We are super excited to be planning our return to the studio and are now taking registrations for classes. Emails have been sent out today with further information. Cannot wait to see you all!

It is now a year since we had to close the studio. Since then we have had Zoom classes, outdoor classes, and half Zoom/half Studio classes. One whole year, not an easy task for our teachers or students and their families. We are so proud of you all for not only sticking with it but for making the progress that you have! Keep holding on!

So today ACPA is 25! I cannot believe we have been going that long. I maybe started the school off in 1996, but it is where it is today due to the fantastic team of teachers and employees that have worked with me over the years: your input has made ACPA what it is today and I could not be prouder. Every single child and their families that have come through the school have brought so much fun and laughter into my life.. The support and patience you have shown at all our events is truly amazing. As soon as we can be together we will have the events/parties I had planned to celebrate and allow me to thank you all properly.

We have had a fantastic week back on zoom and have loved seeing so many members of our ACPA family, their pets, toys, wobbly teeth and much more!

We know many students particularly our teenagers have found going back to lockdown and virtual school/activities this week particularly hard. Just to say we are here for you anytime, keep reminding yourself how strong you are. Week one done, you can do this. We are going to remind you of this on our story today. Keep reading them, we are sending you lots of positivity and strength. To our ACPA parents we salute you, this can't be easy.

After the sad news of a second lockdown, we feel that today is a great day to release the film from our Junior Social Distanced Summer School. This was learned entirely on zoom, and the children had one short slot each in small groups to film once the regulations were slightly relaxed. We had been delaying the release of the film in hope that we could eventually get the group all together to film, but weather and restrictions have prevented this. Please watch to the end for a full dose of joy!

We hope that this video brings you some happiness today, and reminds you that brighter days are coming!

Normally each year we try to give the students as many performing opportunities as possible. Unfortunately this year they have all had to be cancelled - Junior Show, Senior Show, Gala Day, Show in a Week, Christmas Concert, visits to care homes, and many guest performances that we get invited along to. These are all such an important part of ACPA and give the students something to work towards and help build their confidence. We are going to share a video from the virtual Christmas light switch on everyday throughout December to show everyone just how far they have come, even throughout lockdown and zoom.

Yesterday our P1-4 Tuesday Jazz/Tap classes got a special treat- filming their Christmas dance at Carnoustie Golf Hotel. These absolute superstars have persevered with Zoom since March due to their usual venue not reopening yet and we are so proud of them! We had the best time seeing all their smiling faces and fantastic Christmas/party clothes!

At the end of August we launched our 2020-21 timetable of approximately 76 classes on zoom. We are delighted to say we are starting off November with only 12 classes still on zoom, 22 classes in groups alternating week about between face to face/zoom and a huge 42 classes being taught face to face every week. We are continuing to do everything we can to try and get every class face to face. We have made huge steps towards some form of normality and if that is now taken away from us we will continue to do everything we can to keep classes going and everyone progressing. We cannot thank everyone enough for sticking with us and supporting us through these crazy times.

We are excited to announce that the wonderful Caroline Deyga will be holding a series of drama classes for all ages at ACPA! Caroline is a West End Actress and Olivier Award nominee as well as a former ACPA student and teacher! Spaces are very limited so make sure to book in quickly!

What a wonderful week! It has been so great having our students back to in person classes. Even if we have to do hybrid Zoom/In-Studio classes to meet Covid-19 regulations, we just love seeing everyone again! Dancing with our friends is the best kind of dancing!

Amy has been with us since preschool and really is a treasured member of our ACPA Family! She has one of the best work ethics we have known, and has been a fantastic role model for our younger students, proving that hard work ALWAYS pays off. Amy has been a hugely valued class assistant and Saturday girl, and we will feel a bit like we are losing a limb this year! However, we are absolutely over the moon to announce that Amy’s dedication and determination has all paid off- she has successfully auditioned to begin her vocational dance training in September at The MGA Academy of Performing Arts! We are so proud of you and can’t wait to follow your training and future career. 

