Mrs
Susan Handy
Susan
Handy began dancing at the age of two and a half, training
with Betty Vacani, Nesta Brooking, and at the Royal
Ballet School.
She
danced in the BBC children's television series 'Steps
into Ballet' with Dame Peggy van Praagh, where she created
the role of 'the child' in Sir Kenneth Macmillan's first
ballet, especially choreographed for television, Punch
and the Child.
She
began her professional career working with Sir Peter
Wright at the Old Vic Theatre and Margaret Dale in BBC
television's production of The Sleeping Beauty. She
joined Walter Gore's London Ballet Company rising to
rank of soloist, dancing roles such as The Queen of
the Willis in Giselle and The Snow Queen in the Nutcracker.
She was commissioned to choreograph a ballet 'Rencontre'
for London Ballet and 'The Necklace' for the Sadler's
Wells Opera Ballet with music by the composer and musician
Allen Handy and also choreographed for many pantomimes
around the country. She was invited to attend a BBC
Television Producers' Course on dance production by
Huw Wheldon.
She
married in 1967 and following the birth of her two children,
Edward and Emma, was appointed the first Director of
Movement at Eton College where she taught dance and
choreographed many of the college's productions and
plays, at the same time starting up her own school in
one of the college rooms. The school has since expanded
and moved to studios in Eton, Datchet and Windsor, where
it draws pupils from Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and
Surrey and is responsible for the dancing classes at
Flexlands School, Chobham, Long Close School, Slough
and the Windsor and Datchet Montessori Schools. Pupils
have gone on to further vocational training at the Royal
Ballet School, English National Ballet School, Elmhurst,
Arts Educational Schools, Laine Theatre Arts and the
Rambert School and into English National Ballet, London
City Ballet, Salad Days, Starlight Express, West Side
Story, Singin' in the Rain and Phantom of the Opera.
She choreographs for local operatic societies using
pupils from the school, lectures on dance and has produced
and choreographed the schools' Charity Matinees, including
a full length production of the Nutcracker, raising
over £26,000 for various charities.
Susan
Handy is a Fellow of the ISTD, a member of the Cecchetti
Society Classical Ballet Faculty committee, is an adjudicator
and holder of the Maestro Enrico Cecchetti Diploma.
She has been for 8 years Chairman of the Cecchetti Group,
which acts as a liason between teachers and the Cecchetti
committee. She was responsible with the Group for the
setting up and now organising and running of the Cecchetti
Junior and Senior Associates Scheme, The Cecchetti Soceity
Scholars and the new Barbara Geoghegan Award, a competition
for students studying dance at vocational schools. She
was awarded The Cecchetti Council of America's Margaret
Marsh Scholarship to study in America.
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