Lisa O`Brien

Can i just say, it`s great to see more Administrators joining in with discussions.Nice one, Trog.!

Jeez,How the times change. ! I remember the name Hyelm. When i was at Vocational School I stayed at St. Dorothy`s in Hampstead,back in 1984.The house was the former residence of President Charles De Gaulle. The rent for bed, breakfast and evening meal, was £40 a week. !!! Plus, living in Hampstead was fantastic. Sting lived over the road from us. We sometimes used to hang out of the window and wave hello to him. ! Michael Williams and his wife, Judi Dench were just around the corner, as was Boy George, and lots of other famous people. It was like living on Millionaire`s Row,but with dead cheap accommodation.!!

Rowan,i can identify with what you just said. I have a 15 year old son, and ,despite my efforts when he was younger, showed no interest in any form of dance, or indeed any other Art form. Very clever,but at a large Secondary school [the largest in Northern Ireland with 1,300 pupils!]. The academics at the school despite its size, are excellent, and the discipline they instill in the pupils is second to none. His well to do aunt and uncle about two years ago, completely out of the blue, phoned me up saying, how would you feel about sending your son to private boarding school in Dublin? Talk about a shock. They offered to pay all the fees, uniform fees, etc, and if i was able to contribute a small amount each term [and it would have been small!] then so be it. I made the mistake, i think,of asking my son how he felt about this, and was told, quite, emphatically that if i were to send him away it would ruin his life. I tried talking to him about the pros and cons as i was very enthusiastic about it, knowing, apart from the academics, that it would mature him immensely, and would transform his life, probably. He was having absolutely none of it; didn`t want to leave his friends, home, etc.[And knowing this school would work them harder, which he didn`t like the idea of at all !] I ought to add that my son`s father has been dead for nearly five years, but i`m pretty sure he would have been as keen about the idea as i was if he had still been alive. So, after school, when homework is completed, he has no hobbies to go to, as he doesn`t want to do any, and spends most of the evening on that wretched X Box. The only consolation in that is that he is indoors in his room so i know he is safe,and not getting up to no good. The vast majority at his school hang around the local shop and set rubbish bins alight for something to do. How i wish i had been stricter with him, and "packed him off to Boarding School", when the chance came up. Now, he is right in the middle of his GCSE`s so it is too late to move him now anyway. I wish, for my son`s sake, i had done the right thing, regardless of whether he would have wanted it or not.

Many congratulations for your daughter,Tulip.!

Living in Northern Ireland, and not wanting to bother with a subscription, i buy copies when i want one off Ebay. There`s usually always someone selling various editions, and it works out they often sell them a little bit cheaper as well.

Hello Millie3. The only advice i can give regards whether your daughter should audition or not is for her to go with her gut feelings. Plus, if she doesn`t, may she regret it in a few years time? As an ex dancer [not ballet], i come across so many people a similar age to myself [in my 40`s] who say, "I really wish i`d taken ballet lessons." If she tries and fails, at least she`s tried. If she gives up, then she`ll never know what might have been. My one regret before going to vocational school at 16 was that i didn`t work hard enough on my academic qualifications. I had won a place at vocational school,before taking my exams, so felt i didn`t have to make any effort, as my future was, for the next few years at least, secure. 20 years after stopping dancing professionally, how i have always regretted not working harder for my academic exams. Just tell her to keep all her options open, and not to rule anything in or out.

Can i just give my own, very small example of someone i knew who was assessed out of WL a few years ago? I don`t know the ins and outs, but she had been there for a few years. Maybe i ought to take what she said with a pinch of salt, and therefore everyone else on here ought to do the same. She told me it is not only really competitive but incredibly bitchy, and there was great competition amongst the girls, in particular, to be thin. She told me of girls there "encouraging" one another to eat more, because they wanted to be the slimmest in the class,and that none of the girls there really had a true friend, because each one was directly in competition with everyone else,so they had friendships at the school, but not in the true sense of the word. Again, i can only go by what this one girl who was assessed out told me, but i was really shocked. Maybe it was sour grapes on her part as she had been assessed out, or maybe she was fabricating the whole thing, i have no idea. But this person is the only person i have ever met who had gone to the Royal, and i have to say, from listening to her, it did give me quite a negative view of the place. So, feel free to contradict this if you know it to be so.!! Hope i`ve not posted this in the wrong place,BTW!

