LECTURER/POINTE CLASS
Andrew Wilson
DANCER/BALLET TEACHER
Andrew was born in Dublin, Ireland and trained with Jill Wigham, “BirdCollege”, Kent (on a scholarship under the direction of Doreen Bird) and “The RoyalBallet Upper School”(Dancer’s Course), London, where he was chosen to represent the schoolat the 1984 InternationalBallet Competition, “The Prix De Lausanne”with former RoyalBallet Principal Ballerina, Vivianna Durante.He was also awarded the Cyril Beaumontprize for making the mostprogress in his first year of study. He was a member of “Sadlers Well’sRoyal Ballet”,promoted to coryphée in 1989 and to Soloist of “The BirminghamRoyalBallet”in 1991. Andrew’s professional principal/soloist roles include leads in Sir Kenneth Macmillan’s “Elite Syncopations” (Golden Hours, Hot House Rag), Dances Concertantes, (Side boys), Sir Peter Wright’s “Giselle” (Peasant Pas de Six), “The Nutcracker” (Drosselmeyer, Chinese, Spanish, Arabian, Winds, King Rat), John Cranko’s“Card Game”(5 of Hearts),George Balanchine’s“Theme and Variations” (Demi Soloist), Sir FrederickAshton’s“Jazz Calendar” (Tuesday’sChild), “Façade” (The Dago, Foxtrot, Yodelling Boys) Sir David Bintley’s“Brahms Handle Variations” (a lead role), “Hobson’s Choice” (Albert Prosser, original bride), “The Snow Queen” (original Wolf). He has also danced soloist and corps de ballet roles in Sir Peter Wright and Galina Samsova’s “Swan Lake” “The Sleeping Beauty” , “Coppelia”, ” Raymonda, Act 3,Sir Kenneth Macmillan’s “Romeo and Juliet”, Sir Fred Ashton’s“La Fille Mal Gardee” . He has danced in other works by Dame Ninette de Valois, Leonide Massine , which was awarded an Evening Standard award, Hans Van Manen’s , Agnes De Mille, Susan Crow , Graham Lustig, Kurt Joos, Sir David Bintley’s “Flowers of the Forest”,George Balanchine and John Cranko . On BRBs Springboard tour he performed in Jennifer Jackson’s “The Sum of the Parts”, Sir David Bintley’s “Scottish Dances” and Sir FrederickAshton’s Pas De Quatre from“Swan Lake”. He has worked for the Dublin Grand Opera Society in the opera “AdriannaLecouvreur” and featured in the short film “Shoes”, directed by thelate Peter Finnegan, which was entered for the Cannes Film Festival. Andrew has performed in “The Royal Variety Show”, hosted by Gene Kelly, “The Children’s’RoyalVarietyShow” with Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan. Whilst in BRB, he was also a backing dancer for theband “Status Quo”. He has been fortunate to travel the world with the company and has been to New Zealand, Korea, Singapore, India,Bulgaria, Germany, North and South America, China, Poland to name but a few. In 1995 he gained distinction on the Professional Dancers’ Teachers Course at “The Royal Academy of Dance”and became Head of Boys Ballet at “Elmhurst” under the direction of former RB ballerina, Alfreda Thorogood. He was repetiteur for Geffrey Cauley (formerly TheRoyal Ballet) and Christopher Hampson (Artistic Director of “Scottish Ballet.”)He was also responsible for rehearsing the children in Derek Deane’s “The Nutcracker” for English National Ballet. He staged Bintley’s Scottish Dances from “The Flowers of the Forest”, The Betrayed girl from De Valois’“The Rake’s Progress” and sections from Ashton’s “Façade”. He joined the staff of “Bird College” in 2000 under the direction of Sue Passmoreand was also responsible for the teaching of classical pas de deux to all years. He was promoted to Head of Ballet in 2006 and to Head of Contemporaryand Ballet in 2015. He was also production manager for their annual show at The Orchard Theatre, Dartford. He co-choreographed for the Year 3 musicals with Erica Lawrence, including productions of “Children of Eden”, “The Life”, “Bat Boy”, “Sweet Charity”, “Kiss me Kate” and “Fame”. He has guest taught at “Scapino Ballet”, Rotterdam, “Ballet Ireland”, Dublin, and was invited to teach at “The Hungarian Dance Academy”,Budapest, taking the artisticdirector’s class of boys for a week. He has taught for The Phyliss Bedell’s BursaryAward (RAD) held at White Lodge and adjudicated/taught for The Baines Hewitt Award and taught/adjudicated at The Imperial Classical Ballet Awards (ISTD). He has regularly taught on the RAD Summer School in Tokyo, Japan for 8 years and was also responsible for the setting of the Advanced 2 Boys Syllabus (ISTD), Imperial Classical Ballet, which is examined internationally. He is a former Imperial Classical Ballet Vocational/Graded Examiner. He has filmed a TV series for RTE in Dublin for Mind The Gap films called “Pump up my Dance” where he was the ballet master. Andrew guest teaches for “Studio Wayne McGregor” , Rambert Dance Company and Mathew Bourne’s “New Adventures” and is currently a freelance Ballet Tutor teaching at “Performer’s College,” Essex.
