I Passed!!! Grade 6

[Dormouse]

Errr ... Just to keep my mind focused ... I'm taking IDTA Silver in November  I took the Bronze in 2010, and I was going to do Silver the following year, but the date changed, and I was in Canada. Then I had knee operations, and this is the first year I can concentrate on it.

 

I passed, with honours. I've been told I got 95% but I haven't seen the report yet. All five who took a ballet exam got honours, and so did those who did tap.

 

I saw Nutcracker at The Coliseum last night (Yes, I know it opens today, I got two 20.00 tickets to the rehearsal because I'm a friend of the ENB) and we were treated to TWO different couples dancing the Sugar Plum Fairy bit. My ballet school will be performing Nutcracker at The Hexagon in Reading in July, so I was instructed to watch carefully. I don't know what parts I've got yet.

[Fiz]

That's wonderful, Dormouse! Congratulations!

[LinMM]

Well done Dormouse!!

[JCS]

Belated congratulations!

[Kate_N]

Dormouse, your achievements were the subject of conversation at the Christmas dinner table amongst ballet professionals I know - in terms of awe and "I couldn't do that now!" of course. 

 I almost said "Oh, I know her!" and mentioned this thread, but thought they might think I was a bit bonkers, if I tried to explain that I "know" you here virtually!     

Edited December 31, 2016 by Kate_N

[LinMM]

Well I had the pleasure of actually meeting Dormouse yesterday....at the ENB Nutcracker workshop at the Coliseum.

 

We all had a great time learning the Spanish dance and then I was introduced in the coffee break.

[Fiz]

It's funny how social media and tv make it seem like you know people. Our youngest dd used to watch Monkeyworld all the time. The owners, Alison and Jim Cronin, rescue abused monkeys from the pet trade or holiday photographers. Jim died very suddenly a few years ago. We were in Dorset when it was his memorial service at Monkeyworld. We attended and I saw Alison just before it began. I had seen her on tv for many years. I wanted to hug her and tell how sorry we were about Jim's death. It took all my self restraint not to. She didn't know me from any other middle aged women.

[Nicola H]

That is brilliant - well done!

I'm interested in your comment about knee replacement as I have been told that is my next step, but they won't do it yet as I'm "too young" (and at 50 it's about the only occasion I am likely to be described as "too young" these days!). Just wondering how much it has affected you - are you able to do what you would have been able to do before having knee problems, would you say? I'm trying to hold off as long as possible, but if I have it done I would like to be able to continue doing Taekwondo, and I don't know if that's possible, or encouraged.

the 'too young' comment with regard to knee replacements is there isn;t all that much experience with really long duration of implantation and unlike  hip where there is often scope for revision ( especially femoral components  - i've seen  custom femoral components that are  effectively half a femur ... ) 

 

this risk is they do your knee  in your early 50s and in 20 - 25 years time in your mid 70s you are still active  but your  knee prosthesis is beginning to fail   and there;s no salvage  option ... 

[LinMM]

But what if you have never had your knee done and then by your mid 70's you need something because your knee or knees are no longer in good shape .....would you be in a better position? Than someone who had had a replacement before I mean?

 

I'm wondering whether the age makes a difference so surgery would be difficult for an older person anyway.

[Anon2]

Lin arrhriris research have interesting pages about both hip and knee surgery, recovery and revision.

Recovery from the surgery will be dependent on fitness prior to op regardless of age. Weight, muscle strength, general fitness and attitude to recovery all play a huge part in how anyone copes post op.

[Jan McNulty]

Two of my friends have had knee replacements (in their early 70s - they are way older than me!!!!) over the last couple of years.

 

One took it on the chin, we all thought she was over-walking it way too soon but the consultant told her to do what she felt she could and she persisted.  She currently walks up to 9 miles a day!  The other thought it would solve all her problems and stopped doing the exercises the minute she was discharged from the physios.  She still has a lot of problems.

 

I think what Jane has put about the research is spot on and IMHO a positive attitude and determination is a huge help to a successful recovery.

