Henry Perkins in the premiere of Yuri Grigorovich's La Fille Mal Gardee, Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow, November 2009

Some exciting news about Henry as he starts to make history for this country…………….

Henry makes his debut on the Bolshoi stage on Friday with a major part in the premiere of Yuri Grigorovich’s new/revived La Fille Mal Gardee full length ballet. This will be a ‘first’ for a Brit! He will now be dancing all 3 performances over the weekend as the second cast dancer is injured and cannot dance his performance. They then go on tour – Barcelona over New Year for 2 weeks and then on to Washington DC, with more locations to be announced. He may also be dancing The Nutcracker Pas de Deux in Barcelona in the Mixed Bill performances.

(more photos on facebook)

On October 29th October, 5 new recipients were awarded bursaries from The Lisa Wilson Scholarship Fund.

The five recipients were; Michael George Brough, Charlotte Clark, Lilian Namaata, Hayley Sanders, and Charlotte Weddle-Hoyle.  Their awards were presented at a ceremony at Southampton Solent University which was presided over by Professor Jane Longmore.

Bursaries are given to students who can demonstrate how they have overcome adversity and why they need additional funding to help them with their educational dreams and ambitions in the way Lisa did.

At the awards ceremony, a beautiful film was shown of Lisa living her dream in New Zealand, taking on a free-fall parachute jump and the highest bungee jump in the world. Her trip to New Zealand and Australia was her reward to herself for all her hard work at the University, where she graduated with a BA.21 in Business Management

Lisa’s Father; Clive said “I could talk about Lisa for hours, the way that she could walk into a room and light it up, look at her brothers and turn them into fits of laughter without saying a word, she was a great dancer and loved to party, and the film that she sent home from New Zealand gives us the opportunity to see how she was living her dream”.

This year’s intake has brought the total number of students awarded bursaries to date has risen to 40. Each student receives a bursary for up to 3 years, and to date, 14 students have graduated from the University.

Five students graduated this year, one of whom was Tom Dowsett who graduated with a BA.21 in video film production. He spoke at the ceremony of how the additional funding had helped him with his care and transport costs, and enabled him to buy a camera and other important materials to help him get his degree, despite his disabilities.  Tom stands for everything that The Lisa Wilson Scholarship Fund stands for.

After living a long and active life, Lisa’s Grandad Bob Jesssiman passed away on October 24th at the age of 90.  Bob had been poorly for quite some time and was ready to go and join his granddaughter in a better place free from pain.

His life saw him live through 2 coronations, one abdication and seventeen prime ministers starting with David Lloyd George.  He served in the Royal Army Medical Corps in the second world war in Egypt, Africa, and Germany.  His working life was varied; he was a trawlerman, a factory worker, and spent most of his working life as a boilerman fireman in the pit. He loved fishing, and later bowling at Scoonie Bowls Club in Leven, Fife where he lived most of his life with his wife Margaret.  They had five children, twelve grandchildren and 9 great grandchildren.  In 2002, Bob and Margaret moved south following Scott and Kelly’s wedding in Scotland.

Bob will be laid to rest at Redlynch cemetery in Wiltshire which was his request.  He will be missed by all.

Lisa’s uncle Andy and his family recently named a star after Lisa.
The Lisa Alexandra Wilson Star is registered in the intergalactic starbase number ISD 0067510 and registered in star location M50.  It is situated in the constellation  of Monoceros.

This is very appropriate as the charity logo is a shooting star.

On Friday 28th August, friends and family joined together the day after the wedding of Lisa’s brother Ross and his new bride Donna Enticknap for a curry night at the Royal Jaipur in Landford and raised £340 for the charity.

On Saturday 29th August a party was held at Nomansland to celebrate Lisa’s mum, Tricias 60th birthday, her brother Andy’s 50th birthday, and the recent wedding of Ross and Donna.  A signed photograph that had been donated to the Lisa Wilson Scholarship Fund by Celine Dion was raffled and raised £410.

On Thursday 27th of August, Lisa’s brother Ross was married to Donna Enticknap in the tiny Roman temple in the Larmer Tree Gardens, Dorset.  It was a small private ceremony attended by close friends and relatives with further guests arriving for the evening reception.  Music was provided by sitar and tabla players, an accordion player, and later a live set from The Huckleberries before Ross and Donna departed for their honeymoon.

