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Jazzpaws

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Everything posted by Jazzpaws

  1. This is a very personal topic to address and I feel so sorry for those young people and their families. Just talking about classical ballet, from what I’ve observed, most principal dancers are slight of build and generally not very tall. Practical reasons for this as some roles require lifting and often male dancers are not much over 6 foot. The ballet companies seem to take ladies that are slight if build and not over tall. The teachers in vocational school are not monsters, they have been in that place and want their students to get selected. I feel it totally right to address this and feel more should be done at vocational school audition to try and determine growth patterns and height. It is possible to be a very strong, fit, dancer if that is the dancer’s natural build. If this is achieved by over exercise and starvation, physical and mental problems will result. So at audition it should be made clear if some dancers will never be right for a principal role, but eligible for character roles, contemporary roles etc - this makes the achievement more realistic After that all students should be monitored with regards to fitness and dietary requirements. Very graduates achieve permanent contracts and it does make me wonder if filling the numbers is financial gain for the school. Reslity needs to hit before vocational school is started !
  2. Yes, it does. I just have to round up paperwork again, but have spoken to them and think it's sorted now x
  3. Thanks Jane It seems to be the case, but still at the application stage which isn't always straightforward I do appreciate that student finance is available to those who otherwise would not be able to support their children through higher education (in my ancient past it was never a loan) Talented young people like your DD should not be expected to work for nothing, a sad state of affairs
  4. Thankyou - must say as a mother I feel this journey will lead to good things - we worry on, don't we x
  5. This is a tough one and a great worry to parents who are supporting DC's on a wonderful journey but without any secure prospects. Permanent contracts are few and far between (I am so pleased for those who have them). DD grew very late and has turned out to be a beautiful young lady, just over 5'10" This really hasn't helped in securing a long term contract, which is very hard to cope with and so disappointing after all those years of hard work and dedication. However, she graduated with a 2:1 from the wonderful Central School of Ballet last year and has secured a place on the Royal Academy of Dance PGCE (11-19) programme with NQT status starting in August ! It was a late choice, but she is so excited about this new venture and can't wait to start! As a parent, I am very proud (as always) and also pleased to see her hard work and those results pay off - and also would like to credit Central School of Ballet staff with excellent training ! I do feel the RAD is the best place to pursue the PGCE (my opinion) The only annoyance is Student Finance 'Here we go again' Just felt I had to share, as the journey goes on and the destination is never set in stone. Saying that, our dancers have resilience of huge rocks. Also, as parents on here, it is so inspiring to see what others have achieved with their journeys even if those journeys have arrived at completely different destinations ! Wishing well to all and please post your journeys. Mary x
  6. Does anyone know where it is this year ?
  7. She was outstanding !! xx
  8. Five dancers have been selected for each category - the Ballet West students are 2 of the 5 from the ballet category. In the Grand Final there will be the winner from each category plus up to 2 wild cards - last year there were 2 and one of them, Connor Scott from Dance City CAT (now at Rambert) won the competition. I watched the ballet and contemporary semi finals this week at Dance East and had a lovely time. I would have loved to watch the South Asian category as I really enjoyed that last year on the TV, but was a fair distance to travel (think I'll avoid the Street dance, not my thing). Best of luck to them all !
  9. DD did a few festivals before managing time became an issue and enjoyed some more than others. I think she enjoyed it most when she was entered in groups - everyone had such a nice time and supported each other- lots of fun and not so much pressure .
  10. Didn'tmean to be misleading - i was referring to the company audition held back in April - huge response, just shows how tough it is x
  11. How lovely that New Adventures has given these two talented students a wonderful opportunity to be apprentices and experience working with the company - I am so pleased for them. Other schools are able to give their students the experience of dancing with their related company in small roles (RB, BRB, ENB, Rambert and BTUK), as has already been mentioned. There was a huge open company audition for The Red Shoes ( I believe well over a thousand applied ), so huge congratulations to the successful applicants - Seren, the Central graduate, one of the successful ones, is a beautiful, expressive performer, which is a huge tribute to her and the school where she trained. Bring on more success for our lovely, british trained dancers
  12. Wonderful achievement for Central Graduate Seren Williams - so lovely to hear such good news ! http://new-adventures.net/company/latest-news/red-shoes-cast-announced
  13. Same thing happened to us - we ended up running to HQ with the aid of DD's iphone ! A nightmare as she had to follow the other girls upstairs - all went well in the end , but such stress. The next couple of times we were ready to jump off the bus after it crossed the bridge if it deviated at all !