 

What I cannot sometimes understand is why people are kept waiting "because they are too young" when they are already in such pain and have such mobility impairment that they have very little quality of life.

[Nicola H]

<snip>

 

What I cannot sometimes understand is why people are kept waiting "because they are too young" when they are already in such pain and have such mobility impairment that they have very little quality of life.

becasue a revision  is a far more complex  procedure ...  and  there is the risk of it  beeing needed at t just the 'wrong ' time from the point of view of  doing an operation  i.e. where  your peers are  still relatively  well but  starting to be 'old' in the sense  people  really mean it  but  when your physiological reserve has declined which means a longer operation would be more problematic ... 

 

Unfortunately people have a habit of  over estimating their physiological reserve ( or that of parents etc )  and  how the impact of  major surgery or  serious illness in  a previously  'well' ( but teetering on the edge from a physiolgoical  reserve point of view) can mean it becomes  a 'pre terminal ' event...

 

healthcare is an art as well as a science 

 

Ars Longa, Vita Brevis - art is long  , life is short  

 

declared bias/ interest -  I have previously worked as an RN in  specialist rehab  and  dementia care 

Edited January 1, 2017 by mph

[Jan McNulty]

becasue a revision  is a far more complex  procedure ...  and  there is the risk of it  beeing needed at t just the 'wrong ' time from the point of view of  doing an operation  i.e. where  your peers are  still relatively  well but  starting to be 'old' in the sense  people  really mean it  but  when your physiological reserve has declined which means a longer operation would be more problematic ... 

Unfortunately people have a habit of  over estimating their physiological reserve ( or that of parents etc )  and  how the impact of  major surgery or  serious illness in  a previously  'well' ( but teetering on the edge from a physiolgoical  reserve point of view) can mean it becomes  a 'pre terminal ' event...

healthcare is an art as well as a science 

Ars Longa, Vita Brevis - art is long  , life is short  

declared bias/ interest -  I have previously worked as an RN in  specialist rehab  and  dementia care

 

Thanks for the explanation but surely there is a judgement about a person's quality (or lack of) of life too. I'm not talking about jiggly pains here but a lady in her mid 50s who was a keen rambler being reduced to taking 5 minutes to get to the door to open it and needing a wheelchair if she had to struggle more than a couple of hundred yards.

[Nicola H]

Thanks for the explanation but surely there is a judgement about a person's quality (or lack of) of life too. I'm not talking about jiggly pains here but a lady in her mid 50s who was a keen rambler being reduced to taking 5 minutes to get to the door to open it and needing a wheelchair if she had to struggle more than a couple of hundred yards.

if it;s that bad i am suprised they  weren't offering it , but   remote diagnosis / discussion of indvidualcases  is fraught 

[Jan McNulty]

They weren't - the lady had to insist.

[Amelia]

 

Sophie is one of the first transgender students to sit a prestigious Royal Academy of Dance exam.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39555703

[Jan McNulty]

That's lovely Amelia.  Thanks for the link.

[Kate_N]

Anyone's achievement in passing a ballet exam is to be applauded, but that clip is SO full of really sexist assumptions - that only girls do ballet, so if a boy/man does ballet, that means he's a woman? That is very illogical thinking, which embeds harmful gender stereotypes. In most ballet classes I've been in over the last 40 years, men & women do much the same thing. In advanced classes I used to do in Birmingham, the teacher would give the men a slightly different ending for grande allegro & sometimes set pirouettes from second for the men  as part of a pirouette combination in the centre. And we know that most vocational schools will give teens Men's and Women's classes, to work on jumps/turns and pointe respectively.

 

But there is no such thing as "boys' ballet" and "girls' ballet" and it really annoys me when people perpetuate that myth

 

And I think it's necessary to point your feet in ballet? 

 

I think this is a whole load of band wagon jumping. A man can take ballet exams - why does he have to become a woman to do them? And I say this having close colleagues who are transexual, but they just want to get on with their lives and don't claim to be special or pioneering. They're just normal people.

