Modern Ballet Showcase 2022

Amy has danced from the age of 8 at Weymouth Dance Studio under the support of June Hornby, of whom helped her successfully audition for White Lodge, The Royal Ballet Lower School, where she studied for three years and performed as a Party child in ‘The Nutcracker’ at The Royal Opera House.  

She then trained part time at London Contemporary Dance School under the teaching of Denzil Bailey, Jenna Lee and Nicky Ellis. Here she worked with Rambert Company, Balletboyz, Taviziva, Michael Clark Company and Arte Balletto (Sicily) where she was awarded a full scholarship to return.   

Whilst training at RCS, she has worked with Scottish Ballet and Scottish Dance Theatre. One such highlight being a solo made on her by Sophie Laplane for last year’s show, as well as performing in multiple RCS Presents series as part of their online platform.   

This year she has enjoyed learning a range of repertoire for performances such as Gleneagles Hotel as well as external performances throughout Glasgow. Amy is looking forward to pursuing her neo classical career ambitions in order to achieve a professional career in the sector.  

Amy developed her passion for choreography after successfully auditioning for the Young Creatives Programme and performing a piece at The Royal Opera House and Rambert Company, Southbank. She also performed in Primary Schools around the UK supplementing the National Curriculum with a self-choreographed solo based on Malala Yousafzi.  

This carried through at RCS after successfully auditioning for the BA Modern Ballet Course in 2020, where Amy has won the Annual Choreography Competition twice, resulting in commissions for the COP-26 conference and Margot Fonteyn competition, as well as her pieces being performed at the show where she has had the opportunity to learn lighting, set, sound and costume design experience. 

Diana trained at the Queensland University of Technology, Australia.  Her performance career spans 20 years internationally performing with Alston, James, Bonachela, Bruce, and Douglas. Joining Scottish Ballet as a soloist in 2003 under Ashley Page, Diana danced many of his works alongside Alston, Petronio, Davies, Forsythe, Spink, Ashton, Brown, Pastor, Meckler/Lopez Ochoa, Lawrance and Bourne.  Diana received a Herald Angel award for excellence during the Edinburgh Festival in 2005. 

Diana’s choreographic career began under Ashley Page at Scottish Ballet with her first work Sirocco, premiering in 2006, following that she was awarded the Peter Darrell Choreographic Award for Chasing Ghosts, which was performed at the Peter Darrell Gala, and as part of Scottish Ballet’s Autumn Season in 2007. Diana was then commissioned to create Lull in 2008 for Scottish Ballet.  

In 2013 Diana created Astray for YDance and in 2015 Creative Scotland supported Diana with High Heart Dance Company and Daniel’s Beard Musicians to create Fray for an evening at Cottiers Dance Festival performed again in 2016.  Diana has worked as a Mentor and facilitated in professional dancer development programmes,  taught the Scottish Ballet Associates, The Dance School of Scotland and Scottish Ballet Company. 

Diana was involved in the development of the BA Modern Ballet programme in 2009 and since has worked as a Lecturer on the programme teaching contemporary, repertoire, choreography and improvisation.  Completing her Post Graduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Arts Education in 2016. Diana is also a fully qualified Gyrotonic instructor.  Diana has created many works for the BA Modern Ballet graduating students.  Diana had the pleasure of collaborating with Ballet Divertimento in Montreal in 2019 the exchange program delivered in 2nd year for the BA Modern Ballet students.  For 2022 Diana has created Onyx for the graduating students. 

Rowan trained at the Royal Ballet School and the Dance School of Scotland before graduating in Musical Theatre and Commercial Jazz from the London Studio Centre. She then went on to enjoy a successful and varied performing career spanning international and UK tours, film, and television.   

  Rowan’s choreographic credits include BBC Silk Screens River Festival,  Mother Goose Kings Theatre Glasgow, The Edinburgh Festival closing ceremony, FOP Glasgow Commonwealth Games Aashaa, UK Tour, and numerous corporate and fashion shows.   

Over the past ten years, Rowan has taught at many leading UK schools and colleges including East London College, Scottish Ballet’s Education Programme, and the Dance School of Scotland. She is currently teaching on the BA Modern Ballet and Musical Theatre courses here at RCS as well as working with the Scottish Ballet Associates and lecturing in dance at West College Scotland.   

