Anjuli_Bai

I can't believe it - I actually managed a picture. Ok - some chocolate is due.

I would really like a profile picture - like you have. I did upload to photobucket - but in order to download to this site they want to charge me.

So, instead I thought I could use a picture as a signature. I paint (oil on canvas) and draw (pen and ink) - and a lot of it is dance related. So, I thought (in my silly way) that would be fun and no copyright problems.

The picture I tried was a jpeg - so it's not too large a package - all my paintings/drawings fit easily on Facebook - no problems. I do have them as TIFF's - but my husband says jpegs are better for internet "travel."

What do I know - he's the electrical engineer - I'm just the ballet teacher - I deal in tendues and tutus.

It is not at all an odd request. I've had that happen many times.

Well, I do want the picture - but very small. Just don't depend upon that "undo" thingie.

I tried photobucket but it seems they want to charge me to be able to download a picture to this site.

Ahha - I did it - I used "toggle editing mode" icon. Who knew? One would think the "undo" would undo. Silly me.

It can be very valuable and is often done. You find another teacher who has nothing to do with the present school. You should inform the teacher of whom you are seeking a second opinion that this is your goal - not an ongoing class - but a second opinion. Don't tell her any of the problems which led to this - let her form her/him own opinion completely unbiased.

(please excuse a huge picture which might come up as my signature - I meant it to be tiny - but it didn't work out that way. I am trying to get rid of it. ACK

(ok - I think I got rid of it for this reply)

Ok - I'm In BIG trouble. I experimented with putting what I thought would be a tiny picture as a signature. When I tested it out I made sure that I could "undo" it.

Well, the picture turned out to be huge - and when I tried to undo do - it wouldn't undo!

How do I delete it? (There is no copyright problem - the drawing is my own - I drew it - I just didn't want it so BIG.

ACK

We have regularly deshanked pointe shoes and softened the vamp but actually find that they appear bulkier on the feet esp the vamp area compared to soft block shoes which appear 'dainter' on the feet

This is to be expected since the shank took up a bit of room inside the shoe. When it is removed there is more space for the foot - sometimes too much space. The foam rubber insole will help with this as well as making the inside bottom more comfortable. Sometimes I have also worn thin socks over my footed leotard.

edited for typo

In addition to Children of Theatre Street is another - almost a sequel - "Backstage at the Kirov" - about the graduating class - rehearsing and performing. But both of these are very old. I have both of them.

Interestingly, when I saw "Children of....." there was a floor exercise that my teacher (who was American) told us was taught to her by her two Russian teachers (they were principal dancers with Diagelev). Well, she was right - the students were doing this exercise 70 yrs later!

I'm not sure that any of these films or youtubes will accurately convey the daily atmosphere of the classroom. I would think that knowing there is a camera around would necessarily change things a bit. It's just human nature to do that.

I surely don't recommend a car going over shoes! ACK

I also don't recommend door frames - I've seen the door pulled off the frame! Another ACK

The shoe box needs to be softened in an organized sort of way; with your hands, a round head of a hammer. To help break it down you can use a cloth damp with rubbing alcohol and then hammered.

Spanner: everything your physio is telling you is correct. Just learning to stand in a pointe shoe is difficult - the entire feel is difficult. It's like learning everything again from the beginning. You know that part of Act II Giselle where the ballerina is standing by herself and doing extensions and then does a promenade and a penché - that is the hardest part of her solo.

As for sky diving - I am certainly NOT going there!

When I deshanked my pointe shoes to use instead of slippers I removed the shank (as you mentioned). Then I took the round head of a hammer and pounded away at the box (which was really quite soft by then). Next I got a thin foam rubber insole (like Dr. Scholl's) and placed inside because after I had removed the shank the inside was rather rough.

How soft you make the box is up to you. By the time I got done with a pair of pointe shoes - and then using them as slippers - they were literally ragged. At the very end I took the ribbons off, washed and ironed them and used on the next pair of pointe shoes. Some of my ribbons were decades old.

Some shoes have a glued shank, some a nailed shank and some a bit of both. The nailed ones are a bit trickier - especially if the nails occur at the toe end. However, my husband showed me that if I put a pliers - slightly open under the nail head and then hammer - the nail will pop out. Well, it worked for me - but it was much easier to go bake something while he was doing it. (Husbands are good that way!) Since it will be 50 yrs this June for us- I guess he didn't mind!