We are delighted to announce that Anya Roncone has been awarded the Granny Mac Award for the 2019-2020 session. The award was set up in memory of Fiona's mum who helped with the younger part of the junior school and was the dance schools biggest supporter. This is our most special junior award and is given to a student who stands out for many reasons including ability, attendance, behaviour, concentration and enthusiasm. Huge congratulations to Anya, we are hugely proud of you!

We normally announce our Junior awards at their show, sadly due to lockdown this has not been possible. We are delighted to announce the following students as very deserving recipients of our 2019-2020 awards. 

Ballet - Ana Pons Henderson and Eva Cecil; Irish - Maisie Brierley; Jazz - Flora Martin-Lyall; Tap - Cara Bushnell; Singing - Freya Dolan; Acro - Kirsty Norrie; Musical Theatre - Poppy Nicoll; Street Dance - Cayla Grant; Contemporary - Ella Smart; Commercial - Ailsa Tracey

This year has definitely ended differently than we had hoped, but we have still had a unique and unforgettable term! New technology, over 420 online classes and an uncountable number of online tutorials, challenges, competitions and activities! We are so thankful to our staff for managing to provide this, and to our ACPA families for continuing to dance with us during this unusual time! We love our ACPA Family. Our summer program will be announced this week, and we will be in touch with details for August enrollment shortly. We can’t wait to get back in the studio and see you all in person as soon as we are able to do so! We will be back stronger than ever before you know it!

Let’s celebrate our 13th week of online dancing, and our final week of term with a fun filled pyjama party week! We are so proud of our students, families and teaching team for powering on through this difficult time!

We would like to wish a huge happy birthday to bbodance who celebrated their 90th Anniversary on Saturday! We have enjoyed being part of this fantastic organisation for over 35 years, and we look forward to many happy years to come.

Please enjoy a small selection of our photos on Facebook from bbodance events and classes throughout the years to celebrate this occasion

With love,

Fiona and the whole ACPA team

Happy Friday everyone! Our ACPA Family Social Dis-dancing video is now live on Facebook and Instagram! If this doesn't put a smile on your face, we don't know what will!

We are loving being able to continue seeing our students online during lockdown, and we feel very lucky to have such a wonderful network of families!

Keep on dancing, and keep on smashing your goals, we will all be back together before we know it!

Life is about perspective. We are choosing to find the good things in our current situation. As well as still getting to see all our favourite faces on Zoom everyday, lockdown has provided our teachers with more opportunity to learn! We are so excited that Eilidh and Beth are now qualified in Level 1 and 2 of Alixa Flexibility! They have completed 2 courses now with Alixa Sutton- world renowned expert in injury prevention and safe stretching technique. We can’t wait to pass our new knowledge onto all our students!

I have left a box outside studio in Terrace Road in response to this post from Debbie McNeill, please donate if you can. 'We the nurses here in Ninewells are so grateful and delighted to get donations of pizza, donuts, hand cream, etc etc. It’s so lovely and kind and generous. And needed! So... I was thinking, the patients in the wards do not have visitors to do their washing or bring them essentials needed daily.

So...any businesses, large or small, global, national or local, who would like to donate, for the patients, ALL TOILETRIES, NEW PANTS, SOCKS, JAMMIES, NIGHTIES etc. we the nurses would be so grateful on our patients’ behalf.

Now that we have had time to process our closure we are onto the next project- ACPA Online!

We have created a separate private Facebook group where our teachers will be posting links to lots of activities for all ages in all genres. We hope this helps keep everyone busy and keeps our technique and fitness in good condition! We also hope this brings a bit of sunshine and joy to our ACPA Family during this stressful time and gives you a safe place to interact!

Keep an eye out for daily challenges, Zoom Classes, pre-recorded exam practice classes and lots more!

It is with a heavy heart that I have taken the decision to close classes from tonight until further notice. I had decided to try and keep going until the schools closed but I feel in light of today's advice that the sensible thing to do is stop now. Many of us have vulnerable people in our lives and it is important that we protect them as best we can. I need to also look out for my amazing staff too. We are currently designing many online classes/activities and will be in touch about this as soon as we get it set up and options of private lessons. Please look after yourselves and like I said earlier if there is anything we can help with, you just shout. Fiona

 We are thrilled to announce that Louise is now a permanent member of our ACPA Team!

