Young Walsall dancer lands touring role with top ballet company
The sky's the limit for talented dancer Nathan Anson who has landed a touring role with a top ballet company.
Nathan studies at Ballet Theatre UK which has been on tour with its festive stage show the Snow Queen, which made a stop at Cannock's Prince of Wales Theatre earlier this month.
The 19-year-old honed his straddle jumps and Russian leaps at Walsall Academy of Dance in Butts Street, Walsall, where he has attended lessons since aged four.
Now he's landed multiple roles of a villager, the wolf and the reindeer in the stage adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen’s classic fairy tale which follows the story of Gerda and her quest to find her childhood sweetheart.
Nathan, a former Aldridge School pupil, says: "It's going very well. I was actually offered the part after someone else suffered an injury. It's been really good experience travelling up and down the country and dancing at different venues and learning to dance with a smaller company if necessary to suit the size of the venue.
"There were a lot of people at the Cannock theatre including some of my family and friends. It was lovely to have the local support in the audience.
"I'm home now in Walsall for a few days over Christmas then I'll be performing in Brighton after that. We'll be touring until February. I'm in my third year now and I've been at Ballet Theatre UK since 2019.
"It's been difficult with the pandemic and at one stage I was having to dance in my dining room to practise, but we've got through it and it makes you appreciate more being able to dance in a studio with a lot of space.
"I'm really grateful Christa Collard the principal at Walsall Academy of Dance for allowing me to use the studio last December so I could practise before heading back to the theatre school."
Growing up Nathan, of Daw End Lane, Rushall, also excelled in tap dance and was a familiar face at regional and national competitions including Wrekin Dance Festival, in Telford, and Nuneaton Festival of Arts, in Warwickshire.
In 2016 he was among a group of pupils from the Butts studio to perform on The Mall at celebrations to mark the Queen's 90th birthday.
He then successfully auditioned to study at the prestigious Ballet Theatre UK school based in Leicestershire which runs a ballet school and a classical touring company.