Balanchine was both a choreographer and a teacher....he often gave Company class.

In the USA very few schools are syllabus based: Cecchetti, RAD, ISTD, etc.

In the years I took class my teachers spanned the gamut. My first teacher was a product of two Diagelev principal dancers (Theodore Koslov and Alexandra Baldina - orig. waltz girl in Les Sylphides). Then I had three years of Ceccetti. Continued my studies with a Vaganova based teacher, and on to a teacher who was a student of Eugene Loring, a German teacher, several principals from Balanchine's NYCB, a couple of teachers from ABT, two from the Royal Ballet (Keith Martin and Elaine Thomas), etc.

It was quite a variety. I loved it.

The comment on the Observer article is unsubstantiated rumour posted by an anonymous person (which would probably breach this forum's acceptable use policy) and doesn't reflect (in my opinion) the reality on the ground. It would be worrying if it were the case but there is no evidence to suggest it is true!

That is why in my post I said:

"If what that one particular respondent at the Guardian is saying is true "

If what that one particular respondent at the Guardian is saying is true - regarding private sponsors for foreign studenst and thus preferential treatment - that is truly sad. That would be a heartbreaker for other dance students.

It does make one wonder why the British graduates are good enough for other companies but somehow not good enough for the upper ranks of the RB.

Those of us who are tired of overdone extensions, balancing competitions, and the jumps from the moon - (which I have endlessly railed about fr years ) are, I think, in the minority. This battle began as far back as Fokine, and it is being lost. The AD's are responding to the market - look at the advertising, the posters, the pictures.

From Post 126 - Quote: Isn't some of it about our British culture? We are a very self-deprecating lot and generally not enamoured with what we perceive to be showing off. Aren't we told from being young that "it's not the winning, it's the taking part that counts"?

This is wider than UK culture.....I think Western civilization is often told it is culturally guilty of.........fill in the blank.

Do you think that the faculty at the school is subconsciously teaching and/or responding differently to the foreign student?

All to often we hear about xenophobia - but there is a reverse bias too.

I was once told by a parent looking for a ballet teacher that I couldn't possibly know anything because I was American born and didn't have a Russian accent. However, when I told her that originally my family had come from Russia - she signed her daughters up. duh

SAB was established as a feeder school to NYCB from the very beginning. It also trains to a certain style and was originally to serve a particular "vision" - and to a great extent still does.

ABT is quite diverse and always has been.

I always stored my tutus upside down - that helped a lot. I also restrung them with dental floss.

I enjoyed watching it. I especially liked the rehearsal for the sword fighting scene from R & J. Some time ago a member of the Ballet.co forum - who was an instructor in fencing - gave a fascinating description of what goes into staging such a scene. So, I enjoyed watching this rehearsal with his remarks still in my head.

When I edit a post I've made the "new" post has lost all the paragraphing. So, then, I have to edit again and leave 3 spaced between paragraphs instead of 2 - and that seems to work. Also when I edit and click "save changes" - it doesn't show the "new" post. I have to reclick onto the board to see it. And I don't know what that "use full editor" is - when I click it nothing seems to happen.

An education, and that includes a dance education, is never lost. The skills learned, the discipline, dedication, musicality and how to move with grace and assurance - the appreciation for the arts and hard work of others, all will stay with the dance student whether that student remains in dance as a career or not. Education is never lost.

And there are many other careers in which dance would be an important component: teaching (dance or not) almost any art form, physiotherapist, designing (almost anything), writing (learning how to sequence thought isn't very different from sequencing movement), child care, homemaking - everything will be enhanced by what was learned in those years of ballet classes.

At first when I saw the markings on his body I thought of Nijinski's Faun - or a variation thereof. Being barefoot its modern/contemporary dance and she looks to possibly be topless. Would Nederlans Dans do something like this?

Very interesting picture.

"can't wait to be inspired all over again!"

That's what it's all about.

One of the things I used to do for myself when I was dancing and for my students when I taught was to see an audience in the mirror. Yes, the mirror is a tool to check oneself....but I would also pretend that it was an audience and thus the idea of a stage was always present. The classroom became a stage. When we did our reverence at the end of class it was to that "audience."

I felt this encouraged me and my students to dance "outward" - not inward....to give it away.....as a gift.

