Amy Doughty

Independant Ballet Wales Principal Artist and Educational Officer

Amy's dance training began in Adelaide, Australia and continued in Melbourne where she received her Solo Seal (R.A.D) and 'Diploma in Dance'. She has danced a wide variety of roles in her professional career with Independent Ballet Wales including Juliet and Mercutio in 'Romeo and Juliet', Kate in 'The Taming of the Shrew', Aurora in 'The Sleeping Beauty' and Ophelia in 'Hamlet'.

She became Ballet Mistress to the company in 2001 and Educational Officer in 2003. Amy regularly teaches internationally and throughout the UK and was delighted to be asked to become patron of Counterpoint School of Performing Arts.

"After first teaching for the Counterpoint School of Performing Arts in 2003 I was very pleasantly surprised at the standard of the young dancers that were being trained there. They were dedicated, disciplined, hardworking and all had a passion and love for dance which is not always such a common thing to see. All of the students had developed a strong and clean ballet technique and were very able in every capacity, from classical ballet, to jazz, to singing.

Returning in 2005, I saw that all of these attributes had strengthened and real quality dancing was being produced at Counterpoint. Not only were the dancers quick and very promising but they thoroughly loved to dance there. I am honoured to be asked to be patron of Counterpoint School of Performing Arts and myself, and Independent Ballet Wales look forward to working more with this school in the future".

Yuri Demakov

Yuri Demakov is Artistic Director of Swansea Ballet Russe, directing as well as dancing in all of its productions - mainly character roles but also Hans (Giselle), Von Rothbart (Swan Lake) and Bacchus (Walpurgisnacht from Faust) among other solo roles. He has recently triumphed with his interpretation of the Stepmother in Ballet Russe's new production of Cinderella.

Trained at the Bolshoi Ballet School in Moscow, Yuri joined St Petersburg Academic Ballet Theatre where he danced many leading roles for choreographer Leonid Yakobson. Yuri joined Ballet Russe in 1998 and is very much the core of the company, adding dignity, masculinity and an offbeat sense of humour to his performances.

On being invited to be Patron of Counterpoint School of Performing Arts he said he was greatly honoured to accept and felt very much a part of the community in Swansea where he has made his home. Both himself and Chikka Temma, a principal dancer with the company, look forward to supporting Counterpoint and working more with Counterpoint students in the future.

Ballet Russe performs in venues all over the UK, taking classical Russian ballet where it would not otherwise be seen and Yuri has mastered the challenging task of adapting the repertoire to suit the often challenging facilities.