Ladies’ winner, Liz Sims with special guest John Sydenham

The winners of the 7th Lisa Wilson Golf Day were as follows:

Men’s Winner – Nick Lear

Ladies’ Winner – Liz Sims

Junior Winner – Jamie Hughes

Guest Winners, Ladies’ – Wendy Stoddard

Guest Winners, Men’s – David Hayward

The 7th Lisa Wilson Golf Day took place on Saturday and, despite the dismal weather, there was a fantastic turn out of over 130 member and four dozen guests to play in the golf competitions.
The prizes were presented to the winners by former Saints legend, John Sydenham, who was over in Southampton on a visit from Australia where he now resides.
Just under 250 people turned up for the evening event to see John present prizes and star cabaret from comedian Mr Mike Osman, which was followed by two great sets from Abba Revival which had the dance floor heaving.
A raffle took place which raised just under £1,000 and the silent auction for sports memorabilia raised a further £450.
The event was a fantastic success with provisional profits for the evening at being over £7,500 which is by far the best total to the Wellow Golf Day.

Many thanks to all concerned, we look forward to seeing you next year when the date has been set for August 21st.

Henry standing outside the entrance to Red Square, June 2009

Henry Perkins, the dancer who received a bursary from the LWSF sponsors has just finished his third year at The Bolshoi Ballet Academy in Moscow.

The time has flown by and it only seems like only yesterday that Henry went to Moscow for the start of the final phase of his ballet training. He now has one more year to complete at the Academy and will graduate in June 2010. As the first British boy to join the Academy left two years ago, Henry will now make history by being the first British and European dancer to graduate from the Bolshoi Ballet Academy in its 235 year history. Henry has shown it is possible to survive in a new culture and to re-orientate one’s ballet training – in September 2009 two British 16 year olds are following in his footsteps and will be joining the Academy for a three year training course. Henry is looking forward to welcoming them at the Academy and to helping them settle in and get acquainted with ‘life in Russia’. He has already been advising them through email and all three families will meet up for the opening ceremony at the start of the new academic year.

The last academic year has been the ‘take off’ year for Henry, now that he has got used to Russian culture, the Russian style of ballet training and has learned to speak the language (he was recently stopped in the street for his papers by a Russian police man who quizzed him on why he was in possession of a British passport – when Henry said he was British, the policeman said he spoke Russian like a Russian and did not seem to be British!). Henry finished the year with the highest set of results ever for a non-Russian student at the Academy. As you can see in the transcript of his grades later in this update, he has mostly “5’s”. A “5” is the top grade possible. In fact, Henry actually achieved three “5+” grades which is above full marks but the “+” is just recorded on the students personal record book and is not printed on the transcript. One of the “5+” grades was for Russian National Dance where Henry actually achieved a score higher than all of the Russian boys in his year who had been studying this form of dance since they were small children! Henry was also one of the top three boys in the year group for Pas de Deux.

Henry can be seen dancing in the Russian National Dance exam in the YouTube videos at the end of this post.

At the end of last year, Yuri Grigorovich returned to The Bolshoi Company at the age of 80 – he was the director of the company for thirty years during Communist times and then went to the USA when the political administration changed in Russia at the end of the last century. He is widely held to be the greatest living ballet choreographer. Mr Grigorovich is making a number of changes at the Academy too in order to raise the standard of the graduating students. He has recently re-choreographed a ballet called La Fille Mal Gardee and it will be premiered in November on the Bolshoi stage in Moscow by next year’s graduating students. Henry has been given a soloist part in this ballet. After the Moscow premiere, the ballet will go on a world tour and just before Henry left Russia for the summer, he heard that 16 performances in Greece had already been confirmed.

As a result of Henry’s exceptional end-of-year grades, the Academy took him to New York at the end of June for three weeks to demonstrate for them on a summer school they organise for American ballet students. He also helped to translate the more technical ballet terms for the Russian teachers teaching the American students – in the past they have had to rely solely on locally employed translators who do not know the finer subtleties of ‘ballet language’. Henry returned to the UK on 19th July and had just one week at home before flying off to Prague for two weeks to take masterclasses with some of the world’s leading dancers and choreographers, including Julio Bocca from Argentina. When Mr Bocca retired from dancing a few years back, an open-air stage had to be built in Buenos Aires for his final performance which took place in front of a crowd of 300 000 fans from around the world! The two weeks in Prague should be an inspirational experience for Henry.

The new school term normally starts on 1st September every year and even though this is still the official start date, Henry is summonsed back to Moscow early to get ‘back into shape’ before rehearsals for the premiere start on 1st. He has to go back on 20th August this year and so will just get another 10 days in the UK when he returns from Prague. Time for a well-earned break and to catch up with friends here who he has not seen for a while. We do not actually expect to see him back here again until he graduates – the world tour of the premiere together with The Nutcracker performances in Moscow during the winter months will keep very busy in Russia.

Henry in Pas de Deux class in Prague, August 2009

Once again, we would like to thank all Henry’s sponsors without whose help and generosity his training in Russia at the Bolshoi Academy would not be possible. When firm dates/locations of any performances outside of Russia next year are known, we will let everyone know.

Henry in the Contemporary exam:

Character Dance:

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