page_title: Royal Ballet School
section_title: Covent Garden
hierarchical_section_title: Royal Ballet School / Covent Garden
caption_attribution_description: Skybridge in Covent Garden. Photo taken by User:Edward.
context_page_description: The Royal Ballet School is a British school of classical ballet training founded in 1926 by the Anglo-Irish ballerina and choreographer Ninette de Valois. The school's aim is to train and educate outstanding classical ballet dancers for the Royal Ballet and the Birmingham Royal Ballet.
  Admission to the school is based purely on talent and potential, regardless of academic ability or personal circumstances, and 90% of current students rely on financial support to attend the school. The school is based over two sites, White Lodge, Richmond Park and Covent Garden based in purpose-built studios on Floral Street, adjacent to the Royal Opera House.
  The Royal Ballet School has produced dancers and choreographers of international renown, including Dame Margot Fonteyn, Dame Beryl Grey, Sir Kenneth MacMillan, Dame Darcey Bussell, Alessandra Ferri and Viviana Durante, as well as current Director of The Royal Ballet Kevin O'Hare. Graduates of the school have also achieved employment in musical theatre, contemporary and jazz dance, television and film.
context_section_description: The Royal Ballet School's Covent Garden base was established in 1955, when the younger students were moved to White Lodge. The school remained at existing studios in Barons Court, London, with academic studies introduced for the first time. Later in 2003, the school relocated to new premises, and the former Baron's Court site now houses the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.
  The school relocated to new, purpose-built premises in Covent Garden in January 2003.  The complex is a four-storey building with six dance studios, including a studio theatre with retractable raked seating for an audience of 200. The building also houses changing rooms and showers for male and female students, a gym and fitness room, a pilates studio, physiotherapy suite and students common room. Facilities for academic education include four classrooms, a library with computer equipment, an art studio and audiovisual suite. All the dance studios are linked to the audiovisual suite so that classes and rehearsals can be filmed as a training tool, enabling the dancers to analyse themselves.
  Alongside a timetable of intensive ballet training, students also study pas de deux, solos, repertoire, character, contemporary dance, stagecraft, make-up, and body conditioning. 3rd year students get many opportunities throughout the year to train with The Royal Ballet and Birmingham Royal Ballet.
caption: Bridge of Aspiration linking the Royal Ballet Upper School on the left with the Royal Opera House, designed by Flint & Neill and Buro Happold with WilkinsonEyre
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