Louise was one of the very first students to attend ACPA back when it was still Fiona Forbes School of Dance, and attended all through school, including sitting senior level dance examinations and assisting with classes.

Louise will now be undertaking various tasks including running our shop ‘The Dance Store’. Hopefully you will all get your orders on time now

We are so pleased to have such a wonderful member of our ACPA family join the team! Feel free to approach Louise with any questions at all and she will do her best to help or pass on a message!

What a fantastic day! We had the amazing Mark Hindle in the studio today providing workshops based on repertoire from The Lion King. Mark provided excellent technical tuition as well as fun and creative rep! We are so proud of all our wonderful students

Our Monday Pre school class took a visit to Braehill Lodge Care Home this week to meet and perform for the residents! What a lovely way to spend an afternoon!

Sisterhood have been invited back to sing at this fantastic event again this year. Hope to see lots of you there!

And just like that, Senior Showcase 2019 comes to a close! A huge well done to our entire cast and team, you were outstanding. Every year you blow us away. Thank you to everyone who helped out in any way- we couldn’t do it without you. Until next year! #acpafamily

Some of our Junior Training Program Students have been lucky enough to perform on stage today with TIMELESS THEATRE PRODUCTIONS in their fantastic touring show ‘Memories Are Made of This!’ We are so proud of these beautiful girls, learning the routines with us in the studio in 2 rehearsals then staging them on show day!

We had a great workshop today with Murray Grant, director at The MGA Academy of Performing Arts

in Edinburgh! Our students were put through their paces in a musical theatre jazz class, followed by some fantastic advice in a question and answer session on life at a vocational college and the performing arts industry! Thank you Murray!

Who said you can't get teenagers out their beds in the morning! 7am PBT class at ACPA. Breakfast provided! Proud of our driven, hardworking students!

Welcome back ACPA Family!

Today is the start of a year full of excitement and opportunity for all of our students! Today we finally put into practice our new timetable, multiple venues, new teachers, new classes and new database system! Just a polite reminder to park further away and walk along to the studio- there is very little parking available and lots of cars dropping off cause too much congestion on Terrace Road. The shop will be open after school each day, but please be aware that it may be busy and we may need to order in your uniform. We hope both our returning students and new students have a wonderful experince this week! We will see you all very soon!

The Dance Store is now open for fittings! We will be here until 7pm tonight and again 3-7pm on Monday 12th. Pop in to get all your shoes and uniform for the new term, or just for a wee browse of all our new items! We will be posting over the next week about the importance of having the correct uniform and why you should get it professionally fitted! 

That’s a wrap! We couldn’t be more proud of all the students who took part in our Senior Show In A Week 2019. Every single one of them has stepped outside of their comfort zone and made new personal achievements. The new friendships and the complete support for each other as a team has been wonderful to watch. As for our graduating students- good luck with your new adventures, come and visit us soon!

New class alert! We have been enjoying our Progressing Ballet Technique classes so much over the past year, and have seen such huge progress in our students! So, we have decided that it isn't fair to limit this wonderful program to school age students. Starting in August 2019, we have created a PBT inspired Adult Ballet Fitness class! Get in touch for more information!

Contemporary classes are coming back to ACPA! We are so excited to announce the return of contemporary with our new teacher, the incredible Daniel Navarro Lorenzo! We feel so lucky to have Dan with us and we just know he will bring something fantastic to ACPA! Classes are available from P4+, starting back in August!

We have had such a fun week at our Junior Show In A Week! At our busiest ever Junior Show In A Week, students learned pieces from Matilda the musical, Frozen and Aladdin to name a few! So many laughs and lots of leaarning too!

What a great first round of auditions for our Advanced, Foundation, and Junior Training Programs! This year we have had a record amount of interest and we can't wait to see what the next year brings! Super work everyone!

