Lewis Gardner's BAPP Blog

This week I’ve been doing some thinking and research on leadership within the classroom. While doing my research I stumbled across a leadership theory called, ‘Situational leadership theory.' It was developed byPaul Hersey and Ken Blanchard.  The  basic principle is; to be able to change your leadership type depending on your situation, environment and the people around you. I believe this is what all teachers should be doing in the classroom. We, as teachers, should be able to make a quick call while we are teaching and change how we approach a problem when it occurs. For example; if I’m teaching a class and giving them a correction on a pirouette, but I can see that the student doesn’t understand what I’m trying to say then I should be able to change the way I’m saying the correction. It sounds simple, doesn’t it? But does it always happen? In my experience, no. I’ve had teachers tell me over and over the same thing, in the same way, but it just hasn’t made sense, and it’s n...

  As you have probably seen this week, the new trailer for the latest Disney remake came out. The Little Mermaid trailer was released earlier this week and it has sparked many a debate... it gained over “1.5 million dislikes in 2 days” (Forbes.com) …. why? Because the actress cast to play Ariel is coloured…  Their argument for so much hate towards the casting is that in the original ‘Animated movie’ she was white, and by changing her race changes the whole movie. Now, if her race or cultural background were important for the plot, I’m talking Mulan, Pocahontas etc, I would understand. But Ariel is a mythical creature. Her race or the colour of her skin bares no importance in the plot or any place of the storyline. I, for one, am delighted with the casting choice, some might say it’s more accurate. According to marine biologist and National Museum of Natural History curator  Karen Osborn , as written in an article on Buzzfeed: "As you get deeper, you see animals that are p...

In this week’s class (module one class one), students were asked to pick an item around them, that represents themselves and present it to the others within a minute. As I was unable to be there in the class, I decided to do a blog post about it.   My item or items are my programme books. I have many programme books from shows that I’ve seen; productions that I’ve been involved in or performed in. Right now, I only have a small number of my programme books, all the programme books from before I moved away from England are at my parent's house, in boxes. I actually sorted them out this summer, when I went back to visit. The programmes that I have with me here in Korea, are programmes that I’ve collected from my time in Singapore and Korea. I think that a lot of us within this industry will probably have done the same kind of thing. A lot of us might have collected programme books or cast sheets or other paraphernalia from performances; shows; events and concerts that we’ve eith...

The last few months for me have been a really hard time, dealing with quite a severe injury and not being able to perform fully or even take a class without feeling any pain. Still being at work and in that environment and watching everybody else continue to dance, improve and perform has been a real challenge for the past few months. I have been able to perform some roles including character roles and roles that don’t involve much jumping or added strain to my knee injury. Recently I have not been in any rehearsals and performances at all due to the nature of the current performance. This has given me time to do proper rehabilitation to get to a better mental place and also take a step back and think about what I want for the rest of my career as a professional dancer and what I want to do after that.  I’m currently almost back to full performance standard, I have my good days and my bad days and I think it’s really important just to remember how far I’ve come and also not be too ...

Hello Everyone! 😊 My name is Lewis Gardner. I graduated from The Royal Ballet School in 2013 and since then I have danced professionally for almost 10 years.  Firstly, in Singapore with Singapore Dance Theatre, for 3 years and more recently in Seoul South Korea, with Universal Ballet Company for almost 7 years, where I am currently still working. I have been very lucky to be able to learn and perform a wide range of repertoire and styles across many different countries during my career.    I’ve also done a lot of work with the education and outreach program in my current company, which entails performing and teaching children and adults with disabilities or those who may not have easy access to the arts. I have loved doing this and it’s something I would love to keep my hand in, even if it’s not my main focus.    Since I became a professional, I have also taught dance, mainly ballet as it’s what is most comfortable for me but also just general movement and danc...