Darren Darton

Darren Darton was a relatively late comer to
The Academy Performance Ensemble (then
known as Thurrock Academy ) but from the
very moment he joined in 1997 he had a
massive impact on the guard's progression.
Darren was the youngest member of TA when
he joined, only 17 years old, and had
previous experience in music only. His talent
was very quickly noted as he picked up
techniques very quickly and was soon
standing out as an exceptional performer.
But this wasn't where his talents stopped.
Darren was extremely creative and was soon creating brand new choreography and routines and helping our current designers in choreographing our routines. He continued to compete with the senior group as well as create brand new innovative routines and teach other members of the group. In his spare time he took on new techniques coming over from the Americans and used these to develop even better routines and tricks to impress the UK audiences.

In 2002 our group brought in professional staff from the US and Darren worked with these designers. He put together a basics routine to bring all our members up to the same standard as the Americans. He also created the first 1/3 of our show that season; we went on the win the British Championships that year. After this he became well known around the circuit for his creative abilities.  Smaller and younger groups started asking him to help teach their young groups, this included Black Knights, Worthing Moonlight, Reflexions, Deep Purple and Tallagh Festival in Ireland , to name just a few. Darren freely gave up his spare time to teach these young children new routines to help them compete at the top end of their classes. Some of these groups paid Darren to design and choreograph new routines from scratch, all of this money Darren donated back to The Academy as fundraising for our much larger groups.

In 2002 we also started a Junior unit, who also won the British Championships. In 2003 we created another group, a middle group (A class) level, Darren designed and choreographed and taught the A class group & Senior Group, as well as performing in the senior group and teaching 2 other groups that season. Our senior group in 2003 competed in the World Championships, placing 19 th out of 450 in the world. Our rehearsal schedule was extremely demanding but Darren still found time to teach our younger group and other younger groups.

In 2004 Darren auditioned for one of the top Colourguards in the world, based in the USA , and after successful auditions he moved to the states for 6 months to achieve his life time dream of coming in the top 3 in the world. However, right up until the week he flew out he still taught and designed our younger groups show as well as write and teach 2 other young groups shows. Whilst in America he embarked on a demanding and totally exhausting rehearsal schedule with one of the top groups in the world. But he still managed to find the time and energy to teach a young high school group in America . This young group won the world championships in their class; Darren also fulfilled his dream and came 3 rd in the world in the top class.

Coming back to the UK Darren still writes for 4 young groups, 2 of our own young groups and 2 others. On top of this he writes and designs and teaches our senior group as well as also training every day to compete proffesionaly as a Latin Dancer. All this on top of having a full time job in London !

His dedication to teaching young children, both in our groups and ac ross the country, and in deed in the USA as well is incredible. The kids he teaches in our groups are all at a level far exceeding their age range and are leaps ahead of their competitors in technique and ability. The kids he teaches at the moment are by far the stars of our activity in the future. He dedicates each and every spare minute he has to teaching these young children to be the very best of the activity and the very best they can achieve.

And if that wasn't enough, he commits 100% to fundraising for our groups. He caters free of charge for all our main functions, putting on 3 course meals at Christmas (for 70 people!) and hot buffets for our presentation evenings. All single handedly cooked and prepared by him. Where he finds the time to do this I do not know! On race nights he does all the totes taking, or sells raffle tickets at discos. Very often he will be up until 2 or 3am in the morning before competitions, making uniforms for the children, or adding accessories to them. Without fail every year he will always make special presents for all the children he teaches from our groups before they compete in the British Championships .

I could continue to list all the things he has done for our organization and for young children! I'm sure the above is enough to show how dedicated this person is to teaching our groups and fundraising and dedicating so much of his time to this organization. Without him I know this organization would not be at the forefront of this growing activity, we certainly would not have award winning routines or the extremely talented members we have at the moment. And we would struggle to host such successful fundraiser without his tireless energy and dedication. But above all, the children have amazing respect from him and aspire to achieve the levels he achieved whilst performing. He is a much loved staff member by all the children, parents, supporters and staff.