When we discuss how dance is taught, overwhelmingly we tend to talk about teaching methods, how many hours of class, when to begin pointe work, stretching, and other elements of ballet class. But I think there is another very important element to teaching ballet - teaching it as an art form, not simply as a set of steps, poses, movement, structure.

When I was dancing, I always had in the back of my mind an image of a dancer I admired and it was to that image that I projected myself. For me, it was Margot Fonteyn. I had seen her dance and that is what I wanted to look like.

I think it is important to stretch the student's view beyond the classroom - to inform them of the history and to see themselves as part of the continuum of that history. Diagelev thought it was important too. He took his dancers (his dancers being the greatest of their time and the foundation of much of today's ballet) to museums, art galleries and encouraged them to seek out all kinds of art - beyond their daily scope.

Today, with the availability of DVD's, this is much easier. When I was teaching, approximately four times a year, I would have my students meet in the studio on an off day, or come to my home and show them the tapes I had of the great dancers of the time - and also history. I was fortunate to have a huge collection of tapes - but many are now available in public libraries or can be bought on E-Bay, etc.

I wanted my students to see themselves as part of this history. I didn't limit the showings to the "exciting" parts - but included many of the softer and slower sections such as the Kingdom of the Shades section from La Bayadere or the beautiful adage for Siegfried at the end of Act I, Swan Lake.

To my happy surprise, I found that my students had no difficulty falling under the spell of the "quieter" moments. The spectacular stuff was not excluded but was part of the package.

This kind of connection with the art form can also be included in the daily class - by not only teaching the "how to" of a step - but its history. And, when the students perform, to let them know they are now part of this long - over 500 yr - history. The history of the stage.

So - this brings me to.....are the studios/schools which your children attend offering this kind of "beyond the class" view - are they being shown the bigger - and deeper - history?

Are they encouraged to attend performances?

There are also some wonderful books with pictures - are they encouraged to read them? Is there discussion of line and shape in those pictures? We used to sit on the floor with some of those pictures and actually measure out the triangles created by a beautiful lift or a lovely arabesque - so they could see what made it - not just "correct" - but beautiful. We also discussed how to photograph ballet which was helpful to them when they needed to send off a picture for an audition.

Are they encouraged to read the bios and autobios of famous dancers?

Exactly Anjuli, the training is about BOTH so surely a mix of syllabus and free work is the best mix, that way they are covering all bases. I'm not saying exams show the parents the full picture, they just give an indication of how they are doing, yes maybe it is only a small indication but with purely free classes they don't even get that. At least if a teacher is qualified the parent knows that the teacher knows what they're doing, or there's a much better chance of it anyway!

Aurora: I'm afraid you missunderstood me or more likely I wasn't clear. By "both" I meant (A.) perfecting movement and (B.) thinking about what comes next. NOT "both" meaning syllabus and freework.

My word "both" did not include syllabus work. Learning to perfect movement while thinking about what comes next does cover all bases. It's what the student and/or dancer faces from the first audition onward. A teacher who is considered as "qualified" by a syllabus is only qualified for that syllabus.

As for the parents getting some indication of how the student is doing by way of exams is learning only that - how a student is doing for that exam. Not how the student compares to dance students in general.

A huge part of learning how to dance is learning how to learn. How to quickly incorporate movement. How to "see" and how to "hear." And doing the same sequences over and over defeats that learning process, in my opinion.

In the USA very few schools are syllabus based and yet we have no problem producing dancers of excellent quality - far more than we can employ unfortunately.

Well, I do differ....

The training is about both - perffecting movement while thinking about what comes next. That's the entire point, as i see it. Exams give a parent an idea of how the child is doing within the syllabus - nothing else. And it only says how well the school does in teaching a specific syllabus. A teacher with a certificate given by a specific syllabus only speaks to that particular syllabus - not to how well he or she teaches dance. The assurance is only syllabus specific. And even then, in my experience, it is not in any way complete. There are syllabus teachers who have not ventured beyond that book or introduced new music -even symphonic music.

As for ex-professional dancers teaching class - some are wonderful and some are not. But a good teacher is not necessarily a famous ex-professional dancer - some excellent ones have spent their entire lives teaching.

Passing an exam only says that the student has learned to execute a specific sequence of steps - almost no matter how long it took to learn it. It says nothing about the ability of the student to incorporate new movement, to listen to and move to new music on a daily basis. All of which can be presented both age and developmentally appropriate. That's what a good teacher does. Daily.