DMU students will be dancing in the streets for Commonwealth Games finale


Three students from De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) will be part of a dance spectacular on Sunday to mark the official handing over of the Commonwealth Games from Australia's Gold Coast to Birmingham.

Commonwealth group pic

The Gold Coast 2018 closing ceremony, which is being screened live on BBC2 from 11am on Sunday, will include scenes from Birmingham to start the countdown to it being host city for the games in 2022.

DMU Dance students Hannah Kersley, Emma-Louise Lewis and Charlotte Tidcombe will form part of a troupe of 500 in Birmingham city centre whose showcase routine will be beamed around the world to an estimated TV audience of one billion people.

There will be a total of 2022 performers taking part in the handover event.

The three first years have been practising at Edgbaston Cricket Ground and this week moved to the city centre for dress rehearsals. They say the experience so far has been incredible.

Hannah said: "We are all really excited to be part of this and it has been great to see behind the scenes and understand how such a big event is staged.

"This week we have started full rehearsals in the city centre and the TV production crew have been involved. Then there will be a full dress rehearsal with costumes and make-up.

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"As first year students we know this is a great experience to see how the industry works. It's giving us a real boost and providing us with the motivation and inspiration to work hard and consider what we want to do with our careers."

Hannah, who hails from Leeds, has previous experience of being in the spotlight. She was part of a group called LS8, after their Leeds postcode, who competed in the BBC's Comic Relief does Glee Club in 2013. The group got all the way to the finals.

She said: "I love dance. I'm that person who was dancing before I could walk. It is so expressive and I want to dedicate my career to it, knowing that I don't have to sit behind a desk all day.

"I'm really enjoying the course and can't wait to be pushed even more in the second year.

"In the long run I want to be a choreographer with my own dance school or company. I want to see my own work on stage and be able to say "I made that".

Organisers of the handover ceremony say Birmingham will show itself as a "diverse, young, contemporary city" ahead of hosting the 2022 Commonwealth Games.

Posted on Friday 13 April 2018

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