Also on the programme is the choreography Festina Lente by Tessa Cooke, dance teacher at the Royal Conservatoire. 45 of our young dancers will perform this choreography. Tessa says of the choreography:

'The choreography Festina Lente is the representation of tension between haste and calm, between excitement and strength of self-control. The virtuoso music of Kapustin's Toccatina acts like herbal fuse on the young dancers, who radiate the energy of the music with inner artistic fervour like sparks and flames.

They seem unaware of the thin line on which they dance, a line between calm and turbulence, while the fire of haste extinguishes faster than the fire of calm.

The young dancers find themselves in the playground of their Maître Dompteur. He may seemingly be older and wiser, but because of smouldering inner fire, his mature calm and control derails in the heat of the dance.

Through the calmness and slowness the young dancers eventually find, the Maître Dompteur feels through that the exhilarating speed and passion of youth are over and accepts this with melancholy.'