Ballet Hoo!

An update on what's happened since the project can be found further down the page.

In late 2004, Birmingham Royal Ballet joined forces with Channel 4, Youth at Risk, the local authorities of Birmingham, Dudley, Sandwell and Wolverhampton, and the television production company Diverse to set local young people a challenge of a lifetime. Supported by amongst others, Arts Council England, Black Country Connexions and Alexander Mann, the programme asked, 'Do they have what it takes to perform live on stage, to a packed audience, with a cast of professional dancers and musicians in Kenneth MacMillan’s acclaimed production of Romeo and Juliet?'

Ballet Hoo! was not a competition. There were no rounds of auditions, no elimination process and no search for an overall winner. What Ballet Hoo! offered was the very real and unique opportunity for around 100 young people, aged between 15 and 19, from a variety of backgrounds to train and perform alongside ballet professionals, led by Birmingham Royal Ballet’s Assistant Director Desmond Kelly.

Social and youth work professionals sought and encouraged young people from their local areas to participate and discover whether they could influence their own futures through the challenging and intense discipline of ballet. Their every move, moan and milestone was captured by the cameras and then turned into a four-part series, which was broadcast from 20 September 2006, culminating in a live performance at Birmingham Hippodrome the same month.

This 18-month long project combined ballet and the arts, fitness, personal development training and life coaching to enable the young people to develop skills intended to help them enhance their own lives.

All information from the project and those involved is still available here in the Ballet Hoo! section of the BRB website, so if you want to find out more, feel free to explore.

Update: Details of what happened after the project can be found in the 'News and features' section of the website. Click here find out more.

A number of people have contacted Birmingham Royal Ballet enquiring if they can purchase a DVD of the television series. The answer regrettably is that the documentary was produced, and copyright is owned, by Diverse TV and Channel 4, and at present they have no plans to produce a DVD of the series.