Our Intermediate Street Dance Crew had a great time today at the UDO Scottish Street Dance Championships! What a great experience, we are so proud of them as always! And great work from our fantastic teacher Kalubi too!

It's a wrap! 

One Principal

Six teachers

41 dance/singing numbers

Two theatre technicians

Numerous Helpers

250 Performers

Just under 1000 Costumes

Almost 1000 people in Audience

Several Webster Theatre front of house staff

So proud of everyone involved!

Fiona is actually the Scottish Representative for bbodance. Yesterday she attended a lovely Regional Representatives meeting at bbodance HQ. Here they are together with Chairman Nic Espinosa and CEO Robin Bloor.

Our students have just had the most amazing week at Elmhurst Ballet School, Birmingham for bbodance Dance Days 2019. Such a great opportunity to learn from so many fantastic tutors. We are super proud of them all! Fiona, Eilidh and Beth enjoyed catching up with other teachers from around the UK as well as plenty of great CPD sessions.

Our Advanced, Foundation and Junior Training Program students all attended the Can You Dance? 2019 regional  Glasgow convention today! Another day of classes with fantastic industry professionals. Our ATP students also took part in the schools competition and we were blown away by their incredible performance! We can't wait for next year already!

Our amazing Sisterhood senior singing group have been busy once again these last few weeks! Always doing us proud!

Sisterhood took part in the annual Arbroath and District Music Competitive Festival last week and came 1st in their section

They also performed at the SCDA Angus District One Act Play Festival and received some wonderful feedback from the festival’s judge!

Keep up the great teamwork Sisterhood!

Something exciting is happening at ACPA!

We will very soon be an official Acropad centre!

We cannot wait to use this as a tool to help take our fantastic students to the next level in their training!

It’s a flashback Friday here at ACPA! Believe it or not, this is a picture of the whole school taken around 1997/1998, back when it was known as the Fiona Forbes School of Dance- we have certainly grown since then! We would love to hear from all our past students and see what they are up to now! #acpafamily

Today Fiona is attending a bbodance Teacher course to learn the brand new Grade 6 Syllabus! She will be taking along one of our new Grade 6 students, Emily, to demonstrate and learn the new work. We can't wait to start teaching it very soon!

We are super excited to announce that Progressing Ballet Technique classes will be coming soon to ACPA! Fiona, Eilidh and Beth are starting the year off strong with a new certification! PBT is an internationally renowned program created to help develop understanding of core stability, weight placement, alignment, and depth of muscle memory.

Lots of our students are performing throughout the day at the 2018 Carnoustie Christmas Light Switch On and Street Festival! We can't wait to get involved and show our community what we have all been working on this year!

Our senior singing group SISTERhood have been invited along to sing as part of the Christmas Musicale organised by Carnoustie Rotary Club! Tickets can be purchased from MacDougall’s Newsagent in Carnoustie!

Our gorgeous Mini Movers and Pre-schools are all set for some surprise performances at Carnoustie Golf Links Christmas Shopping Events over the next few weekends! Nip in and see them if you have the time!

Exciting news everyone! Our fun and informal adult tap class is finally back! Monday evenings from 8.30pm-9.15pm at Carnoustie Leisure Centre, starting from Monday 19th of November. Bring all your friends along- all abilities and ages welcome! It’s always a good giggle!

This week we said a very sad goodbye to our wonderful teacher Rachel! Rachel is off to share her talents with the other side of the world, travelling around New Zealand for a few years. She will be greatly missed by everyone at ACPA and whilst we can't wait for her return visit already, we hope she has an amazing time! We love you Rachel! #ACPAfamily

We have just recovered from the madness of Senior Showcase 2018! Our students absolutely overwhelmed and amazed us, just as they always do! We already can't wait for next year....