The first-year Modern Ballet students have worked with dedication and commitment exploring a variety of jazz styles throughout the rehearsal process and it has been an absolute pleasure working with them to create a piece for this year’s showcase.  

Fabrice trained and graduated from the Paris National Opera Ballet School. He performed in Paris and at the Nantes Opera Ballet as a soloist.  In 1990 he joined Scottish Ballet where he danced soloist/leading roles before becoming a freelance Principal dancer.  He danced the lead roles in classical repertoire such as Cinderella, Nutcracker, Petrushka, Swan Lake, La Sylphide, Napoli, The Flower Festival Pas de Deux, Midsummer Night’s Dream, Lilac Garden and Monotones.  He occupied leading roles in works by Maurice Bejart, Thierry Malandain, Caroline Carlson and Angelin Preljocaj. 

In 1998 he was presented with the Dame Beryl Grey Award by the Royal Academy of Dance for the high quality of his teaching.  Teaching roles followed at The Dance School of Scotland and at the English National Ballet School. 

In 2003 he was invited to become the Pedagogical Director of the École Supérieure de Ballet du Quebec in Canada, where he remained in post for ten years. 

In 2013 he joined the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland as a lecturer in Modern Ballet and he has been invited frequently as a guest teacher to Australia, Canada, France, Japan and in the UK at The Royal Ballet School.  Fabrice completed his studies in 2017 for the Post Graduate Certificate in Learning and teaching  the Higher Arts Education and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. 

Fabrice qualified as a certified Gyrotonic trainer in 2022. 

Originally from Jarvis, Ontario, Canada, Owen Montague was admitted to Canada’s National Ballet School of Canada in Toronto, Ontario at the age of eleven. While still a student, in 1979, he was awarded the bronze medal at the first USA International Ballet Competition in Jackson, Mississippi, and received the Peter Dwyer Scholarship. After graduating in 1981, Owen won the silver medal at the fourth edition of the Moscow International Ballet Competition and was awarded the Prize of Excellence in the Junior Division of the competition. As well, that same year, he received a scholarship from the Canada Council for the Arts. 

In 1982, Owen joined The National Ballet of Canada where, at the age of 22, he became one the youngest dancers to be promoted to principal dancer—he also danced with Ballet BC and Alberta Ballet. In addition, Owen had an international career as principal dancer with such prestigious companies as Nederlands Dans Theater in the Netherlands and Aterballetto in Italy. 

Leading dancer of his generation, New York critics compared his technical abilities and artistry that of Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov. Owen’s repertoire of classical works includes Prince Siegfried in Erik Bruhn’s Swan Lake, Basilio in Don Quixote, Prince Florimund and the Bluebird (choregraphed by Rudolf Nureyev) in The Sleeping Beauty, Colas in La Fille mal gardée, Oberon in Frederik Ashton’s The Dream, the Mazurka solo in Études, and the Prince in The Nutcracker. 

H has also performed and worked with renowned choreographers such as Jiri Kylian, Hans van Manen, Ohad Naharin, Toru Shimazaki, John Alleyne, James Kudelka, and David Allen, to name a few. 

Today, Owen works as a choreographer for, amongst others, Alberta Ballet and Kobe College in Japan. He has been guest teacher with the National Ballet of Canada, the Scottish Ballet, Ballet BC, Dance Teq, Toronto, Dance Teq International, Japan, Architanz Shiga, Japan.  In 2008, he was invited as associate dance professor at Kobe College, Japan. On his return to Canada, Owen Montague now resides in Quebec, where he teaches and is resident choreographer at Ballet Divertimento in Montreal. 

After graduation with Outstanding Distinction from The London School of Contemporary Dance Julian Moss joined the world famous LONDON CONTEMPORARY DANCE THEATRE, under the direction of Robert Cohan, where he remained for nearly ten years, dancing throughout the world, appearing in two Olympic Arts Festivals, the American DanceFestival’s 50th Anniversary, amongst countless other touring dates. This decade with LCDT saw Julian dancing as a soloist in work by Cohan, North, Davies, Alston, Taylor and Robbins amongst others. 

