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Dance*is*life

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  1. Dance*is*life
    Does anyone remember the classical music quiz Face the Music? My parents and I loved it. It was a wonderful format - the panel were so knowledgeable and it was a serious minded quiz - except that it wasn't - it was great fun! The light hearted banter that went on relieved it of being too high brow for a start! I looked it up on Wiki and it ran for 13 years originally from 1966 to 1979, then again in 1983-4. They subsequently brought out a pilot for a new series in 2007, which presumably never got taken up. Were viewers more serious and culturally minded in the 60s and 70s? Or was it just because there were fewer channels and people watched it because there was something more boring on the other channel? And yet in order to run for 13 years, there had to be more to its popularity than not having much competition for its viewers!
  2. Dance*is*life
    Mine was Beriosova, Odyssey! We were not supposed to watch the company rehearsals, but I remember one day daring to peep in for a few minutes. Suddenly the door opened and Beriosova came out. I was sure she was going to tell me off, but all she did was to warn me to put on my legwarmers between classes, so as not to let my muscles get too cold! That was it - I was a Beriosova groupie after that!
  3. Dance*is*life
    I searched for Ballet for All on youtube and couldn't find anything - but I did find this little bit of nostalgia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnNXMK46toY
  4. Dance*is*life
    Just wanted to add my tuppence worth! I thought the Bohemian Rhapsody pas de deux was beautiful - Thanks for posting it! Did anyone else wonder how after dancing like that for 6 minutes neither dancer seemed to be sweating???? I watched the Nureyev documentary and found it enthralling! He made a huge impact on British ballet - even the training. I was at RBS in the early '60s and changes were made after he came on the scene. I remember watching him in a stage rehearsal - he lost his temper, threw his shoes on the stage and stormed off! Does anyone remember the Ballet for All series? There were several programmes shown on TV in black and white and possibly can still be found on Youtube. It seems a shame that more programmes are not geared to explaining ballet in the way that Ballet for All did. I remember as a young child being sent to bed as usual at 7pm and then being woken up again as a special treat to watch ballet on TV! Do any children actually go to bed at 7pm any more? Still I think it happened fairly regularly then -1950s.
  5. Dance*is*life
    Belated Christmas wishes and to all my Balletcoforum friends I hope you have a wonderful 2016 filled with love and the joy of dance!
  6. Dance*is*life
    Oh yes it came round to me on Facebook and I shared it - thought it was brilliant! As someone said above - what I loved about it was that no-one paid them the slightest bit of attention!
  7. Dance*is*life
    I am presuming that your profile photo is of your son and he looks amazing! Anyone would be happy to get him! Very best of luck to him - I am sure we will be hearing more good news about him in the future.
  8. Dance*is*life
    My second toe is longer than my big toe and I never had any problems with pointe! I could do 32 fouettes right and left and it was certainly not a hindrance. I actually think that a longer big toe is more problematic as it may cause bunions. It was a million light years ago, but I was accepted to RBS and the length of my toes was never even mentioned. Anyway, if she's good she should audition and see what happens. You never know till you try!
  9. Dance*is*life
    Goodness, I had forgotten how difficult the Senior Grade was! Pique turns and sissone en avant etc! It was supposed to be taken between Grade 4 and Pre-Elementary wasn't it? I do remember teaching it, but can't seem to remember the exercises. I also remember the Birdcage Dance (This little bird is mine!) and the beepo Breton! The Grade 3 tarantella dance was quite difficult. Somehow it's all got mixed up, because the new Grade 4 and 5 seem really difficult and in reality they're probably much easier than those old, old grades! I think what I find harder to teach is all this parallel and modern work that's been inserted - I'm a very traditional, rather old, ballet teacher. Don't like upsets! Funnily enough I looked recently at some old videos from the 90s of my dances for Grade 2 and 3 in the school show and the vocabulary in them was much more advanced than what they do nowadays in the end of year performance. Strange.
  10. Dance*is*life
    I can't stand this sort of behaviour. I remember watching a summer school character class in the States when I was on holiday quite some years ago now. The Russian teacher had a class full of beautiful girls and one poor soul couldn't pick up the step. The teacher reduced her to tears by verbally abusing her, shouting at the top of her voice and making her do it again and again. The poor girl couldn't do it better, because she didn't understand what she was meant to do. I was so upset at seeing this I wanted to go in and tell the teacher - Just explain it to her again slowly, so that she gets it! I think after wasting everyone's time for about ten minutes, she eventually did show her the step again and of course the girl was then able to do it properly. The whole incident disturbed me so much at the time and as you can see I have never forgotten it. I felt bad afterwards that I didn't go and complain to the AD or something. The wierd thing was that there were some parents watching and it didn't seem to bother them - as if this was normal practise. I am so glad you are moving your daughter and hope that the incident didn't leave lasting damage. Ballet school should feel as comfortable as a second home to the students not a pressure pot.