This summer we had an outstanding attendance at both of our annual Show In A Week summer schools. Our Junior school put on a show with pieces from School of Rock, Annie, and Grease to name a few. They even created their own scenes to show everyone. Our Senior school learnt a huge 11 pieces for their performance, from musicals including Spring Awakening, Dear Evan Hanson and Sweet Charity. Every single student that attended both workshops stepped out of their comfort zone and tried something new. We are so overwhelmed and proud of you all, thanks for a brilliant summer!

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Our students spent all this week of the holidays working extra hard to prepare lots of new performance pieces which they performed at Carnoostival music festival in Carnoustie today! Another fantastic performance opportunity and a great chance to get involved in the community. Excellent job girls, you sang and danced beautifully! Even our Little Mini Movers came along to show everyone their Rock a Hula dance!

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Today was Carnoustie Gala day! Our Senior students took part as a walking float in the parade, and our Junior students took part on our lorry float in the parade! Lots of our students also performed some pieces in the main arena at the park too. The weather was wonderful and lots of fun was had by all!

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This week lots of our students are taking graded examinations with bbodance in Ballet, Tap and Modern! Good luck everyone- time to show off all your hard work!

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Lovely photo of some of our students by Jenni Reid Photography.

This week some of our Ballet, Tap and Jazz students have been competing in their second ever competition at Renfrewshire Stage Dance Festival! All the girls worked extremely hard and we are so proud of them for performing so well! 

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Results;

-Novice D Ballet- Freya Ross 1st, Sophie Hamilton 2nd, Molly Boath 3rd, Miran Kelly 5th

 -Novice D Modern - Molly Boath 3rd, Sophie Hamilton 4th, Olivia Withers 6th

-Open E Tap- Jasmine Jules Andrews 6th

-Open E Modern- Jasmine Jules Andrews 4th​​

Today is our annual Junior Showcase and the theme this year is movies and musicals! Our Junior school have been working very hard to learn all their performance pieces and can't wait to show you today. Tickets are still available from the Webster Theatre Box Office.

We have been extra busy this week! Lots of our Advanced Training Program and Foundation Training Program students attend a workshop on Tuesday with Radar Technique creator Rebecca Davies, who came all the way from Australia! They learnt lots of new technical exercises to help them improve their jazz technique. On Wednesday some of our teachers attended a Teacher workshop with Rebecca where they learnt how to teach and implement Radar Technique. We have followed Rebecca online for several years and can't wait to bring elements of Radar Technique into our jazz classes.

Our Advanced Training Program  students attended the Can You Dance? regional Glasgow convention today! They took classes from lots of industry professionals, and also competed in the team section at the end of the day! We are so proud of how hard they all worked today and loved watching them compete alongside some of the top schools in the country! Our seniors received some recognition from the vocational performing arts schools who were scouting today; Jasmine received a free audition, a free summer school and a fully funded 2 year place, all from different vocational schools, and Kate and Hanna also received a free summer school. 

Our senior singing group, Sisterhood, took part in the Arbroath and District Competitive Music Festival at the Webster Theatre today. They entered into the Junior Choir (non-school) category and came 1st! Well done Sisterhood, a fantastic achievement!

We are excited to announce that ACPA is officially Acrobatic Arts qualified! Beth and Fiona attended travelled to England to complete the course last week, and both are now fully certified. We can't wait to bring some Acro classes to ACPA and to provide more new skills to our students. We love professional development for teachers!

We have had a great weekend with some of our Ballet, Tap and Jazz students at our first competition, the Renfrew Supreme Championships. It was a very difficult competition to start off with and they weren't fazed at all. Savana gained 5th place in the Babies 5 and under Classical section and Maisie gained 5th place in Babies 6 year old Cabaret section. Kate got to the Senior Ballet semi final and Jasmine got to the Senior Modern semi final. All the rest of our girls worked extremely hard in their qualifying dance classes. We are so very proud of them all!

Last night was the annual singing concert held by Beth-Louise Forbes Singing! Beth teaches our singing groups and musical theatre classes at ACPA so our students got to go along and perform alongside Beth's private singing students at Panbride church in Carnoustie! It was a wonderful night full of song and spirit!

