I ask Elizabeth Spence, President of the Cambridge Ballet Club, to explain her love of dance. Elizabeth sees dance as “a kind of art form a way of expressing myself.” She argues that it is “very much creative,” suggesting that despite the physical and technical sides of ballet, accomplished ballerinas must also possess a strong stage presence.

I am intrigued to hear Elizabeth’s perspective on how ballet and other dance fits in with theatre and its other more usual forms, such as opera. She agrees that traditional ballet is perhaps analogous to opera, but suggests that operas, often in Italian or German, can be “even harder to understand. If there’s no language at all, it’s universal.”

But while the occasional touring production visits the Junction, Mumford theatre, or the Corn Exchange, the Cambridge dance scene remains limited in scope. Elizabeth suggests a practical reason for this which I have never considered: to put on a dance of physical theatre production, you not only need a large stage, but plenty of room in the wings. Venues like the ADC are just not suited to dance productions.

Nonetheless, Elizabeth hopes more dance shows might in future find their way to Cambridge. She gives an example of a tiny theatre near her hometown where a professional company performed beauty and the beast: “I know it’s possible!”

Elizabeth has a lot to say about ballet stereotypes. Although the ballet club consists of far more women than men, they have some excellent male dancers and an inspiring male teacher, Mark Swann, who used to dance for European ballet.

“Actually doing ballet isn’t ‘girly’ at all,” argues Elizabeth. “It’s tough physically; it improves the posture and your core strength. It’s not just about looking elegant!”

I ask Elizabeth’s opinion of Black Swan and the media’s recurrent tendency to link ballet to issues of stress and mental health. Elizabeth didn’t particularly like the Black Swan as she didn’t think it was realistic: “From my personal experience, ballet has always been friendly and supportive.”

She believes ballet at Cambridge is particularly far from the stereotype, as dancers don’t work towards exams: “I suppose the only conflict would be with yourself – if you want to push yourself further, then it can get frustrating.”

Having already discussed whether she considers it a sport or an art (for Elizabeth, it has the physical toughness and benefits of the sport, it is undoubtedly an art), I asked whether ballet has the same stress-busting effect of other sports. “Yes, definitely, definitely!” Is her enthusiastic response. “Concentrating on the movements your body’s doing, listening to the music, taking time out from everything else – but also the exercise itself.”

When discussing the ballet club annual production, she predicts that it’ll be a “sell-out”: “Of course, if you’re hoping for excellent acting, you’re not going to have that. It is more pantomime than anything else, because everything so overacted.”

There are constraints, too, on the sort of production the club can choose. “We have to be realistic about how good we are. Everybody wants to do Swan Lake but on the practical side we can’t afford that many tutus and on the artistic side it would have to be absolutely perfect,” she tells me.

Elizabeth is fully aware of the aspects of ballet that can put people off, saying she has known people to “get halfway through a ballet and ask why no one was talking.” She suggested it “helps to read the synopsis before,” highlighting the difference between ballet and today’s usual entertainment of TV and film where “you’re so used to having everything explained to you.”

Elizabeth’s advice is to just enjoy the dance, without worrying about what’s next; she argues that with music and the artistic beauty of the movement, “everyone can get something from it.”

The CU Ballet Club are holding auditions for solo roles in the Lent term show on Saturday 16th of November.