Last night I was worried, very worried. I had the job of going to watch amateur ballet dancers performing on stage with one of the UK’s top professional ballet companies. A performance like this seemed very risky and I asked myself, “Are they mad?”. Before I tell you the answer, I’ll tell you why I had such big doubts.

The idea of mixing amateur and professional dancers started a couple of years ago when two friends with very different jobs found a way of working together. One of the men had created an award-winning TV series, Musicality, in which amateurs trained to perform in the musical Chicago. The other man runs a charity called Youth at Risk which works with young people who have serious problems with aggression and antisocial behaviour. Although it was a risk, the two men thought they could make a TV programme in which ballet changed the lives of young people with problems.

Their idea was this: if the young people could accept the strict discipline and challenge of ballet training, it would build their self-esteem and give them new confidence in themselves. The first step was to find suitable teenagers to take part and they asked teachers and youth workers already working professionally with young people at risk, to find candidates for the project. Though them 300 young people joined the programme and although about half dropped out, in the end sixty teenagers appeared on the stage in the public performance.

The ballet they chose was Sergei Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, choreographed by Sir Kenneth MacMillan. The story of Romeo and Juliet includes family conflict, the generation gap, gangs, murder, young love and teenage suicide so it is the perfect mirror for the lives of troubled young people in today’s society.

Going back to my original question: “Are they mad?”. The answer is definitely “no”. As soon as the ballet started, my worries disappeared. It was amazing how these unlikely dancers were magically transformed into their characters. At the end of the evening I was left with this thought: “Ballet can change lives”. It is a dancing cure, not taking a cure; it is silent so it stops arguments.