  11. Dance*is*life
    Not everyone wants to be a choreographer and if you don't relate much to modern dance composition - I am not surprised you are not enjoying the GCSE studies. Do you have to do GCSE Dance? Can you get a good enough amount of exams without it? I mean will it make a great deal of difference to your results without it? It's true that I did dance professionally and have been teaching for nearly 40 years, but I still take class a couple of times a week, because even though I have a lost a great deal of my strength and technical ability and my feet don't hold me up on demi-pointe, I don't want to stop dancing. It warms my soul...... I think you have to find out if it warms yours too. You don't have to dance professionally to want to continue with class, you can take classes because it's something you do for you, because it's a part of you and you want to keep that. Whatever you decide, make sure you do it without regret and know that there is nothing to stop you changing your mind later. Adult ballet classes are filled with people who danced up to a certain age, gave it up when they realised they didn't want a career, but decided that they wanted to start again. Taking dance classes is such a fulfilling type of exercise. It's much more enjoyable doing something beautiful, rather than running on a boring treadmill!
  12. Dance*is*life
    Gosh - really sad! I just saw it on Facebook and did a double take at how could that be true? She was only 55! What a loss......
  13. Dance*is*life
    MAB, I didn't know that Gilpin married a real live princess! Who was she?
  14. Dance*is*life
    The problem is not that they are unset, but that the free enchainements are not demonstrated, but asked for in words just using the terminology. The students have to know the difference between dessus, dessous (though most examiners use over/under as children find differentiating between dessus and dessous very difficult) devant, derriere, en avant an arriere etc etc. Most children if shown an unset exercise can copy and pick it up, it's knowing the terminology that's difficult. And yes the pieces are for the free enchainements - they are in the music books too for the pianist.
  15. Dance*is*life
    I agree - hideous and without ankle support from the ribbons I would think rather insecure. What will they think of next? I have heard there is even a split sole pointe shoe - excuse me???????
  16. Dance*is*life
    Someone I know has a dancing son who got a place in the National Ballet School in Amsterdam. I'm afraid I don't know the exact prices, but it was really affordable compared to the UK schools and wonderful training. It might be worth looking into European schools.
  17. Dance*is*life
    I hate to point this out, but the RAD in their wisdom have introduced turned in jazz pirouettes at Grade 4 and 5 level. There's even a "multiplr" parallel turn in Grade 5! I presume it's to get them turning more easily, but personally I find it harder to do a double pirouette in parallel than turned out and don't like teaching them..........
  18. Dance*is*life
    Yes some dancers have it all, but haven't developed enough strength at a certain age. I have a student who is tall, thin and gorgeous looking with divine feet. However at 12 she hasn't grown into her long extremities and just can't get it together. I am hoping for a time in the future when she will, but who knows???? I do believe that for upper school you would probably have to have it all, but I'm not an expert on the audition process.
  19. Dance*is*life
    Do you not got the Mezzo channel on your cables in the UK? That offers wonderful ballets and dance programmes all year round. Personally I think John Gilpin rather transformed the way audiences in the UK looked at male ballet dancers! I remember that my sister who was definitely not a ballet fan would come with us if Gilpin was dancing! He was a "dish" and a beautiful dancer. I am surprised that so much is pinned on a dancer's looks though. What I love about British films and TV drama productions is the fact that the actors look like regular people and it's their acting that's important.
  20. Dance*is*life
    It does indeed! Fantastic for boys too having Mukhamedov!
  21. Dance*is*life
    I haven't been on for a couple of days, so this thread has grown somewhat in the meantime. What I wanted to say was that I danced the Neapolitan pas with Wayne Sleep in rep classes at the RBS (I was the right height for him at just under 5' 4"!). We definitely danced it full speed and as far as I remember had no problem in doing so. I would say that a great deal more time in ballet classes was spent on petit allegro, allegro and batterie in those days. Yes we always finished with grand allegro, but the smaller allegro and batterie enchainements were very prominent. Later on I remember doing extremely difficult batterie in Errol Addison's open classes. I could toss off a series of entrechat sixes with the boys easily. I think it's a shame that so much twinkly footwork has been lost in the effort to make huge athletic movements and gymnastic lines. I actually think that's one of the reasons that I like RAD - they have kept a lot of that training going.
  22. Dance*is*life
    How did she do??????
  23. Dance*is*life
    Wow - that is amazing - especially with such high odds! That must augur well for her balletic future!
  24. Dance*is*life
    Ha! I was right! I sort of presumed that you were a mum who spent her life chauffeuring kids to ballet, Taxi! Well that was a load of misunderstandings - really glad it's sorted! And what a nice compliment about this section and so true! I am so pleased that Pas de Quatre introduced me to this forum - I love it! Here's a little anecdote about dancer's wages - not company wages, but in panto about 45 years ago! For my first panto we had 4 weeks of rehearsal. We worked long hours and none of the corps dancers were paid anything. As Fairy Godmother and Principal Dancer I got about 7 pounds a week, which wasn't much, but better than nothing! A year or two later Equity got the dancers rehearsal pay, so rehearsal time was cut to about 10 days and we worked until late at night to be ready on time. Crazy!
  25. Dance*is*life
    Enigma Variations - although I am not sure that I would love it as much without the divine Beriosova as Elgar's wife!
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