Jade leaps into action for show
THE final year of school is stressful for any youngster but when it could be watched by millions of people on television and the internet the pressure is really on.
But Jade Heusen, a pupil at Elmhurst School of Dance, in Edgbaston, was more than ready to handle the extra tension and extra work that being part of a documentary entailed.
The 19-year-old, who has just completed three years in the sixth form at the school, has been part of a Channel 4 series Year Dot which followed 16 youngsters through a year of being 18 and 19.
As well as a series of television programmes, Jade has also been kept busy with a video diary, blog and social network site which have run all year long.
But the determined dance student has taken it all in her stride.
Jade was offered the opportunity of a bit of television stardom when camera crews filmed at Elmhurst and thought she would be a likely candidate.
She agreed for a number of reasons.
“I thought it would be really exciting to have this year of my life, one which is so important, documented,” she says. “Because so much of ballet is live performance which you cannot retain this seemed like an ideal way to keep hold of memorable occasions.”
But it was a lot of work on top of study, dance practice and auditions for her first job in the arts.
“Basically I was contracted to do some time where the cameras could follow me and I would be professionally filmed,” she says. “But we were also all distributed with a video camera and we had to make video diaries in which we recorded our personal thoughts and ideas. The aim of the programme was to capture a year in the life of a group of young people so you needed to keep doing it all the time.
“We also had to do regular blogs and set up a social networking site where people could get in touch and we could answer any questions they might have or reply to any comments they made.”
Jade had been a student of the Royal Ballet School at White Lodge in London until the age of 16 but then came to Elmhurst to study for three years. The majority of her academic work had been completed by last year but she still had a good deal to do this year.
“It was fantastic to be involved in this project but it was difficult keeping up with the regular blogs and video diaries. I had to work really hard at prioritising to get everything done. It was a bit of a juggling act doing it all. The professional filming side of it was all right but it was keeping up with everything else which was more difficult.”
Nevertheless Jade did so. The latest instalment of the programme is due to be aired later this summer and previous programmes and video diaries can still be seen at the www.yeardot.co.uk website.
And it has been an interesting experience for the youngster.
“It is really nice when people approach you through the social networking and ask for advice about dance,” says Jade. “I have also received some really nice comments from people who have said I have been an inspiration to them. That is something very special.
“When the first programme was on television it was quite a surreal experience. We had done so much by then that I had got used to seeing myself on television but when everyone else sees it, it is a bit strange. I would get calls from friends who were off sick and at home flicking through the channels and had suddenly come across me on television.”
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