Changing Lives by Leaps and Bounds
www.leapsandboundsweb.com

There is an enormous cost in both human and financial terms of those young people who behave anti-socially, vandalise, misuse drugs and alcohol and commit crime. Many people's natural emotional reaction is a desire to punish such behaviour. But the real solution is to give them the means and motivation to make a lasting change to the way in which they see and live their lives.

'Leaps & Bounds', a unique and pioneering multi-agency project, are doing just that. It combined powerful personal development and life skills coaching with a demanding regime of ballet training to bring about a radical transformation to the lives of a group of difficult and alienated young people, culminating in a public performance of Sir Kenneth MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet on stage at the Birmingham Hippodrome and (to be) shown on Channel 4.

It was the brainchild of two old friends. Neil Wragg, Chief Executive of the ground-breaking charity Youth at Risk and Roy Ackerman, Creative Director of Diverse TV Productions. Ackerman had created the award-winning series Musicality, in which total amateurs were selected and trained to perform a major role in the West End production of Chicago. He was particularly keen to create a further programme on the same theme based on ballet – but faced a dilemma. It would take years of classical training for ordinary people to go 'en pointe'.

This he mentioned in conversation with Wragg who, coming at it from a different angle, began to ponder a new idea – could ballet help turn round a young life?

Youth at Risk designs and delivers innovative personal development programmes aimed at getting to the very heart of alienated young people's disaffection to create 'breakthroughs' and bring about a fundamental change to their attitudes about themselves and their relationships with the world they live in.

With the enthusiastic support of Ackerman, Wragg set about designing the basic structure of 'Leaps & Bounds'. A programme that, in addition to Youth at Risk coaching, would provide alienated and difficult young people the opportunity to participate in an exciting arts-based project.

It goes without saying that a ballet company prepared to take risks was fundamental to the project and in the Birmingham Royal Ballet Wragg found a willing partner. Education and community work are central to the BRB's artistic vision and in this project it saw the opportunity to take this work several steps further in scale and in terms of involvement of the whole company.