Billy Elliot the Forum

This is a nice article and video from the Toronto Star, talking about how Canada's National Ballet School currently has the largest enrollment of boys in its history. There could easily be some future Billys in this video.

http://www.thestar.com/life/2013/11/01/ ... types.html

Interesting. Thanks for sharing.

Oregon Ballet Theater's school is also building a strong program for boys, even talking about going into schools in order recruit them.

http://www.oregonlive.com/performance/i ... w_sch.html

Another story from the CBC about the increasing number of boys in its course.

'The popular stage show and movie Billy Elliot — about a boy ballet dancer — may have helped.'

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/b ... -1.2519504

That is a good story, but when they mentioned the show, they really should have included a clip of one of the NBS Billys.

Yes, it makes you wonder why they didn't, doesn't it?

Allow me to explain why they didn't use performance shots of the 4 National Ballet School students who have performed in Billy Elliot...

Well, I can't, since I have no idea. What is especially curious is that this same network did a story three years ago on the real-life Mrs. Wilkinson (who still works at the NBS) who taught 3 of the Billys profiled in that earlier story (Cesar Corrales, Marcus Pei and Myles Erlick. Liam Redhead from the Broadway production was also an NBS student.)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/4-billy-ell ... -1.1020600

Click on the video embedded in the story and you'll see that it had performance footage of all the Toronto Billys. It's almost like the producer/reporter of yesterday's story didn't know about this earlier story. More likely...is that they just had a minute and 45 seconds to tell their story...and opted (wrongly) to leave out the ballet school's Billys. What is beyond doubt is that the NBS is incredibly proud of its connection to Billy Elliot the Musical and has always acknowledged that the movie and musical have played key roles in increasing the number of boys in their program. They even used the 2011 TV story in the school's fundraising.

And don't Myles, J.P., Cesar and Marcus all look so young! None of us ever age, of course, but they somehow manage to. Another curious thing.

Another lad, who is living the Billy Elliot story, from Blackpool:

http://www.blackpoolgazette.co.uk/news/ ... -1-6500090

Stories such as this were rarely reported in the press before a certain film hit the nation's attention in 2000.

If you thought ballet was all about tutus and pointe shoes, think again:

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/10/showb ... pt=ieu_bn3

I wish it were possible for Her Majesty to confer an OBE...or an MBE.....on Billy Elliot the film, and Billy Elliot the Musical,for 'Services to Dance......and Society in general'.

Compared to many who are thus honoured, this film and this musical have had a most definite effect on public, and private, perception of dance.........and much, much more. Imagine where 'things' would stand today, if Billy Elliot the Film had never been made? I is an interesting thought.

History will sort out its honours.

http://www.nbs-enb.ca/media/pdfAboutNew ... f#zoom=100

tomtorfan wrote:What is beyond doubt is that the NBS is incredibly proud of its connection to Billy Elliot the Musical and has always acknowledged that the movie and musical have played key roles in increasing the number of boys in their program.