Page 2 | Greenwich Sentinel
Royal Ballet Student Aidan Buss in His Final Year
By Anne W. Semmes Aidan Buss of Old Greenwich, our ballet star in the making, is ever closer to that stage career. He is entering his sixth and final year at London’s esteemed Royal Ballet School (RBS) at Covent Garden. Home for a month before returning to school in September, and turning 19 in October, he is asked if his heart still burns to be a professional ballet dancer. He replies, “Of course. I definitely say its increased because of the Coronavirus pandemic.” Covid lockdowns had stolen away Aidan’s onstage RBS performances for two years. “We normally have our summer performances in June and July as our year group [finally] did this year.” Included in those performances held at the Royal Opera House were, “a class demonstration that gave you an inside view into our training and how we kept in shape, and a piece choreographed for us by a member of the Ballet Company called ‘Playfully So,’ and it was really fun to dance because it was very acting based…all of these teenagers playing with each other. And then we did a contemporary piece called, ‘Is to Be.’" Aidan has been in training nearly the entire year. He left the RBS in July for the San Francisco Ballet School’s summer intensive. Now taking a breath, he’s signed onto a few weeks of classes at the Greenwich Ballet Academy before hopping on a plane to return to Covent Garden. So, what does he dream to dance? Last year it was the ballet, “Onegin.” “That's one of my favorites, but this past year we were working more on pas de deux and I've grown to love pas de deux. It's working with somebody else. It's making it a partnership. It's working together to get the lady on her balance, so she doesn't look like she's about to fall. Sometimes she'll tell me, ‘Could you maybe hold me this way, or can you open my leg to the side so it looks nicer.’ Pas de deux has opened a whole other part of the vocabulary to me. ‘The Nutcracker’ pas de deux is one of my favorites. It's a classic and everyone knows ‘The Nutcracker,’ but the pas de deux is just so regal.” So, what music is inspiring him to dance? Piano music! “At the school we're lucky to have live accompanists that are in the lessons, and they play the piano for us. And I love a task that I set myself of how I can best portray the music that is being played. And I think this helps me use a more artistic side that will be useful when performing on stage. So, I love piano music. I think it's so simple, yet deep and complicated.” So, what dance moves are challenging him? “The hardest jump we've had to practice for was a double Saut de Basque. I can do a very small demonstration for you,” he says, with a smile, moving to a space off the kitchen. “I'm going to do a single turn instead. You have to take a big preparation to go into it, with your arms in the proper position.” Yes, and with one leg drawn up to the knee. “With the double that's quite difficult.” So, how does the school measure Aidan’s physical progress as a dancer? “There's quite a rigorous measurement system,” he tells. “They measure us three times, in the beginning of September, in January, and end of April. They do your height - I'm 5 feet 10 now. But they also do a lot of rotational exercises to see where your flexibility is.” He demonstrates one. “It's called the knee to wall test. They put your toe on a line a few inches from the wall, with your knee touching the wall, to see how far away your foot can be from the wall without your heel coming up.” And just for boys there’s the upper body strength test for the pas de deux. “You have to lift a bar of 20 kilograms (44 pounds) as many times as you can overhead while sitting. Last time I think I got to 22. It's doing it multiple times that becomes the fatiguing factor.” “It's a long process,” Aidan notes of those measurements. “It'll take three hours for everyone to get through all of the different things that you have to do. It's really important that this is done because it helps a school measure our strengths but also our weaknesses, to see if maybe we need some exercises to strengthen our core muscles, so we can be a better dancer.” Add to that measurement the annual assessment of dancers in early March! But also cancelled with Covid. “We had another mini lockdown in January and February. We couldn't prepare for it. Our last assessment was in 2019. Honestly, it was a shame because it's also a performance opportunity, to perform to this panel and show off your best, to put your best foot forward. They are quite stressful, but for me these assessments are a performance opportunity. It's practice for a career.” Aidan praised his school’s cautious guidelines during the height of the pandemic. “Thankfully, none of us at the School got Covid.” Masks were mandated but not in class, but teachers in their studios were separated from students. With Aidan back in Old Greenwich during lockdown he was training daily via RBS zooms. “The school tried so hard to make that continuation of training as similar as
Royal Ballet School student Aidan Buss in the front row, second couple from the left, with his classmates in their class demonstration for The Royal Ballet School Summer Performances 2021 on the Linbury stage, Royal Opera House. @2021 The Royal Ballet School/Photo by ASH.
Royal Ballet School student Aidan Buss practicing with classmates in Valentino Zucchetti\'s new ballet Playfully So for The Royal Ballet School\'s Summer Performances 2021. @2021 The Royal Ballet School/Photo by ASH. possible to a studio but of course there's so many things that you can't control like what floor you have, the space that you have to dance in.” Returning to school, Aidan was grateful that his teachers “started us off slowly, and they gradually increased it until we were all back to the training we were used to.” So, challenge upon challenge, then came the A levels, the British equivalent of the SAT’s. But, fortunately at RBS there is only time for students to take one of the usual three A level subjects. “So, I did math. That was quite challenging for I had to do a lot of studying and revision for it.” Come July 2022, Aidan will graduate into the big world of dance. Will he know then where he will dance? “Well, everyone this past year graduated and got contracts with [dance] companies, which is an amazing feat. In this time of Coronavirus, in the school they all worked so hard to get contracts.” “It's a process through this entire final year,” he tells. “We put together audition videos, snippets of us in class by ourselves that
the ballet staff look at and say okay, maybe do this section again. They sort of coach us through it. And sometimes those videos will be sent out to companies, or to artistic directors of companies. The next step might be you go audition at a company or maybe the artistic directors come to the school to see you. But it's a bit of both. There's not really a set way of going about it. The school works as hard as possible doing as much as they can to really support the process. I know I want to be someone who graduates with a contract. That would be an amazing, amazing achievement.”
Royal Ballet School student Aidan Buss practicing his arabesque at Greenwich Ballet Academy. Photo by Victoria Rivera.
Royal Ballet School student Aidan Buss in rehearsals for Valentino Zucchetti\'s new ballet Playfully So for The Royal Ballet School\'s Summer Performances 2021. @2021 The Royal Ballet School. Photo by Rachel Cherry.
