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Recent graduate destinations from UK vocational ballet schools


JulieW

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I've posted this in another thread but thought some might not be reading that one but might be interested as this subject has popped up in a few threads now. So here's the list I've managed to throw together in the last 15 minutes. I couldn't find any lists for Tring Park, Northern or Hammond and that was as far as I've got.

 

Elmhurst graduate contracts 2011

 

Students who graduated in 2010 went on to study further or found employment as follows:

 

Joshua Barwick – Northern Ballet Theatre

Sam Brown - Estonian National Ballet

Sinead Bunn - Munich Ballet

Stefania Cardaci – Ballet de L’Opera National de Bordeaux

Jordan Clayton - Zurich Ballet

Andrew Cummings - Zurich Ballet

Nicol Edmonds - Finnish National Ballet

Emily Hunt - dancing in The Snowman

Nicole Muratov - Bordeaux National Ballet

George Willé-Williams - Vanemuine Theatre, Estonia

Oliver Wraith - Dance Cyprus

Marina Yatsushiro - Singapore Ballet Theatre

 

Students who graduated in 2009 went on to study further or found employment as follows:

 

Amie Ashford – one-year apprenticeship with New English Contemporary Ballet, followed by Disneyland Tokyo

Jake Burden – Theater Magdeburg, Germany

Stefania Cardaci – three-month contract with Bordeaux National Ballet

Natasha Chung – L’Ecole atelier Béjart Rudra, Switzerland

Dan Clarke – Northern Ballet, Apprenticeship, followed by Estonia National Ballet

Maria Engel – Ballet Theatre UK, followed by Vanemuine Theatre, Estonia

Rebecca Hartley – Dancer, Disneyland Paris

Jade Heusen – Birmingham Royal Ballet

Matthew Jordan – Vanemuine Theatre, Estonia

Anthony Maloney – Vanemuine Theatre, Estonia

Martin Milner – Vienna State Opera, Apprenticeship, followed by Munich Ballet

Alicia Nelson - toured with ENB in Swan Lake (June 2010), followed by Vanemuine Theatre, Estonia

Gemma Paganelli – London Contemporary Dance School

Vanessa Spiteri – Ballet Du Capitale, Toulouse

Nanase Tanaka - Singapore Dance Theatre

Alexandra Walton – Bratislava, Slovakia

Rex Wheeler – Slovak National Theatre, Bratislava, followed by Sacramento Ballet

Nanoko Yamamoto – Brandon Ballet, USA

 

Not sure what's happened to last year's list - but I know some are at BRB, Vanemuine Ballet, Tokyo Ballet, Croatian National, Slovak National, Northern Ballet (that's all I can remember for now)

 

And so far in 2012, these are the companies I can remember (I won't do names in case I get any wrong and some have yet to start):

 

Birmingham Royal Ballet

Royal Ballet of Flanders

Northern Ballet

Vanemuine Ballet Company, Estonia

National Moravian-Silesian Theatre, Czech Republic

National Ballet Theatre, Brno, Czech Republic

Ballet Wales (I think!)

 

 

Royal Ballet School graduate contracts 2011

 

American Ballet Theatre Jamie Kopit

Ballet de l'Opéra National de Bordeaux Austin Lui

Ballet Theatre UK Aimee-Louise Cordeaux

Bavarian State Ballet Jacopo Bellussi

Bavarian State Ballet 2 Antonia McAuley

Birmingham Royal Ballet Karla Doorbar, Emily Smith, Brandon Lawrence

Boston Ballet 2 Ileana Riveron

Dresden Ballet Gina Scott

Dutch National Ballet Hannah Grennell

Estonian National Ballet Bruno Micchiardi

Finnish National Ballet Millis Faust

Joffrey Ballet Fabio Lo Guidice

National Ballet of Portugal Dominic Whitbrook

National Ballet of Uruguay Ciro Tamayo

Northern Ballet Sean Bates, Teresa Saavedrea Bordes

Norwegian Ballet Grete Borud Nybakken, Douwe Dekkers

Paris Opéra Ballet Chase O'Connell

Polish National Ballet Roseanna Leney

The Royal Ballet Claudia Dean, Francesca Hayward, Tomas Mock

Royal Ballet of Flanders Michael Snoey Kiewit

Royal Swedish Ballet Calum Lowden

Scottish Ballet Sophie Allnatt

Singapore Dance Theatre Robin Kent

Slovak National Theatre Ballet Samuel Price

Slovenian National Theatre Ballet Kenta Yamamoto

Tulsa Ballet Stefano Maggiolo

Vienna State Opera Ballet Greig Matthew

Zurich Ballet Zoe Roberts, Michael Burton, Thomas Kendall

 

