Studio News - September 2025
Hi Dancers,
How is it already the end of September and how do I still have so much to tell you?!
Chookas to our 6P Dancers in ‘A Chorus Line’!
Local theatre company Free-Rain are presenting ‘A Chorus Line’, at The Q from 30 Sept - 19 Oct 2025. A huge congratulations to the 6P dancers who are involved in the production - Imogen Baggoley, Caitie Charles, Charles Noble, and our very own teacher (and one of our Claras in this year’s Nutcracker), Jess Charles! To celebrate our students’ achievements, we have just finished running a chance to win a double pass through our social media pages. Congratulations to the winner, Ashleigh Sorenson! Enjoy the show!
If you’d like to support your fellow students, you can grab tickets here. I’d like to organise a group booking for us all to see the production and support our fellow dancers! The 18th of October at 7:30pm is the closing Saturday - so if you’d like to attend together (and possibly even do a group dinner before) please send me an email!
Special Offer for 6P Dancers - Recovery Lab Braddon
We love building new partnerships in our community, and the Recovery Lab Braddon is offering you lucky dancers a complimentary 30-minute compression boots session.
Other services they offer are:
Innovative Recovery Modalities for Dancers
Private Infrared Sauna: Encourages deep relaxation, improves flexibility, and supports detoxification.
Ice Bath: Helps reduce inflammation, muscle soreness, and speeds up recovery after intense rehearsals or performances.
Compression Boots: Enhance circulation and ease muscle fatigue in the legs—ideal for dancers constantly on their feet.
NuCalm: A neuroscience-backed tool for deep relaxation and stress relief, supporting mental focus and calmness.
Compex: Electrical muscle stimulation to support muscle activation, recovery, and injury prevention.
Whether you're preparing for a performance or recovering from an intensive rehearsal, their range of modalities is designed to support the unique demands of dancers.
Use the code: 6THPXRL in their app to access the offer.
Merch Giveaway!
Because we are just loving giving things away at the moment, we are also going to be running a competition where you can win a brand new 6th Position MDM dance bag valued at $50! This beautiful custom bag is spacious enough to fit shoes, outfits, and all your class essentials, while still being lightweight and easy to carry. Multiple compartments help keep everything neat and accessible, and the durable material ensures it can be tossed in the car.
To enter, all you have to do is leave a (hopefully nice!) Google review about your class, teacher, studio or our culture at either our City or Mitchell profiles. You can leave reviews at both profiles if you want 2 chances to win! Once you’ve submitted a review, you’ll go into the running, with winners being announced in our next Studio News on 31st October 2025.
If you use an anonymous name on google, or one that we won’t be able to identify you from, you can feel free to let us know when you were the one to leave that particular review via email. If you’ve already left us a lovely review, you’re already entered in the draw! Thanks for believing in what we do.
We are also currently taking orders for the MDM Ava Jacket and Warm-Up Booties which you will (very embarrassingly) see me model on the socials soon. I can confirm the booties leave your feet and ankles very toasty during warm-up and so many of you enquired about the jacket when I wore it to Floriade. It’s warm, cosy, slim-fitting has holes for your thumbs to poke through the sleeves, and best of all: zip pockets!
If you’d like to put in an order for these items (not shipped to your house) then please purchase on the website and then email us if you’d like your name added. I fully support nicknames and special roles so if anyone wants their booties, bag or jacket to say “GTM (Greatest Tapper Ever)” or “OG Sugarplum”, then get brainstorming! If you’d like your jacket or booties to go in the next order, I’ll be submitting it to MDM on 16th October.
Floriade Recap
Congratulations to all of wonderful dancers who performed at Floriade earlier this month! Throughout our half hour performance, we managed to represent almost every style 6P offers, showcasing Hip Hop, Ballet, Tap, Lyrical, Musical Theatre, and our Troupe representing jazz not once but twice.
The performance was a huge success and a ton of fun, so thank you not only to our dancers on stage, but to our teachers who took time out of their weekends and regular shifts to put something together in only five weeks - and most importantly, to those of our community members who came along to cheer! Check out this lovely video recap from Tenisha.
The professional photos will be sent out soon - I just need to sort all 2,500 of them!
Drop-In Classes During Concert Term
Just because you might not be dancing in this year’s concert, doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to dance at all. Including this coming public holiday!
We have done our best to make sure we have at least one drop-in option for all our major dance styles over the 10-week Concert Term, even if it does mean some are open level. Please note, these classes still require a three-student minimum as always to cover our running costs.
A big thank you to those teachers who take on additional hours when we run these:
Daytime classes including Ballet & Conditioning on Wednesdays at Mitchell, Lunchtime Ballet on Thursdays at Northbourne, Express Lunchtime Ballet & Conditioning on Fridays at Northbourne and Silver Swans on Tuesdays, Fridays & Saturdays will continue as drop-in.
Pre-Pointe and Ballet Conditioning on Wednesday and Thursday evenings at Studio 1, Mitchell will continue to run as drop-in.
All weekend classes including Pilates for Dance, Ballet, Pre-Pointe, and RAD classes will continue to run as drop-in at all studios.