[Colman]

Kate_N, I think you might go an rewatch it, or maybe you saw a different video that I did.

 

A boy (excepting the Trocks) isn't a ballerina: he's a ballet dancer. Traditionally ballet is very gender prescriptive: male dancers are to be manly and strong, female the epitome of femininity. This is quite obvious from the start of the curriculum and the training. The edges might be blurring a bit - though as we've seen about attitudes to boys doing pointe and women doing manly jumpy bits, not always, not everyone - but the gender differences are still encoded and taught (only women do that melting crossed arms thing, do something else!). 

 

There was no assumption I saw that only girls do ballet - and dancing myself and having two sons that dance I'm hypersensitive to those messages - just that Sophie wanted to be a ballerina, an expressly female role.

[taxi4ballet]

Kate, sorry, but perhaps you are missing the point slightly, this person has changed gender and been able to study and take the exam as a female, following the female vocational syllabus - and there is a syllabus difference at that level of training. I don't think that the video suggests in any way that in order to be a ballet dancer then you have to become a woman.

 

No doubt in the fullness of time, a F to M trans person will pass one of the RAD exams following the male syllabus.

[balletbean]

On 4/19/2017 at 16:42, taxi4ballet said:

Kate, sorry, but perhaps you are missing the point slightly, this person has changed gender and been able to study and take the exam as a female, following the female vocational syllabus - and there is a syllabus difference at that level of training. I don't think that the video suggests in any way that in order to be a ballet dancer then you have to become a woman.

 

No doubt in the fullness of time, a F to M trans person will pass one of the RAD exams following the male syllabus.

Hi, I was wondering when or if this video would pop up on this forum and I found the post by accident. 

When the news item was first released on BBC FB page I had quite an informative discussion with many whilst raising many issues concerning the whole feature. 

Why enter a 'novice' pupil into a vocational exam? Why not Grade 6 as the inspirational lady at the beginning of the post did?

No mention of Pointe work, we all know that Pointe work is compulsory for the IF exam, was 'Sophie' exempt? Incl stretching the feet like someone else mentioned, this clip fell well short of that!

Wondering if a simple slip of the tongue by 'Sophie's' mother at a young age (boys becoming ballerinas) has gradually been manifested over the years. 

The marks on the board, are those the average marks for IF or was the teacher just seeking 5 minutes of fame? I am only used to the marks at my DD's ballet school so have nothing to compare against. 

Wondering if 'Sophie' had been encouraged and supported to enter as a boy candidate what mark/grade was awarded?

Now if a male Ballet dancer had been the transgender individual in this video clip, changing roles then a true comparison could be made (if you get my drift).

Finally, where was 'Sophie' hoping to take this new passion in ballet? Hobby/pastime?

Or has her ballet teacher not been realistic with 'Sophie' that be it a male ballet dancer or a female ballet dancer career was being dreamed of that this was never going to happen. I've watched it so many times.

There are many adult men and women out there who attend regular adult ballet classes for pure enjoyment. I didn't quite get where this report was going.

There were just so many unanswered questions. 

PS There are 4 x 15/16yr old boys at my DD's ballet school, like so many boys they are amazing. 

PPS  I am not sure if this has actually done any good for RAD, Personally I was always taught that IF and other Vocational exams are 'Majors' exam in the ballet world. The standard shown, be it boy or girl, fell well short of that. Many non dancers on the BBC page also commented on that point as well. 

 

I am not being sexist or anti transgender just interested to hear what others have to say.

 

Thank you

[Colman]

As a general observation, when you feel the need to qualify your post with a "some of my  best friends are …" or "I'm not being sexist but …" type remark, you should probably revisit it.

 

As for the details, Sophie is on Twitter and you could ask her there. Media reports are generally superficial and useless for details. 

