Recent grants:

Introduction

2008

2007

2006


Case studies:

The Feeney Commissions

Feeney Ballet
Scholarship

The Feeney Ballet Scholarship

The Feeney Trust has undertaken to provide the Elmhurst School for Dance a capital fund of £50,000 in order to allow the School to award an annual scholarship to be known as “The Feeney Ballet Scholarship”.

The recipient is to be an Elmhurst student with a parental home in the city of Birmingham or the immediate surrounding conurbation.

It is hoped that the first Feeney Scholar will come from the ranks of those 100 talented, local children of Primary School age attending Elmhurst’s Pre-Vocational Programme which takes place at the school at weekends.

Elmhurst is a leading centre for young aspiring professional classical dancers, and now has 200 students aged 11-20 from many different countries.

History of Elmhurst School for Dance

Elmhurst School for Dance founded in 1923 is the country’s oldest vocational dance school. It has produced many celebrated stage performers including:

• ballerinas Dame Merle Park DBE and Diana Vere
• choreographer, Jennifer Jackson
• musical theatre artist, Sarah Brightman
• and actors, Jenny Agutter, Hayley Mills and Helen Baxendale.

Elmhurst moves to Birmingham

In 2004, Elmhurst moved from Camberley, Surrey to a new, purpose-built campus in Edgbaston in order to become the associate school of Birmingham Royal Ballet.

Since its move to Birmingham, all Sixth Formers have benefited from opportunities to perform with Birmingham Royal Ballet during their third and final year of training and three graduates have progressed to full-time dance contracts with the Company.

Other graduates have joined the Norwegian National Ballet, Ballet Ireland, Ballet Dortmund, Estonian National Ballet, Greek National Ballet, Leipzig Ballet, Vienna Festival Ballet and Northern Ballet Theatre.

Academic standards are high for an academically non-selective school. Recent results at GCSE and A level have put Elmhurst in the top 350 schools in the country.

Keeping local talented dancers

For the majority of the young dancers in training at Elmhurst, the costs of the professional training entail considerable sacrifice by parents. The school is therefore losing potential ballet stars of tomorrow to other schools abroad where there is more generous support for young dancers in training.

This is why we appreciate the support from the Feeney Charitable Trust.

John MacNamara,
Principal Elmhurst School for Dance

Photo credit David Crawley

Photo credit David Crawley

Dance Track ballet classes for children, run by Birmingham Royal Ballet
Photo credit Andrew Fox