You say pirouette, I say breakdance The Royal Ballet School and a comprehensive in London's East End might not have much in common, but a passion for dance has brought the two together. Could their partnership be the start of a new trend? Caronline Haydon reports for The Independent
You can drive from the Royal Ballet School in White Lodge, Richmond, to Brampton Manor School in Newham in two hours. West to east the journey takes you from the leafy confines of Richmond Park, where the ballet school nestles among leafy green trees and where well-heeled families exit en masse on bicycles when the weather is fine, right across London and out the other side to East Ham, where Brampton Manor does its nestling alongside the A13 flyover to Barking.
Newham is one of the most deprived boroughs in London. Near the heart of the old docklands, Brampton Manor inherits many of the problems thrown up by the surrounding poverty.
But walking in, you are met with a couple of surprises. The modern buildings might still be a building site, but the courtyards are being elegantly landscaped – in one case into a map of the world, though the banana tree planted in Africa died during the winter.
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