[Moomin]

Surely it wasn't IF taken? Or did I miss that part? I feel the transgender thing is nothing to do with ballet really. Nobody would change gender just because they wanted to dance but a transgender person may well happen to like ballet! It's great that adults take exams but the marking should be exactly the same as for a young person, this is my experience and sorry don't wish to offend but that didn't look like vocational or higher grade standard.

[balletbean]

17 minutes ago, Moomin said:

Surely it wasn't IF taken? Or did I miss that part? I feel the transgender thing is nothing to do with ballet really. Nobody would change gender just because they wanted to dance but a transgender person may well happen to like ballet! It's great that adults take exams but the marking should be exactly the same as for a young person, this is my experience and sorry don't wish to offend but that didn't look like vocational or higher grade standard.

Hi, 

It was IF, quite surprising as Vocational exams are not designed for novice/beginners. Its a very challenging exam for anyone. My concern was for the Pointe section of the exam 

 

I agree with you that all dancers need to be judged equally in exams, age, sexuality, colour, race etc should not be a factor when awarding the grade/marks. From the video I too couldn't see vocational or higher grade standard presented/performed. .

 

It makes no difference to me (hence my comment about not being sexist) when I watch anyone dancing either in a studio or on stage/screen. It's their talents that I watch and hopefully enjoy.   

 

 

[Jan McNulty]

I've just re-watched the clip and it doesn't mention which exam it was.  Have we made an assumption about the grade because of the thread that the clip has been posted in?

 

And we always have to remember that a clip of 1min 40secs could have been the culmination of several hours of filming edited down.

 

 

[Jan McNulty]

I was posting at the same time as ballet bean.  

 

As a matter of interest BB where did you find it was IF?

[BlueLou]

I struggled to see why this story was newsworthy. I can’t recall any other ‘first transgeneder person to ………’ stories, so why report this? Just because it’s ballet? And if that was correctly reported as IF, surely she was given special consideration, which seems a little patronising. 

[mimi'smom]

Sophie strikes me as an intelligent and self aware lady who has found comfort in dance. This interview really touched me.

https://www.thestage.co.uk/features/interviews/2016/sophie-rebecca-its-unlikely-i-will-be-a-ballerina-but-not-because-im-transgender/

[balletbean]

43 minutes ago, Jan McNulty said:

I was posting at the same time as ballet bean.  

 

As a matter of interest BB where did you find it was IF?

Hi, I found it on the BBC site where additional comments were also made regarding the IF exam taken. That was one of the reasons why I posed the question Why would a teacher choose that exam for a ballet novice? Many other questions were also asked about the video. Raises an interesting discussion.  

Edited April 20, 2017 by balletbean

[Jan McNulty]

31 minutes ago, balletbean said:

Hi, I found it on the BBC site where additional comments were also made regarding the IF exam taken. That was one of the reasons why I posed the question  

 

Could you point me at the page please, I can't find any comments?

[Colman]

It was IF: picture of cert on Facebook. 

 

The media is having a rash of "first transgender to …" stories over last couple of years. Part of normalisation process. 

[taxi4ballet]

My view is that the RAD is to be congratulated for their enlightened attitude now that transgender people can choose to take ballet exams following either the male or female syllabus, whichever they prefer, and with which they identify.

 

PS It is unlikely that the people covering the story for the BBC had any knowledge or experience in filming ballet dancers, so they would have just chosen short clips out of everything they filmed to accompany the story.   

 

 

Edited April 20, 2017 by taxi4ballet

[Nicola H]

4 hours ago, balletbean said:

<snip>

 

I am not being sexist or anti transgender just interested to hear what others have to say.

 

Thank you
 

Unfortunately  your language says  otherwise. 

You  need to think very carefully about  what you have said and implied   with your posting, as it could very easily be interpreted as  transphobic. 

You know nothing about  Sophie's  journey, either in terms of  her  ballet  life  or her gender identity and expression, beyond the media coverage.

I wonder  what  you consider 'appropriate' rate of progress for a committed  adult beginner ?  bearing in mind that  it can be argued that  progress is  artifically slowed  with children learning to dance  becasue of  both physical and mental development  issues.