Yes, Thank you Julie, for taking the time and effort to type all this out for everyone to see. Much appreciated.!

Thanks for sharing this. Your daughter has a beautiful long neck.

So sorry to hear your news, Frangipani. Will your dd be able to apply for SA next year, or is that it?

Thank you for sharing this with us.Charming.And the stage looked so big.!

Welcome to the Forum,Petipacat. The more, the merrier.!!!

Many congratulations, Little Ballerina.You go girl !!

Thanks for posting this Fiz.. As an ex dancer, i used to secretly hope that one day i would have a daughter, who i would encourage to take ballet lessons, and who, i would be determined to try and see if she could get into White Lodge. I`ll always remember my slight disappointment when my 15 year old son was born.Wonderful and beautiful though he was, and still is, i wanted a girl so i could ,i suppose if i`m being honest, ram ballet down her throat.! I did try with my son when he was younger, but he was having none of it. Now,i read this Forum every day, and the stresses and competition required to get into White Lodge and other vocational schools. I`m now glad i have a son who isn`t interested in any form of dance at all. He isn`t interested in football either, with , i would imagine, similar levels of stress and competition .I have to say, wonderful and amazing though the journey your children are embarking on is[and following everyone`s trials and tribulations is fascinating], i`m so relieved to just be an onlooker, and not have a child a part of this "ballet rat-race".

What a lovely day,watching RB Live. Just like Professor Brian Cox with Stargazing Live,let`s hope this becomes an annual event.[With the gorgeous Professor presenting it would be even better.!!!]

This is very interesting. I have lots of lovely ballet books,many i used to have as a child, or borrowed from the library, and have recently bought my own copies to keep. They are a treasure, with some beautiful photos in them.They inform and educate about the art, the difficulty of the training, the correct physique required, etc. I recently got into two separate, heated discussions with people in the States, i think they were. I`m not a snob, at least i don`t like to think that i am. However, there was a female on Youtube who was calling herself, and everybody else in her ballet class, a ballerina. I replied to her comment that,unless she was a female principal dancer in a professional company, she couldn`t or shouldn`t really give herself such a title, especially since she remarked that she was still training. She told me i was stupid, and that everyone in the class called themselves a ballerina,"Because that`s exactly what they were", and if they were not ballerinas what were they, trolls? This ignorance just made me cringe.! Another, recent comment was by another "Ballerina", on Youtube, who hoped that Ballet was going to be included in the Olympics one day, as she hoped to be good enough to be in it. I replied to her comment, saying how can ballet ever possibly be included in the Olympics,when ballet is an Art form, not a sport.? She replied, rather nastily, that i i needed to "get with the times", as ballet is now considered to be a sport [news to me], and that it therefore could be in the Olympics in the future. These two recent examples make me wonder what on earth their teachers teach them, apart from the mere steps during their ballet classes, that they are so misguided? If they were to read the books, [A Dancer`s World by Margot Fonteyn, springs immediately to mind,] they would be informed exactly what it takes to become a professional dancer,and they would understand , hopefully what a ballerina was, and that they, as students , were most definately not it. !! I don`t think it is enough to be proficient in performing and executing the steps required in ballet.You have to know its history, its former great dancers. And you have to know that ballet will never be a sport, for goodness sake.! I`m dismayed that there are young people taking regular ballet classes that don`t seem to have a clue.!

Hello,Welcome to you. Always great to see new members.!!

Many congratulations, kiwimum. Lovely to hear positive news on the forum.!!!!

Referring to what ninag has just said, and the general feeling here that the best foreign dancers train so much younger and so much more intensively; should it maybe be that White Lodge,Elmhurst etc takes and trains children from the age of 6 then? Maybe full time training at 11, compared to some countries, is leaving British dancers falling behind?

