OM DENNE EPISODE
Dancers after intensive training are sent off with sometimes no job or no idea of what really happens in company life. Julie Bowers is making some incredible changes to accommodate this. More about Julie below.
Julie Bowers, Executive Director and Co Creator of Grad Pro has had a successful professional dance career, joining the Royal Ballet Company in 1984 and performing works by Frederick Ashton, Kenneth MacMillan and David Bintley, alongside classics from Serenade and Penguin Cafe to Swan Lake. Having trained at Elmhurst, where she won the inaugural Paul Clarke Memorial Award, she now works to support talented dancers to achieve their potential.
After her performing career, Julie embarked upon a BA (Hons) in International History and American Studies and later completed qualifications in Project Management, to support her in her endeavours in management and leadership roles. Alongside this Julie retained her connection with the dance community, teaching and choreographing for Northern Ballet School and later as Deputy Head of Dance at the Hammond School in Chester.
As a Regional Manager for the Royal Academy of Dance (RAD) she founded the Genee Dance Challenge, an RAD competition now held across the globe as a precursor for the Fonteyn International Ballet Competition. Julie joined the senior management team at bbodance in 2016 where she was also Director of Artistic Development – supporting the development of syllabi, qualifications, training initiatives for dancers and teachers and supporting the bbodance Membership. Throughout lockdown she worked tirelessly to provide online opportunities to support teachers and students including the Lockdown Challenge with Brandon Lawrence, Creativity Unlocked with David Bintley, a full CPD programme, Zoom support meetings for students and teachers, a Global Teachers Conference and adult classes to support mental health and wellbeing.
In addition to her work with Awarding Organisations Julie served on the Board at Elmhurst Ballet School assisting in the transition of the school from Camberley to Birmingham site and seeing the school flourish in their new home. Julie founded the Staffordshire Youth Ballet and continues to support them as a Patron.
Julie has a wealth of experience within the artistic industry and has spent many years developing programmes and schemes across the world to make ballet accessible whilst enhancing dancers/teachers training development.
https://www.instagram.com/gradpro_/
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