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Lots of our students came along today to perform at the Carnoustie Christmas light switch on and street festival! It was a wonderful event and lovely to see so many people in the community out to celebrate together. We can't wait for next year already!

Our annual Senior Showcase begins tonight at the Gardyne Theatre in Dundee! The theme this year is Movies and Musicals and our Senior students have been working extraordinarily hard to bring you a wonderful show full of fantastic performance pieces. It's not too late to get tickets from Dundee City Box Office! Tonight and tomorrow night only- come along and show your support!

We are absolutely overwhelmed to announce that we have been awarded the 2017 Angus Community Award at The Scottish Business Awards! It was a complete surprise that we were nominated so we would like to thank everyone who voted for us- ACPA would be nothing without all our amazing students, parents, families, volunteers and staff who make it such a wonderful big community family to be a part of. We are so proud. #acpafamily

Our Sisterhood singing group had the pleasure of being invited to perform at the 10th birthday celebration for the Rape and Sexual Abuse Clinic(RASAC) for Perth and Kinross. The RASAC do great work and it was an honour for our girls to help them celebrate. As always, they did us proud!

Some of our students have had a wonderful few days staying at Elmhurst Ballet School in Birmingham this week for the annual bbodance days. Our students got to take lots of classes with guest teachers and professional performers alongside other students from all over the world. At the end of the camp they put on a performance in Elmhurst's very own theatre- Great job girls!

We were thrilled to hear that our Seniors were awarded 'Best Walking Float' in this year's Gala Parade! One of our fantastic students attended the Carnoustie Gala Committee Award Ceremony last night on behalf of ACPA to collect our award. Great job representing ACPA Fern!

We have reached 1000 followers on Facebook! To thank everyone we will be giving away an ACPA hoodie of your choice from our brand new range, featuring the new ACPA logo! All you have to do to enter is like and share the Facebook post, and comment what you love most about ACPA. The winner will be selected at midday on Tuesday 19th September. Parents may post on behalf of their children and themselves. If you already own an ACPA hoodie we can swap the prize for another new ACPA branded item!

We are delighted to finally release our new logo! We have been re branding here at ACPA and wanted a fabulous new logo to go with our new website and other exciting announcements. Pop into The Dance Store to see our brand new range of ACPA uniform and sportswear!

As this years scholar scheme draws to a close, we are excited to announce that ACPA has had a 100% success rate for the BBO's monthly scholarship scheme in Edinburgh starting in August. We have lots of students who have successfully re auditioned as well as lots of new faces starting after the summer. Congratulations to all of you for your hard work! For anyone who is possibly interested in auditioning for next year, please let us know!

What better way to start the summer than to announce ACPA's very own Advanced Training Program!  Our ATP has been created to offer a further challenge to young aspiring dancers who would like a more intense level of training, which in turn requires a higher level of commitment to dance and ACPA. This can lead to being part of our competition and performance teams as well as many more opportunities. 

Places are limited and available by invite and audition only. Please email your interest to anguscentreofperformingarts@hotmail.co.uk for more information. 

ACPA have just finished taking part in Carnoustie's annual Gala Day celebrations. What a beautiful sunny day! This year the theme for the parade was 'Nursery Rhymes'. Our junior school entered a float themed on the rhyme 'There was an old woman who lived in a shoe' and our senior school joined the walking parade as an array of different characters. We were also delighted to perform in the park again with a street dance number from our Intermediate street crew and a lyrical number from our seniors. 

This weekend we held our annual junior showcase. What a show! We saw amazing performances from all our junior school branches as well as some guest appearances from our adult tap class and senior students. We would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who made this show possible, especially with the personal circumstances surrounding this years show week. We are so very lucky to have such a huge support network of wonderful students, parents and friends. We love our ACPA Family!

Today we had the pleasure of once again performing at the Dundee Rotary Gala! Even the rain couldn't stop us! We had some wonderful performances from our Irish dancers and our Sisterhood singing group. Some of our performers were extra busy as they squeezed this performance in before our two Junior Showcase performances today! What hardworking and dedicated students we have! We are already looking forward to next year!