Dance

Catherine Pickering's School of Dance has been open since 1989, and has seen many young dancers through its doors. With the experience of the staff, and the continued enthusiasm for dance in Colchester, many fine potenial dancers have emerged. Catherine Pickering's school of Dance is a school for not only learning about dance, but a school for dancing.

Ballet

Enrico Cecchetti was born in 1850 & trained in Italy. on moving to St Petersburg, Russia in the 1890's he danced with the famous Russian Co. Later he went on to train some of the great international dancers, Anna pavlova being just one of the many. His teaching method has been nurtured by the ISTD 7 is now taught internationally. Itis known for its very high standard technically & artistically. See ISTD Cecchetti website. See Also western schools of dancing website. Age group 3 1/2 start.

Tap

Tap dancing is a mixture of lancashire clog & american black jazz dancing in the 19th Century Nurtured by people like Sugar ray robinson and fred astaire in the 20th century it brought the art form to world wide prominence where it remains. It requires practice to achieve a good standard, but this fun st lye can be learnt by all people with a good sense of rhythm. Age group 6 start.

Modern

The modern jazz syllabus is an exciting style of dance with a range of different movement involving complex coordinations and various rythms s. It uses jazz music rhythms & the african dance style of hip movement ini a strucutred form. The method is gradually built up from simple exercises to much harder ones. Training professional dancer for musicals, TV shows & variety work

Contemporary

Martha Graham born 1887 died 1979 was an american who pioneered a completed new way of moving using bare feet, no skirts only tights and leotard. She founded a dance technique using floor exercises of contract and Release & spirals. these progressed to standing & travelling movements that generally develop the dancers strength, flexibility, coordination & musicality. This method is stil highly regarded worldwide as one the best bases for theatre dance for amatuer and profesiionals, as necessary as classical ballet for a thorough dance training.