Yes! I Tweeted ROH yesterday and somebody very kindly got back to me [even though it was late evening!!] and confirmed it was part of the Benjamin Britten Festival [which made me think straight away of Prince of The Pagodas,which would have been FABULOUS to see live],but they also said it was to be a new piece commissioned, to be choreographed by Kim Brandstrup. To be honest,would love to have seen them in something traditional,and,dare i say it,"pretty";.However after such a long wait, will happily watch them in just about anything. All those years ago, i saw them in Isadora [Merle Park]and a few days later in Beauty [Leslie Collier].Swan Lake, of course, my absolute favourite, but i HATE their tutus in the White Acts. Yuk.!!!!

Really Hambleton?Where did you hear this? It would be so lovely to see them for the first time since 1982.!!

Well i live in Northern Ireland, so not only is there no cinema within 40 miles showing any of the ballets, on the rare occasions we get a live performance at a theatre in Armagh [still 20 miles away from us!],there is no orchestra.So we get to see European Ballet[very poor standard, i think] and Moscow Ballet La Classique[Much better],but both with TAPED music. Having being spoilt at the Palace Theatre in Manchester throughout my childhood and teens, i find the lack of ballet to watch,and the calibre i was used to, a major drawback to living here.

Great news, as others have said, about the Royal taking more British students. I know the Company can, quite rightly, pick the very best dancers,but there really needs to be more British dancers, especially Principals, in its ranks, before it becomes like the football Premier League altogether, and local talented youngters don`t hardly get a look in.!

This reminds me of many years ago i was at Northern Ballet School in Manchester. I started there when i was 12. There was a girl in the class,whose parents spent the most on at lessons there, doing the Modern, Tap,Coaching Class on a Monday night and something else too. She didn`t want to dance professionally [although a few years later she decided to attend auditions, but never got anywhere].In the class, we could all see this girl would never in a million years become a dancer, as her physical make-up was all wrong. Apart from having very large breasts, she had absolutely no turnout at all, not even a fraction, and no instep or arches,and could barely put one foot up on the barre, without having to raise her supporting leg`s heel, she was so "stiff" and completely unsupple. Now, i`m sure most people on here are aware, that a school`s exam results are a reflection, not just of the dancer, but of the school. We were all entered for RAD Grade 3, then 4,then Senior Grade, etc, every year.This girl was never entered for even one exam, not even ISTD Modern. After our exam, when the following week, we had all moved up to the next grade class, [the ones who had taken their exam], lo and behold, every time, this girl was automatically moved up each time along with us, without taking the exam. Naturally, we would all be furious; "Why have we worked so hard for a whole year, learning the syllabus, etc.in order to take this exam,and this girl just gets moved up automatically, without any of the effort?" Of course, i could see the real reason, even if none of the others knew. But,this , apart from i think, not being fair on all of us who had worked so hard to earn that move up the grades, was also not fair on the girl in question either, who, completely wrongly, must have assumed she was so fantastic she didn`t need to be entered into the exams every year. As far as i know, this girl was the only one in the whole part-time,children`s section, this applied to. Again, i can only assume because her parents were paying out a small fortune in fees every term and the school didn`t want her to lose heart and leave. Rambling on a bit here, but how much better would it have been for her if the school had been brutally honest about her abilities[or lack of them] to her and her parents from the start?

On a similar topic,how many of you have seen Youtube clips of 6 year old girls, not only en pointe, but performing Odette variations, and Don Quixote, etc? The schools tend to be either American or Russian. Just wondered what people thought about this? Personally, i think it is disgraceful, for a young child to be doing pointe work, and variations that are way beyond their years. In fact, i get quite angry when i see it. Everyone else comments what an amazing school it must be, to have little girls at such a high standard so young. I commented that they should concentrate more on teaching careful exercise to improve strength and turnout, rather than having them dress up in nice costumes and bouree across the stage. This particular, Russian site, has now blocked me from making any more comments .Can these schools be legal? I mean,can it be legal to allow a 6 year old girl to do pointe work? Interesting to hear what others on the forum think, but i would imagine the vast majority of people on hear think the same as me.