During this time with LCDT he also appeared with PETER SPARLING AND DANCERS ( a soloist from the Martha Graham Company), JANE DUDLEY AND DANCERS, INGEGERD LÖNROTH AND DANCERS and THE ENGLISH BACH FESTIVAL and was heavily involved with the education department, teaching for the Company all over the United Kingdom and helping to devise their programme. 

At the invitation of the Director John McFall Julian then joined BALLET MET in the USA as a Guest Artist for their 1989 season, appearing  in both the companies home and on tour. dancing now in a classical repertory with work from Balanchine, Smuin, Taylor, Taylor-Corbett and creating two roles in a new work by James Kudelka. Returning to London he re-joined LCDT for a short period under the new Director Dan Wagoner. 

From 1989 he has worked as Robert North’s assistant staging his work all over the world. Companies include BALLET MET, GÖTEBORG BALLET, NATIONAL BALLET OF CANADA, LA SCALA MILAN, ESSEN BALLET, HANNOVER BALLET, TOULOUSE BALLET, BORDEAUX BALLET, COLORADO BALLET, MILWAUKEE BALLET, TULSA BALLET, SARASOTA BALLET, KOMISCHE OPER BERLIN, BALLET DE SANTIAGO. GYÖRI BALLET, OPER LEIPZIG, BERN BALLET, SEMPER OPER DRESDEN, ANKARA BALLET, LOUISVILLE BALLET, NAPAC BALLET, SAN CARLO BALLET  and SCOTTISH BALLET amongst others. 

In 1991 Julian was asked to join BALLET CENTRAL as Associate Artistic Director by Christopher Gable leading an 18 week national tour of the UK, with work ranging from “Sleeping Beauty” to a commissioned work by Graham Lustig and a lecture demonstration series devised by Moss for schools and colleges. 

Later that year Julian joined GÖTEBORG BALLET where he quickly became a soloist, Assistant and then Ballet Master under the direction of firstly Robert North and later Ulf Gadd. 

Julian is also known for his teaching work in both classical and modern dance. His company teaching has seen him giving classes to Göteborg Ballet, Scottish Ballet, The National Ballet of Estonia, Milwaukee Ballet, Hannover Ballet, Stephan Thoss Dance Company, Ankara State Ballet, Istanbul State Ballet, Skånes Dans Teater and Modern Dance Theatre in Ankara Turkey. Julian has also taught in schools all over the world including London Contemporary Dance School, Central School of Ballet, Laban, London Studio Centre and BalettAkademien (Stockholm, Göteborg and Visby). 

Julian worked at The University College of Dance in Stockholm between 1998 and 2005 and in July of 2003 was appointed as a Guest Professor in Modern Dance and in 2004 wrote a research paper “Mirror, Mirror” looking at teaching past and present. 

Julian has created 30 works commissioned by schools and professional companies alike. His most recent work being for the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland with “murmur”. 

Nicholas is an Associate Choreographer of Scottish Ballet and performance artist based in Glasgow. He trained for 8 years at the Australian Ballet School in his home town of Melbourne, before joining Scottish Ballet full-time in 2012. He’s spent the 10 years since, as a company member, 6 of those as a soloist, with career highlights including playing John Proctor in Helen Pickett’s ‘The Crucible’ and James in Matthew Bourne’s ‘Highland Fling’. Choreographically he has worked on multiple films for Scottish Ballet, including The Fates (2019, SB Digital Season), Catalyst (2020, Edinburgh Festival) and Odyssey (2021). 

Constant Vigier was born in Quimper, France. 

He studied ballet at the Conservatory of Rueil-Malmaison and graduated from the Paris Opera Ballet School and the School of the Hamburg Ballet.  It is in Hamburg that Constant became interested in choreography under the inspiration of choreographer John Neumeier and took part in a showcase programme, Young Choreographers of the Hamburg Ballet, creating “3X2 für M&M”. 

Since joining Scottish Ballet in 2013, Constant has created a number of works as an independent choreographer. These include creations for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the Edinburgh Military Tattoo and the Cadences Festival in Arcachon, France.  He was invited to take part in the “Tell Tale Steps” Choreographic Lab organised by Northern Ballet in Leeds. 

Constant attended a course about screendance with Katrina McPherson and started to create digital projects that have been seen on platforms such as Nowness and the BBC.