FHS Alumna Clara has just finished a tour with her ballet company Teatrul de Balet.

Here is her account of the exciting visits!

We left on Saturday at 1am and traveled by coach for 35hrs to get Noto in the south of Sicily. We stopped in a hotel just outside Florence for the night in between and continued our journey early the next morning finally arriving at our end destination at 11:30pm. We had a relaxed start to the day on Monday enjoying the beach and the Italian sun for an hour before heading into the town to the old theatre for placement, barre, a run and the show at 9:15pm. The theatre was much smaller than expected and had a raked stage which we were not prepared for, however during the run we pulled it together and the performance in the evening went smoothly.

Performing Swan Lake was a dream despite the pressure of being in the front and leading my line and the cramped conditions on stage. Especially dancing to the music of the fourth act felt like a dream come true! Shame it was only one performance: ‘I could have danced all night’!

The second evening was Paquita and contemporary piece, I was not dancing that evening but took class and had time to visit the beautiful old town before returning to the theatre to watch the performance. We then boarded the bus at 2am to drive to Padova for the next evening. It was very tough going but we were lucky enough to make a short visit to Venice the next morning before the last part of the journey back to Romania.

An experience I will never forget, the journey was challenging but I am still so happy to have danced Swan Lake!

We now have the weekend off to recover but I look forward to getting back in the theatre.