REHEARSALS are under way for The Sleeping Beauty which will be presented by English Youth Ballet (EYB) at The Kings Theatre, Portsmouth March 6–7.

The production stars international principal dancers – Amy Drew, Adele Robbins, Monica Tapiador, Richard Read, Brenden Bratulic, Trevor Wood, Steven Wheeler together with 111 of the finest dancers (aged eight to 18 years) from Hampshire and the surrounding areas.

English Youth Ballet (EYB) held a huge audition for the ballet at The Kings Theatre when over 200 young hopeful dancers turned up to two auditions held on stage. The atmosphere, the nerves and the excitement were all electric. Director and founder of EYB, Miss Janet Lewis MBE, was on the lookout for the hottest young dance talent to join her award-winning company for the production at The Kings.

Miss Lewis said: “EYB is all about providing extra performance experience to young dancers. We saw a very pleasing standard at the audition and it was lovely to see lots of enthusiasm.”

EYB has helped many of the UK’s top talent springboard their training progress and careers into some of the world’s greatest ballet companies – including the Royal Ballet Company and English National Ballet.

Rehearsals are taking place at St Edmunds Catholic High School in Portsmouth. Brenden Bratulic is one of EYB’s principal dancers and has previously danced with English National Ballet and K-Ballet in Japan. He coaches the young dancers in rehearsals and he will also be starring in the role of Prince Alexander at The Kings Theatre.

He said: “The young dancers are treated like professional dancers during rehearsals – we work them hard but the results are fantastic.”

The young cast will rehearse for just 10 days for the production.

During those days EYB take over 4 of the biggest rooms in the school and run rehearsals simultaneously in each room.

At the end of each rehearsal day the whole cast comes together in the largest space to share what has been learnt that day. The young dancers see the production taking shape like a big jigsaw.

Call the box office on 023 9282 8282 for tickets.