LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb 5, 2026--
The Royal Ballet School is heading to Edinburgh this Thursday, 5 February, to host a special day of free workshops for local school students.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260204444362/en/
On Thursday 5 February, more than 70 pupils in Years 3 and 4 from Abbeyhill Primary School and Royal Mile Primary School will take part in insight workshops introducing them to the School’s national Associate Programme.
The sessions will be led by Royal Ballet School alumna and former Principal of Scottish Ballet, Bethany Kingsley-Garner, and supported by Emily Gibbs, Associates and Primary Steps Legacy Lead at The Royal Ballet School.
Delivered in partnership with Dance Base, which also celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2026, the workshops will take place in Dance Base’s award-winning studios in central Edinburgh.
Three one-hour workshops will run throughout the day — 9.30–10.30, 10.45–11.45, and 13.30–14.30 — all accompanied by live music.
The free sessions will provide local primary school students with access to high-quality creative ballet training and a unique opportunity to experience a typical Associate class at The Royal Ballet School.
The School is committed to widening access to classical ballet through its national Associate Programme, which offers high-quality ballet training to students aged 8 to 18 at centres across the UK. Around 90% of students who enter the School come through its seven national Associate centres.
The Royal Ballet School has delivered its Junior and Mid Associate programmes at Dance Base since January 2024, offering children of all backgrounds, experiences, and means the opportunity to engage with dance closer to home.
Emily Gibbs said:
“The Royal Ballet School is committed to creating opportunities for children and young people across the UK to engage with dance. As part of our centenary celebrations, these insight workshops give pupils in Years 3 and 4 the opportunity to experience what it’s like to take a ballet class with the School. The sessions encourage creativity, build confidence, develop musicality, and offer a deeper understanding of this inspiring art form.”
Event details
Date: Thursday, 5 February 2026
Workshops: 9.30-10.30, 10.45-11.45, and 13.30-14.30
Location: Dance Base, 4-16 Grassmarket, Edinburgh, EH1 2JU.
About The Royal Ballet School
The Royal Ballet School was founded in 1926 by Dame Ninette de Valois and is one of the world’s leading centres for classical ballet training. The School is the UK’s foremost institution for professional ballet education and an internationally recognised centre of excellence.
Graduates go on to professional careers with The Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, and other leading UK and international companies. Admission is based purely on talent and potential, with around 90% of students receiving financial support.
The School’s national Associate Programme provides high-quality ballet training for students aged 8 to 18 at centres across the UK and plays a vital role in widening access to classical ballet.
In 2026, The Royal Ballet School celebrates 100 years of excellence, with a future focused on expanding opportunity, access, and artistic leadership.
© 2024 The Royal Ballet School. Photographed by Photography by ASH.
MILAN, Italy (AP) — Annika Malacinski remembers the moment the door to the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics was slammed shut.
On a flight from Munich to Denver, she bought airplane Wi-Fi to join a conference call with the International Olympic Committee, certain that Nordic combined competition would at last be opened up to female athletes.
“Then the decision came: ‘no.’ No explanation, no discussion. Just ‘no,’ and then they moved on to the next topic,” she told The Associated Press from her training base in Norway. “I cried for eight hours straight on that flight. When I arrived in Denver, my eyes were swollen shut. It felt like my world had crashed.”
That was in June, 2022. And despite an ongoing campaign led by Malacinski, an athlete from Colorado now aged 24, her sport remains the last to exclude women – even as Milan Cortina is showcasing the highest level of female participation in Winter Games history at 47%.
Malacinski is a frequent top-10 finisher at elite competitions in the sport that combines ski jumping and cross-country skiing and demands rigorous year-round training.
Her younger brother, Niklas, will compete in the men’s event for the United States and she plans to travel to northern Italy to cheer him on.
“It’s bittersweet. I know how hard he works, and he absolutely deserves it,” Malacinski said. “I do the same sport as him. I jump the same ski jumps and ski the same courses. The only difference is that I’m a woman.”
Female skiers racing in Seefeld, Austria, last weekend protested the exclusion by raising their poles overhead to form an X.
Men have competed in the Nordic combined since the first Winter Games more than a century ago, at Chamonix, France in 1924.
The sport is now at risk of being removed from the program at the next Winter Olympics in 2030. The IOC says Nordic combined has struggled to attract participation from enough countries and draws a limited television audience.
Women were excluded entirely from the first modern Olympics in 1896. When they were allowed to compete in Paris four years later, participation was limited to a handful of sports, including tennis, archery and croquet.
Track and field opened to women only in 1928, at the Amsterdam Games – but restrictions were imposed around beliefs of female fragility. Although the 800 meters was originally included, it was later withdrawn for more than three decades.
The first women’s Olympic marathon did not take place until 1984 in Los Angeles – 88 years after the race inspired by an ancient Greek battle debuted.
Nearly all differences have since been eliminated, though some disparities remain. At the Summer Olympics, women compete in the seven-event heptathlon, while men contest the 10-event decathlon.
At the Winter Games, progress arrived even later. Ski jumping was off-limits to women as recently as the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and was introduced four years later at Sochi.
Cross-country skiing’s distance overhaul is the most recent and sweeping change. At Milan Cortina, men and women will race the same distances across all events for the first time in Olympic history.
Previously, the longest women’s race topped out at 30 kilometers, compared with 50 for men. Both will now have 50-kilometer mass start races — like at Nordic Ski World Championships last year.
Malacinski says she will continue her campaign for inclusion, now focused on 2030 Winter Games in the French Alps.
“I’m a very gritty person,” she said. “If I put my mind to something, I know I can do it.”
AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
FILE - Annika Malacinski of the United States soars through the air during the women's individual compact NH 5km competition at the Nordic Combined World Cup in Ramsau, Austria, Saturday, Dec.16, 2023. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader, File)