 

English National Ballet

 

2010/11 Graduating Students

 

3rd Year Ladies

Erina Akatsuka Slovak National Theatre Ballet

Maria Andres National Ballet of Portugal, Apprenticeship

Anna Bang-Rudenstam Royal Swedish Ballet, Work Placement

Heather Dunn Scottish Ballet

Elisabeth Finch The Hong Kong Ballet

Manoela Goncalves Dortmund Ballet

Oda Heier Norwegian National Ballet, Apprenticeship

Nicha Rodboon Bayerisches Staatsballet

Marina Schmied Ballet Vorpommern

Eleanor Sharpe English National Ballet, Apprenticeship

Wakana Shimizu Le Jeune Ballet de France

Kelly Turner The Ballet School of Hamburg

Pamela Nunes Tivoli Pantomime Ballet

 

3rd Year Men

Marc Borras IT Dansa, Barcelona

Jonathan Batista Miami City Ballet

Guilherme Menezes English National Ballet

Vitor Menezes English National Ballet

Jospeh Gray Zurich Ballet II

Shaun Kelly Tivoli Pantomime Ballet

Paulo Osorio Marcilio Tivoli Pantomime Ballet

Robin Papazian Slovak National Ballet Theatre

Ken Saruhashi English National Ballet

 

2nd Year Ladies

Meea Laitinen Norwegian National Ballet, Apprenticeship

 

 

Central School of Ballet

 

2011 Graduates now have contracts with:

  • Zoe Arshamian - Ballet Ireland
  • Lika Berkun - Israeli Ballet
  • Lisha Chin - Singapore Ballet (apprentice)
  • Nicole Craddock - Scottish Ballet
  • Katie Deacon - Ballet Ireland
  • Toni-MIchelle Dent - Northern Ballet (apprentice)
  • Jordi Arnau Rubio - Peter Schaufuss
  • Jamie Bradley - Disneyland Tokyo
  • Luke Divall - Ballet Boyz
  • Dominic Harrison - Scottish Ballet
  • Leon Moran - Matthew Bourne's Nutcracker
  • Alexander Nuttall - Ballet Cymru
  • David Pallant - Ballet Gratz
  • Joseph Poulton - Ballet Black (apprentice)
  • James Pullum - Commercial work
  • William Simmons - Estonia National Ballet

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What would also be interesting here is a list of those that graduated and are Not dancing. I know that RBS seem to have 100% success rate but what of other schools?

 

A list could look something like this:

 

Andy - decided that nuclear physics was his true calling

Bob - auditioned for 237 companies with no success

Cindy - broke little finger in audition season, could not dance and decided to quit because of the risk of further injury

Deidre - won BGT with unconventional dance style

Eric - stacking shelves at poundland

Frank - received world wide acclaim for latest piece of choreography

 

Etc etc . Any similarity to any previous student, alive or dead, is purely coincidental ;)

 

Seriously, though, only when you know the destinations of ALL students do ou get a true picture.

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Jellybeans: Seriously, though, only when you know the destinations of ALL students do ou get a true picture.

 

Absolutely. Even more interesting would be to know how many are still dancing 2 or 3 years after graduating, after having "put up" with several short term or apprentice contracts, having lived abroad (Slovenia, Poland, Estonia just to name a few) not speaking the native language etc. Sure there are always a few who will adapt, but many don't.

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Seriously, though, only when you know the destinations of ALL students do ou get a true picture.

Hilarious post jellybeans, but a very good point! I have no experience of vocational schools, but certainly found this to be true when looking at academic schools. Most schools will have some bright kids who go on to study "good" subjects at Russell Group universities etc, and schools are always keen to tell you about them.Unless you know what proportion of the year these children make up, what the rest do and how that compares to other schools I don't think you can draw any firm conclusions.

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The only published list from Tring Park is at the back of their year book and lists the "Class of 2011" i.e. those who took their A-levels in 2011. This was the first group who entered 6th form with a 3rd year available.

 

13 dancers listed as staying on for 3rd year.

2 dancers going to Ballet Theatre UK

2 pursuing academic studies

6 going to dance courses, one dancer to each of the following places: - Ballet West, Birds, Laban, Laines, Rambert, Studio Centre.

1 "work experience"

2 gave no destination.