Leah is teaching an Open-level Tap class on Wednesday evenings at Studio 2, Mitchell.
Maddi and Astrid are teaching an Open-level Jazz class on Thursday evenings at the Northbourne Studio.
New Drop-In Pointe Options
As well as the classes above, there will be some changes made to our drop-in pointe classes, to ensure everyone can keep their technique up.
Tatiana’s Thursday Lunchtime Open-level Ballet Class will be adding an additional 30 minutes of pointe work after class. And Saturday’s Pointe Class will allow students of all levels, to ensure there is a drop-in option for pointers of all levels. Tatiana will still keep the focus on beginners but offer harder options for more advanced students if they attend.
Cancellation Policy
As you would be aware, 6th Position has always held a policy of requiring a minimum number of three students in order to run our classes. In the past, our teachers have tried to leave it as late as possible before cancelling to allow students up until the last hour before to sign up. However, we are aware that this can make it difficult for students to adequately plan their day with classes being cancelled too late.
So from now on, our teachers will be cancelling classes 4 hours ahead if the minimum numbers are not met by this time. This is in line with the late cancellation policy for our students - so nice and easy to remember! Please ensure you sign up ASAP for all classes to ensure they have the best chance to run.
Ballet Repertoire Courses
Elementary to Advanced
Our students have been having a great time learning classic repertoires on Friday nights from our wonderful staff members, and this month we have an exciting new guest teacher: Belle Smalley!
With over 20 years of international experience, Vaganova training, and a career performing alongside some of the world’s finest dancers, Belle brings extraordinary insight into the worlds of both classical repertoire and character dance. Belle has performed full classical productions under the direction of the ballet master of the Marinksy Theatre, Vyacheslav Khomyakov, including The Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, La Corsaire, and many more. She has also toured with Kharkiv Choreographic College and the Ukranian National Opera.
For this repertoire workshop, Belle has chosen one of the most iconic moments in La Bayadère — the Confrontation Scene between Nikiya and Gamzatti (Act II).
Students will begin with a targeted Vaganova floor warm-up and a quick barre before moving into the dramatic scene. This piece is a masterclass in ballet mime, characterisation and silent storytelling — a chance to explore the artistry and nuance usually reserved for the grand stages.
We highly suggest signing up for the full four week course to get the most out of this! You will be working in pairs so grab your ballet bestie and come be dramatic together!
Beginners to Advanced Beginners
Don’t worry beginner students, we haven’t forgotten about you! Leah is back on Thursday nights in the term break for RAD to offer a chance to learn one of the most famous variations known in the ballet world: La Esmeralda!
In this two-week course, students will learn and refine the solo variation you’ve probably watched 100 times on youtube and social media! Combining classical technique with character style, the solo features quick footwork, strong balances, and tambourine work. This extended format gives dancers more time to build confidence and polish both the steps and performance quality. It will of course be adjusted to a beginner level to ensure you feel most confident to participate!
As always with either of these courses, if you’d rather just drop in on a casual basis, class passes will be accepted for these too. We will film the performances in the final week.
RAD Classes
Speaking of class passes, our new RAD levels will now be accepting all sign-ups using all drop-in passes, rather than requiring a single class pass. These classes will remain with the drop-in format until next year, when they will lock down for students to work towards exams.
While Discovering Repertoire, Grade 7 and Advanced 2 are taking a little break for the school holidays (two weeks), Caitlin is very kindly still running Grade 3 (including the public holiday) given this class started a little later than the other levels. Thanks Caitlin!
Farewell Noah
Sadly as I mentioned in the previous studio news, we are losing another of our wonderful teachers in Noah Laing. If you’d like to farewell Noah, you can come to say your goodbyes at 5:30pm on Sunday the 5th of October at Akiba. Save the date and come grab a drink!
Changes to Northbourne Parking
In more incredibly frustrating news for our Northbourne Studio students, there will be another change to the parking situation.
The new Lyric Theatre will commence construction in mid-October, and whilst it means big ballets can eventually come back to Canberra, it sadly means the closest (and sometimes free) car park will be closed mid-October.
According to Access Canberra:
More than 5,000 car parking spaces remain available across the city, with free parking Wednesday to Sunday evenings from 5:30 pm at nearby public car parks. Additional car parks will also be available nearby, including 280 spaces in the newly opened Nangari Street car park and the re-opened spaces in the City Hill car park with the completion of Raising London Circuit.
Of course, there’s also still The Canberra Centre and with most classes starting at 6:15pm you only pay $3 to park after 6pm. And still nice and close, is the Magistrate Courts carpark which used to be free and the became privately owned. A photo of the parking rates are below (thanks Maddie!)
We appreciate your continued support through this time, and completely understand how frustrating these changes can be. This just furthers my resolve to one day have north and south locations for 6P Studios!
As always, if you’d like to organise car-pooling arrangements, or walking buddies to farther carparks/public transport options, please feel free to email us or leave a comment on the pinned post in our Dancers and Prancers Facebook group, and we will do our very best to assist you in any way we can.
Thanks everyone, and as always if anyone has any questions, please get in touch!
Anouska