbs Trust
The Gwendoline & Margaret Davies charity
The Oakdale Trust