 

 

Edited for clarity

Edited by Pas de Quatre
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I know my dd attended the lower school at Tring that year but I hadnt realised that quite so many students had chosen to go to other schools to further their dance training especially when there is a MT course available at the school. Do you have any idea where the 3rd year graduating students went to from the year before. I was rubbish at trying to find where the graduating students went after their 3rd year.

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Just speaking for Elmhurst graduates - their employment rate (as dancers) is high (although does vary year on year - being almost 100% some years but around 80% in others). The majority were classical contracts but some are musical theatre, a few on cruises and Disney, and the odd one goes to university. And looking back over the list of those who have graduated over the last 2 - 4 years, many who went off to classical companies are still either in their original companies and the others have moved on to others. (I also went back to graduates from 5 years ago - most still appear to be in classical companies but there were quite a few who don't look like they're still dancing - but the school has moved on a lot in the last few years).

 

I think most of those who decide that dance isn't for them have left before they get to the 3rd year but I have found the odd one who went off to do another type of course, eg one student now studying art & design.

 

In fact, I have had an interesting evening, catching up with people on facebook (!) and have been really pleased to find that the majority of these graduates are still with their original companies, or certainly with the company they got at their next lot of auditions. I was happy to find that, as I suspected, the comment from NinaG in another thread - "Every year, the Graduates are offered a six month (Apprentice) contract (with UK and foreign companies)" - has not turned out to be true of the students at Elmhurst, and I suspect then that the same can be said of the RBS graduates.

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I know my dd attended the lower school at Tring that year but I hadnt realised that quite so many students had chosen to go to other schools to further their dance training especially when there is a MT course available at the school. Do you have any idea where the 3rd year graduating students went to from the year before. I was rubbish at trying to find where the graduating students went after their 3rd year.

This year (2011-12) is the 1st year that 3rd year has been available so there won't be previous statistics altough I believe that there were a small handful around last year who were unofficial third years. I agree Tring should keep better records because the employment rate is actually not bad at all. Some of the students have already decided not to continue dancing but quite a few others have already got jobs, either commercially or with companies such as Cape Town or BTUK.

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I know ds was mighty relieved that most of them in Estonia spoke English! I hate to admit that we're not great at languages in this household (although my youngest son had turned out to be really good at Spanish - we're not sure how :D )

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To further clarify the position at Tring, of the 13 dancers who stayed on for 3rd year in 6th form, only a few were classical dancers, there were also jazz dancers and contemporary dancers.

 

Tring Park does not have a structure to the 3 Year course like other Vocation Schools. Their Senior Dance course runs from Year 10 through to Year 14, i.e. 5 school years. In each class there may be 2 or 3 different year groups. As Primose posted previously, the students do not know which class they will be in until they arrive at school in September and there is much unhappiness for some dancers when they find they are being allocated to classes which do not give them enough hours in the discipline they wish to study.

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I find Tring's way of doing quite extraordinary, I have to say! That the school is better positioned to see who has stronger potential in what, I can understand but not telling the pupils before... thus not leaving them a choice is simply amazing! How many get over it and enjoy what they've been imposed would be interesting to know?

That was one of the reasons why DD decided not to take the place she was offered there.

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Exactly my point Pas de Quatre Tring in my experience does not nurture or encourage classical dancers. As the director of dance said'my job is to get dancers contracts!'and so both my funded beautiful classical daughters left to take up places at vocational schools who promote classical ballet. Tring is a great musical theatre school!

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Having talked to my DS about recent posts on Tring he has named a few students who successfully moved to sets more suited to their preferences (ie jazz,ballet or contemporary.) He s also told me that recently students were given the opportunity to specify their preferred genres but the vast majority decided to stick to their more all round training.

 

That said the ballet students successfully petitioned for an extra ballet class per day and got it...some days consisted of 2 ballet classes + classical pas de deux and either pointe work or virtuosity.

 

I have found the standard of ballet teaching very high with plenty of opportunities to perform and do competitions.(In last years international Cecchetti competition Tring Park had more finalists than any other vocational school.) Of these, two have professional ballet contracts, so do two of the girls who didn't make the final.

 

I will say though that before entering any school you must ask as many question as possible, if they are not answered to your satisfaction, don't go. If you are not interested in being a "triple threat" (ie competent at baller,jazz and contemporary) and are lucky enough to have a choice of schools then choose one of the ones that have a guaranteed classical bias such as Elmhurst. As Julie posted earlier their graduates have done very well!

 

My DS has sometimes hankered after Elmhurst but says he doesn't regret his choice as he felt that he needed broaden his dance abilities for todays competitive job market. He also wanted to do A levels and learn to sing. Now he has a classical contract but feels confident enough to explore other avenues of performing work should the opportunity arise!

