Pas de Quatre
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Everything posted by Pas de Quatre
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Have you looked at Trinity Laban Conservatoire, they have lots of classes in the evenings as well as running a CAT scheme.
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Schools have total discretion over who receives an MDS. The schools in the scheme are allocated a certain number of them which can be awarded from Yr 7 upwards. If one becomes free the school can reallocate it to a pupil in any year. Some schools with MDS also have DaDa in 6th form. An MDS can be continued into 6th form, however, often the school decides to award a DaDa instead so the the MDS can be used by a younger pupil. These awards are tied to the school/organisation and I don't think they can be carried from one place to another. Of course the new school may decide to give one of their own MDS awards to that pupil.
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To balance the discussion, I know a dancer from USA who graduated from RBS Upper School a few years ago but was warned there would be problems with work visas.. Ended up with a good ballet job, but not an EU country.
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alwaysbroke, sometimes what people say is the unfortunate truth, not that they are trying to be horrid. As far as I know, dancers from Northern Ballet School tend to go into commercial work such as cruise ships rather than ballet, no matter which course they are on. There was a member who posted here a couple of years ago about the reality of her dd's audition journey looking for jobs. If you do a search - probably under Northern Ballet School you might find it.
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I have had pupils as JAs and accompanied them and others to JA experience days. The teachers are always kind and encouraging. The lessons are taken at a very slow pace, with lots of exercises sitting or lying on the floor to show the children which muscles they should be using. The children are not learning lots of new complicated steps!
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Ballet and Dance on BBC TV
Pas de Quatre replied to Josephine's topic in Ballet / Dance news & information
There is an article in The Times today too. -
This is the thread for Upper School auditions so that is what I am talking about. However, in many ways the same applies to younger ones, a professional eye can see many things very quickly.
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Someone posted elsewhere about how in professional auditions people are cut during barre after a few exercises, and so on throughout the class. I suspect that the equivalent happens in these auditions. A trained eye will be able to assess physiques, turnout and flexibility during the barre. So although no one is sent out of the audition many may well already be a "no".
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Please everyone and I don't want to offend anyone, but can we have correct English usage! I would expect the panel to be disinterested - it means impartial. But it is very sad if they appear uninterested! Yes I agree concentration can make people appear grim. My pupils reckon that examiners marks are often in reverse proportion to how happy they look. i.e. smiles = low marks, grim = high marks!
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As the new Artistic Director is still employed abroad, it is unlikely that he can make it to London for the Preliminary auditions.
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The reputation of the company and the school is very high, so it should be good!
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I would second what hfbrew says. DD has done classes with Paul Lewis too and loved them, I have observed classes with Jay Jolley and I have taken a teachers' seminar with Mark Annear, They are all fabulous teachers and know what they are doing. That they are men is irrelevant to the audition process.
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One factor that hasn't really been mentioned is that many of the overseas dancers don't attend ordinary academic schools. Originally due to geography, in USA and Australia the nearest academic school might be hours away, home-schooling is considered to be much more normal than it is generally in UK. Claudia says she was dancing all week, many hours each day, and doing school work at the weekend. In the UK it is usually the reverse.
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I have never recommended swapping pointe shoes from one foot to the other, but I do suggest it for soft shoes as it makes them last longer. The only difference might be that the shoe gets a bit stretched over the big toe and so looks odd on the other foot, but for normal class that doesn't matter.
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No a deep vamp is a long one. The vamp is the length of the shoe from the end to where it stops. Even if the width and the length of a block is correct, if the profile is too high the foot will slide down when on point. If you can put a finger inside the top of the shoe where the drawstring ties, when the foot is flat on the ground or on pointe then profile is too high,
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This discussion seems to have almost gone full circle, because many people believe the problem with the corps is because the dancers come from too many different places. Some dancers may have had only a few months or a year in Upper School, and the disparate training backgrounds show, the corps lacks cohesion - not the individual dancers fault of course.
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Profile is the depth. If you think of the block in a ballet shoe like an open ended box, it has three dimensions. Length, width and depth.
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The dancers you mention are indeed lovely Marianne and I am sure will have wonderful careers. But they didn't graduate all at once, but over several different years.
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Sorry - no, Freeds have never produced low profile shoes. Some people think low profile = stiff feet, but this just isn't so. I have known dancers with the most gorgeous narrow, low profile feet, which were also highly arched and flexible!
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It's in the academic year that pupils do their GCSE's that they audition for Upper Schools/Colleges/6th Forms.
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It always surprises me that some schools still specify a particular make of shoe. No single brand suits everyone.
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Actually in Australia many schools are Russian based rather than RAD. Gailene Stock's own training was Vaganova (Russian). I am not sure about Mark Annear (head of RBS Outreach) but I think it may be similar. Schools enter students for the RAD vocational exams so they can do the Genée competition, but the main training is not necessarily RAD.
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The point I am trying to make is that these decisions are all far too soon. Children's development is never a straight upward diagonal line on a graph, there will be ups and downs, peaks and troughs, but hopefully the line continues upwards over several years. To make such life changing decisions so quickly seems short sighted when ballet training is so long term.
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I imagine we can all agree, that if a previously unknown, outstanding student suddenly appears to audition for Yrs 8, 9 or 10, it would be an exceptional case. However, it is mostly the same dancers auditioning for Yr 7 and subsequent years if they weren't accepted at first. Even allowing for unexpected physical developments, if several pupils are assessed out and others who have made more progress are taken in, then it appears the training outside is stronger than that in the school. Perhaps it is the teaching that should be assessed.
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That many pupils on crutches should ring alarm bells!