  14. I'm sure your DD's teacher knows best. However I have heard of some teachers that are not keen on RBS associates as they think it will not work with their teaching. This is not the case as RBS actively encourages teachers to be involved and watch classes, as it's a scheme designed to compliment existing dance schools. DD was RBS Senior Associate and only applied because of encouragement from her ballet teacher. But, getting back to Norfolk Scholars, during the Ruby rehearsals, a girl was spotted by RBS, and successfully applied to White Lodge, joining in Year 9 !
  15. Hi Only Dance - my DD was not from the dominating dance school, but had great pleasure from being a Norfolk Scholar and Norfolk Dance Association summer schools. I'm not quite sure what you mean by your DD not being allowed to audition for associate schemes - is that a personal reason or does that come from her her current dance school? My DD only ever had encouragement to apply for associate schemes from her ballet teacher ( who is second to none in my opinion) and I feel this helped her to gain a place in full time post 16 vocational training.
  16. What a coincidence Jane ! DD was a munchkin and had a lovely time. There never was much information on line about Scholars, but the people who organised scholars also organised the summer school as far as I can remember. Porselli in Norwich would probably have information as well.
  17. It was running fairly recently as far as I know. There used to be sessions about once a month, totalling 10 in a year I think, so not as frequent as an associate scheme, but auditions were held. You could find out more by contacting the summer school organisers as they were connected.
  18. DD joined Norfolk Scholars a few years ago - was in their production at the Theatre Royal (Ruby) and then did the regular classes for a couple of years. They were on Sundays but she stopped when she joined Dance East CAT scheme as it clashed. She also did 2 summer schools and enjoyed them. Ballet teacher was Rachel Hunt.
  19. On the other hand, DD went to vocational school at 16, but although her GCSE results were good, she would have had more A's and B's if we hadn't been running round all week fitting the dance in. She only had Friday evening off, then there was RBS associates on a Saturday, which took up most of the day, CAT scheme all day Sunday and 2 other evenings, plus 3 evenings ballet class (one straight after CAT class). It didn't help that we are very rural so a lot of travelling was involved but things like coursework (especially Art) and concentration suffered and by the time the auditions were all over it was a bit late to get to where she could have been. Saying that, she wouldn't have it any other way. Not really a simple answer to this is there - think where you live is also a factor.
  20. From what I can see, Northern Ballet do a professional graduate programme which is a year long and costs £3,000 foe fees, then there's living expenses/accomadation costs to find : https://northernballet.com/professional-graduate-programme/fees-and-funding Northern Ballet also have apprentices which I think are paid ?? - not sure Contemporary Dance schools offer MA courses which cost around £6,000 but I understand that from this September new MA students can borrow £10,000 towards fees and other costs It would all be much more practical if a student could live at home and travel in to save expense. Unfortunately for some (including ourselves, living in Norfolk), this is not possible. I'm not sure if I want DD to use up all her funding by doing an MA straightaway, but of course this would be her decision not mine. With the new MA funding, I would have thought this would result in even more graduates chasing the already few jobs ... If it all results in her being unable to find work, I wonder if it would then be possible to change direction and maybe apply for an NHS Bursary ? - that is if she even wants to All very uncertain and a question of wait and see again, but it would be very interesting to see how others get on I'm not the expert, some of my research may be wrong and I'm sure DD will get advice from her school next year m
  21. Hard not to be disheartened isn't it. Don't know about the UK, although we do often follow trends from the US ! There are more apprenticeships than there used to be (think numbers at Norther have increased for example) and the new MA funding starting this year will surely increase apprenticeships at contemporary companies. Thing is, have the number of jobs increased or are companies more likely to face financial difficulty due to impact of new living wage etc, which could result in an even bigger bottleneck than we have now. I really need to grow some more optimism
  22. Just sharing link for this article from Pointe Magazine, found it interesting reading. http://pointemagazine.com/inside-pt/second-company-limbo/
  23. I think it will have an effect, wages haven't gone up in the last few years and now this happens. My friend's brother will now have to pay an extra £40 per week for his care because staff wages are going up. Of course the cost of living will go up which will make it harder for people to buy extras like theatre tickets, which will hit already struggling companies (alongside having to pay the dancers more)
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