Ella‑Louise Appleby was eight when she won a ballet competition at Cwmbran’s Congress Theatre and knew she had found her future career.
Nineteen years later, she runs her own dance school and has sold out her first show at the same venue.
Ella-Louise is also a professional dancer who has performed in productions at leading ballet venues across the UK and Europe.
I love stories like this. Dancing at the town’s theatre as a child was her first memory of deciding this is what she wanted to do as a job. I met the 27-year-old in a coffee shop to find out more.
She recalled the Congress Theatre competition: “Very much to my surprise, I was announced as the winner, and from that moment onwards I knew that it’s what I wanted to do as a job.
‘Not a real job’
“No matter what anyone said, lots of people growing up said, you know, ‘it’s not a real job, especially through school getting teased about it, but I didn’t care. I knew that it was what I wanted to do and I was dead serious about it.”
She was three when her mum and dad signed her up at Gemini School of Dance, where she “never looked back.”
“I had a wonderful teacher, Jacqui Everson. It was the best thing they could have done for me.”
She left St Alban’s RC High School and was awarded a scholarship at a ballet school in the North of England.
“Through my training, I completed my level six diploma in professional dance and alongside that also achieved my DDE (Diploma in Dance Education) in Cecchetti classical ballet, so a higher teaching qualification as well.”
Three years ago, she had the opportunity to start Appleby Dance, her dance school, meeting some dedicated dancers at a school that was closing down.
She said: “It really wasn’t in the plan, but something I don’t know, something told me that I should take a moment to think about this opportunity. Later on I met some of the students.
“It was about eight of them and in November 2023 I opened the school and am very glad to say that all eight of those girls are still with me, along with another 72-ish…and a really, really healthy community of adult dancers as well.
“There are so many I can’t keep them away, which is great.”
The school teaches classical ballet, modern jazz and musical theatre.
‘Rewarding’
She said: “I love how rewarding it is to see when a pupil, the penny drops and they get it and you can see how proud they are of themselves and then also the process of watching like the process of watching them learn something initially and then put the work in, do the practice and then all of a sudden they’ve they’ve mastered the skill or they’re on their way to mastering the skill. It’s just really nice to see how pleased they are with themselves, and it’s not necessarily all about technique.
“People come to dancing for lots of different reasons, for the social side of it, for the well-being side of it, for the exercise, but we really are a big family definitely, and as long as everyone leaves with a smile I feel like I’ve done my job.
“I’m really fortunate to have such a lovely, warm community of dancers around, and also, I haven’t even mentioned my family. The support that I’ve had from them because not everyone’s parents are supportive when their child wants to go off and do something like this, like a vocation.”
Appleby Dance’s first show was in two parts- the first half was ‘Anna and Gretel’ about two sisters and was played by two young sisters from the school. The second half was a mix of point work, adult dancers, jazz, musical theatre, and a big finale.
Her win at age eight won her a special prize- a chance to dance at the Royal Ballet School in Covent Garden.
‘Small girl, big dream’
She said: “I had a little purple dress on. It wasn’t a tutu. It was just a leotard with a skirt on it, small girl, big dream and I loved it. it was great.”
Her career highlights include performing in The Nutcracker in Copenhagen and Die Fledermaus at the Royal Danish Opera. She’s also toured Spain with International Festival Ballet, been a big swan in Swan Lake on a UK tour, and danced as a soloist in The Nutcracker.
Joe Powell-Main
She performs with Joe Powell-Main, who was the first dancer in a wheelchair to perform with the Royal Ballet School.
“He’s such an inspiration and an ambassador to the disabled dance community, the way that he doesn’t let anything stop him…It opened my eyes working with him because there are so many things that I always say when we get asked lots of questions when we dance at the Royal Opera House.
“I say well, we don’t look at the things that we can’t do, we look at what we can. There are so many other things we can do. There’s no point focusing on. Oh well, we can’t do the original choreography for Giselle because it involves this lift, this turn.
” We know that that’s not a possibility. There’s no point dwelling on that. There’s plenty of other things that we can do instead, so why not do those instead?
“We’ve done a few performances at the Opera house and he’s actually got his own performances on the cards next year as well for us to perform so we’re doing Gisele again next year.
“I’m excited for what he started to create there actually. I’m really pleased for him.”
You can see Ella-Louise perform in Wales with Brecon Festival Ballet at Theatr Brycheiniog in the town. The company is putting on The Nutcracker at Christmas and Jack and the Beanstalk next Easter.