An introduction to me..

My name is Lawrence Massie and I am 24 years old. I graduated from Elmhurst School for Dance in 2011 with a National Diploma in Professional Dance and have been working as a professional dancer since. Before training at Elmhurst I spent 5 years training at Arts Educational School Tring Park where I had extensive training in dance, drama and music from a young age.

As a young boy my mother owned her own dance school so I had grown up surrounded by dancing. I started dancing at her school when I was just 2 years old and quickly understood that this was something that I wanted to pursue. I danced every week at her school until I was 8 years old and joined Arts Educational School.

Whilst training at Elmhurst I had the opportunity to dance a lot with Birmingham Royal Ballet as well as travel with performances and gala shows in many different places around the world. I was lucky enough to have some extremely good teachers whilst training such as Errol Pickford, Desmond Kelly and Irek Mukhamadov. Having such important and prestigious male dance teachers such as these men I think definitely shaped me into the dancer I am today.

My performances with professional companies started at a very young age where I was lucky enough to dance in English National Ballets Nutcracker. My role in that show was to be a giant Nutcracker head, which although sounds exciting, was extremely daunting as it was at least twice the size of an 8 year old me. I knew from that point on that being on the stage is where I wanted to be.

Whilst training as a dancer I also undertook a lot of other hobbies that would help me become more of a rounded artist. I am very passionate about music and play many different instruments like drums, piano, guitar and bass. I have numerous qualifications in music and consider it a huge passion of mine, alongside dancing. I also spent free time focusing on dancer rehabilitation and physiotherapy as it is what I am hoping to become once my dancing career is over.

At the age of 18-19 I traveled all around Europe in search for a job as a professional ballet dancer. Despite many months of travelling and living out of a suitcase, I was lucky enough to secure short contracts at the Teater Vanemuine as a Soloist dancer and that's where I am currently. The city I live in is Tartu and although the population is only 300,000 the Theatre here is held in very high regards among st the public so there is always a great reaction when a show is premiered or performed.

As a professional dancer I have had the opportunity to do some amazing roles. Since working on and off at the Teater Vanemuine in Estonia I have performed numerous leading roles including Beast in Beauty and the Beast, Morris in a dance rendition of Midnight in Paris and Strauss in An Evening with Strauss. Having the opportunity to dance these roles at still a young age has definitely matured me as a dancer and helped me understand the mentality behind being a dancer in a professional atmosphere. I think the highlight of my career so far was to have the opportunity to travel to Whistler in Canada to perform the Prince in Sleeping Beauty.

I have decided to extend my qualification to a BA Hons as I feel it will help me in the future to pursue a career in Physiotherapy. I am a hard working individual with a keen interest to learn new things and I feel like doing my BA will be another great opportunity to learn a new skill. I look forward to blogging and reading about everyone else and their courses too.