Ballet teacher hangs up her shoes aged 89 as students hail ‘end of an era’

Sheena Gough is 89 years old, but can easily lift her leg in a ballet mud to demonstrate elegant dance movements to her class.

The ballet teacher, who trained in London and Paris, has students who travel hundreds of miles every week for their 90 -minute lessons in Edinburgh.

But now the big Lady has decided to hang her ballet shoes after a 72 -year -old race.

BBC Scotland News joined his last class in the city’s stockbrid area, where his students said it was the “final of an era.”

Sheena enrolled at the Scottish ballet school in Grosvenor Crescent in Edinburgh when she was 14 years old.

At the age of 17, the talent had caught the attention of the dancer and choreographer of English ballet Anton Dolin, who begged his parents to let Olga Preobrajenska teach Bolshoi in Paris.

“Fortunately my parents agreed,” Sheena said.

“I was really quite nervous, my parents took me in the car and left me on someone’s floor in Paris and let me move on.

“It was just a school, she was someone whom famous dancers from all over the world would attend their classes, so it was a bit discouraging.”

Margot Fonteyn, the Royal Ballet Prima Ballerina, was among Sheena’s students in classes, which were carried out in French.

“It was sweet, I remember that I had difficulties with one of the steps. Everything was an adventure,” said Sheena.

But it was when he moved to London that the ankle was wrong while doing tip work, where the dancers act in the tips of their fingers of the feet, and their parents to travel back to Edinburgh while cured.

There he helped with the old Ballet school his recovery.

“And here, I discovered that it was a much happier teaching than acting, and I have never looked back. I’ve been teaching since then,” he said.

Ian Johnston, 60, regularly makes a 200 -mile round trip from Carlisle to join Sheena’s lessons.

First he joined his class when he lived in Edinburgh in 1991. Now he brings his son, Sandy.

“I travel this distance every week due to a child, their classes are inspiring and their teaching style is very exciting,” he said.

Ian contacted the BBC through his voice, his news of the BBC to suggest that we tell Sheena’s story.

“There is no one but teaching like her,” Ian added.

“His classes are notable and rewarding.

“It will be a great nomore shock, but I will hear that the growings in my head and she say:” Where is your face? Where is the union? Where is the emotion? “Every time I do other classes in the future.”

Ian’s son, Sandy, added: “I can’t tell you how much I will miss classes, they are the best I have in my leg and, unlike anything else.

“She doesn’t leave us out with anything, she doesn’t realize everything and knows what you can aim for.

“I’m very sad, he retires because you don’t find many classes like these.”

Sheena said she decided to retire after worrying that she could not remain in apogee.

But she doesn’t plan to rest.

“There is the garden and my house to order,” he said.

“I think I should make it easier for anyone who has to solve it after going.”

Another student, the data scientist Ryan Mcmanus, said it was the end of an era.

The 34 -year -old, who travels more than 100 miles every week for the class, said: “It is the highlight of my weeks every week and have a good time learning to do things and get corrections.”

“I have legs to other classes and what I like about Sheena is that it is very insistent in the foundations: in the correct location, the correct posture, in the correct technique.

“I have seen a permanent improvement in me and it is completely due to its correction, which I really appreciate from a scientific fund myself.

“I had tears in my eyes when the class ended, I am so sad and I have I sincerely I can find someone like her again.”

Tracy Hawkes, a ballet dancer who has the dance studio at St Stephen Street, where Sheen’s classes are celebrated, said the teacher had left a wonderful legacy.

“She is certainly one of the great ladies in Scotland,” he said.

“To have some that have gone through decades of change in style and teaching methods, but it has continued to have bone as a source of all knowledge and experience, having some that are almost 90 that are still doing that is simply surprising.

“I am very proud to have here in the study and it is a very sad day now that it is retiring.”

Some of Sheena’s students have gone to the Royal Ballet, International Ballet and the British ballet.

“One of my former students is about to move to the Scottish ballet and when he heard when he was talking on the phone saying hey private lessons, I will give you tickets to come to see me to dance, you just give me some private lessons,” said Sheena.

“So, it’s meean to be the end, but we’ll see.”