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This may sound controversial but if you are a male dancer at Tring then your classical opportunities are more plentiful!(whether u want them or not). My eldest spent 4 yrs there and my youngest 3 yrs. In the past Tring produced successful classical dancers but it's philosophy has certainly changed.

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Thanks for that info hfbrew,I am worrying that to send my dd there she may not get enough classical training I have to agree with you the tring dancers at the Cecchetti international comp did look strong so I do hope she can specify her preferred genre. I suppose it is her journey ,she has never done contemporary or jazz before so there is something new to learn also she can do her A levels and I know she will be boarding and get fed lol .

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I have to say, when my dd was at Tring, and that was up until July last year. No student was ever given the choice of what set they were put into, and no amount of trying to reason with the head of dance made any difference. Many of the students that I know were very upset at the decisions made for them. I heard second hand so dont know if its true or not, that those students who were in receipt of a dada or mds were not allowed to audition for other schools. As I mentioned earlier, many of the current parents or students find it very difficult to speak out as they are concerned of the reprecusions. I do know this for a fact as I was speaking to the parent of a child who does have a dada only yesterday and she was talking about the many concerns she has but was too afraid to speak out should it affect her childs dada being removed.

On a positive note though, the school is a lovely place to learn, the teachers are caring and try to be supportive to the students. I think that the dance training is good but taught at different levels, dependent on the set your child is in.

I would stress that parents and students need to visit the school, just because it wasnt right for my child doesnt mean it wont be right for them.

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If your daughter wants only classical training then Tring will not be right for her. However purely classical jobs are very hard to come by so its not a bad idea to broaden ones horizons. But she may hate jazz and contemporary- my DS certainly did at first.

 

I will reiterate that two FEMALE dancers have already secured classical contracts and they were certainly given opportunities over and above my DS at times last year- not that I minded as at the time he wanted to focus on A levels. But I would readily admit that the top dancers in the school do get dis proportionally more attention at times so you do have to be aware of this. The quality of teaching is very good but students do have to speak up for themselves and communicate openly or they can get lost in the system.

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I have to say, when my dd was at Tring, and that was up until July last year. No student was ever given the choice of what set they were put into, and no amount of trying to reason with the head of dance made any difference. Many of the students that I know were very upset at the decisions made for them. I heard second hand so dont know if its true or not, that those students who were in receipt of a dada or mds were not allowed to audition for other schools. As I mentioned earlier, many of the current parents or students find it very difficult to speak out as they are concerned of the reprecusions. I do know this for a fact as I was speaking to the parent of a child who does have a dada only yesterday and she was talking about the many concerns she has but was too afraid to speak out should it affect her childs dada being removed.

On a positive note though, the school is a lovely place to learn, the teachers are caring and try to be supportive to the students. I think that the dance training is good but taught at different levels, dependent on the set your child is in.

I would stress that parents and students need to visit the school, just because it wasnt right for my child doesnt mean it wont be right for them.

 

I agree with all that Primrose has said here as in the past the system has seemed unfairly inflexible which is why so many students have quite rightly voiced their concerns- my DS being one of them. Hence extra ballet lessons (and that was a hard fought battle) and then an invitation to give feedback (believe me I did)- also the new initiative, long overdue to ask students their preferences. My Ds was quite perplexed that some didn't bother to reply and others ended up preferring the current situation.

 

But this thread was about graduate destinations and many students are still getting jobs.... ok so not with "big" companies and maybe not always classical but in this day and age thats to be expected.

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We'll leave it as it is Primrose - but perhaps if anyone wants to develop the conversation further in other directions they could start another thread. We'll try to keep this one on graduate destinations otherwise other comments will get lost.

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It seems to me that a small number of ENBS graduates go to ENB each year but never to the RB or BRB and, similarly, a small number of Elmhurst graduates go to BRB but never to the RB or ENB. Actually, the ENBS graduates who have gone to ENB in the last few years seem to be doing well at the company. Ksenia (graduated 2008) was the lead in Firebird at the Coli two weeks ago. Junor and Nancy (also 2008 graduates) Lauretta (2009) and Ken Sarasusi (2011) all had prominent roles in the recent Coli performances.

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Very intersting thoughts here. :-)

 

Hfbrew, sorry if I have missed this, but do you know which companies those two female graduates have ended up in? Thanks. They are with BTUK and were actually encouraged by the school to join last year when successful at audition. They join another female graduate who has done at least two seasons with this tiny but ambitious company.

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