Dance*is*life

I presume that S&D is song and dance - one of my favourite sections, when I was competing more than 50 years ago! Bare foot in my day was what they called natural movement or Greek dance. Of course today it may well mean something else, but I saw in the Dancing Times that they still hold the Ruby Ginner Cup for Greek dancing, which I won in 1962, or thereabouts! Good luck in the comps!

Underchanged - what is that????? Wierd! About assessed out - it's all these politically correct phrases or whatever they call them - like saying sorry you were unsuccessful, rather than you failed!

tutucute22 - your post reminded me of going to see a friend of mine in Nutcracker. She knew we were coming and tied a knot in her tail, so that we would know which mouse she was! She said she got really told off, but it was worth it!!!! The funny thing is that we met up recently after many years of each wondering what had happend to the other (thank you Facebook) and we both remembered that performance! The RAD has quite a few nice Christmassy presents in their online shop. I bought my Great Nieces Nutcracker dolls and they loved them.

Yes there was one book about a boy dancer I loved - A Proper Little Nooreyev. There is definitely a gap there to fill. Good luck Jane - I loved your photo in the tutu - it was so calm and regal for a little one!!! I shall look forward to buying your books for my Great Nieces!

There is still a bar in the area adjoining the Crush Bar, which was where you would have bought your drinks previously, but you can't now bring them into the main Crush Bar area. We had a coffee in the interval in the Floral Hall, but thought the prices for food snacks were over the top.

Perhaps I exaggerated a little about the exclusive and expensive (I thought it was expensive, but perhaps that's just me!), but there is someone at the entrance to the restaurant accepting the diners and you need to have booked a table before they will let you in. At least that's what I was told. When it was just the Crush Bar, you could buy a drink or whatever and just hang around admiring the gorgeous chandelier.

Before they turned the Crush Bar at the ROH into an exclusive and very expensive restaurant, which is off bounds for the plebeians, I saw a lovely birthday party there at one of the matinees. All the little girls were in old-fashioned "sticking-out" party dresses full of frills and ribbons and I could only think of how much I would have loved to have had a birthday tea there when I was a child. I can't imagine a more perfect birthday treat!

I second everything that Anjuli wrote about pointe work. I danced on pointe for about 16 years in all and my feet survived! And that was in the days before ouch pouches etc! However, I have always gone to a chirpodist on a regular basis and that is something I do recommend.

I'm just wondering why you would want to start pointe now? It sort of strikes me as being rather unneccessary under the circumstances ( that you do mainly modern and want to be an actress).

Beautiful! Is it Kiri te Kanawa singing?

Yes indeed, I actually have a friend whose son learnt once, maybe twice a week until he was 14, when he was accepted to Central's Associates, which gave him 4 classes on a saturday. That was when he started to develop. He took his Intermediate as an Associate and at 16 started full time at Central. He's now a professional ballet dancer and a very good one too! I also had a talented male student, who was accepted for the RBS summer school when he was 13 after doing just two classes a week at Intermediate Foundation level. That year the boys class was for 13 to 17 year olds and he really struggled picking up the steps. I remember going to watch and being quite upset that he wasn't really ready for what was expected of him. However, when I spoke to the teacher, he shook off my apologetic concern - What do you expect on two lessons a week? He's doing very well indeed - stop worrying! He was tremendously understanding and encouraging! And indeed by the end of the second week my young lad was keeping up well (some of the big boys adopted him and helped him out!). There were actually only two 13 year olds in the boys class and they realised that it wasn't the greatest idea to put them with 16 year olds, so in fact the next year they moved all the 13 and 14 year olds (girls too) to the White Lodge summer school, which was much better and he was accepted again for that. By that time he was 14 and had passed Intermediate, They invited him back for a third time to attend senior SS in the newly built Covent Garden studios when he was 15, which was amazing. By then he had taken Advanced Foundation and had no trouble keeping up, even though this time he was again the youngest in a group that included 19 year olds! They didn't accept him for full time training, but he went to Elmhurst for two years, before turning pro. Yes as BankrollingBallet noted, you just have to be ingenious at getting them as much extracurricular dance lessons and courses as you can to suppliment. I found another lone boy dancer, whose mother was willing to drive him anywhere to get him extra training, and I arranged for the two boys to have private coaching with a male teacher/professional dancer. He also did any and every short course that I could send him to, and I worked with him privately in order to teach him the RAD male syllabi. It's hard, but the talented ones can make it with a little more push!

When we were on holiday in Paris a few years ago, I managed to get a reduced price ticket in the middle of the Opera Garnier stalls for Manon. It was a few hours before the performance and mid-summer, so maybe that's why they had tickets left and reduced them. I also saw Sylvia that way as a last minute purchase.

I don't live in the UK any more. When I said Senior High I was trying to find a term to describe the final three school years for 15 - 18 year olds, which is when the matriculation certificate is done here. Perhaps I should have called it the Upper School? They study in a dance stream at regular school, for which they have to audition, as well as learning the full gamut of regular school subjects. The dance exam would be the equivalent of an A level in dance, in terms of marking. I have no idea how it compares content wise to the GCSEs. They get 2 ballet and 2 modern classes a week, plus workshops with guest choreographers, as well as lessons in anatomy, dance history, dance composition classes (they have to choreograph a piece using their fellow students) and music, all of which are examined as part of their final exams. The majority of our senior girls go down this path and still come after school for classes with us, where the ballet level is higher. The choreography workshops take place over 4 or 5 months of the year and are used to prepare pieces for the concert that they put on in March. We always breathe a sigh of relief when that's over, because then the girls have more free time and energy for classes with us! Our RAD exams are in March/April and then our end of year show/display/recital (whatever you want to call it!) is in the first half of July.

The RAD also used to do a professional dancers' course to train to be a teacher. Have they done away with this now, does anyone know????

Amazing how it all works out! And everybody copes? I suppose it's what you're used to, so you just get on with it! Yes, great set up. We have a performance every year and each class does a dance with each teacher, so it's very complicated to give them all enough time to change costume, especially if there is the odd student who dances for some reason or another with a higher group in one genre. We've started to split the lower grades from the higher ones and have two performances. That way the top students really benefit, because they are showcased in both performances. We seemed to have drifted away from the original post, but I am finding this such a fascinating thread, so I hope it's alright!

ParentTaxi - how does your daughter keep all those different syllabi straight in her head? Doesn't she get muddled? It's actually quite a clever way of getting more hours, because in fact she's working at a higher level than the exam she's taking. Do you have an end of year recital? If so it must be complicated working out what level she should dance with!

hfbrew - I agree very impressive! You must be a very good teacher! Thank you everyone for your info. I hadn't realised quite what teachers are up against. I know that many RAD schools get excellent exam results in spite of only having their pupils once or twice a week and I really take my hat off to them! I teach in a town of 85,000 and of course there are lots of other dance schools and studios. However, there is just one senior high school with a dance stream (no vocational schools) and although the emphasis is on modern, they only accept students with ballet training. This means that suddenly at the age of 13 and 14, girls realise that they will need to improve their ballet technique if they want to get in at 15, so they come to us. Some of them have been dancing for several years at the other schools, when they join us. We invariably have to place them in a lower age group in order to teach them some basic technique and they are way behind our own students. We get children from all over the town, so that's how I know we're the only school offering serious ballet training. We only have two studios in the same building as the music department, but they are ours, so classes can run 5 days a week! I am very, very lucky to work here. I tried starting my own school, but I prefer just having to teach!

When students come to our school they know up front that they have to do ballet first and foremost, and I suppose we must be doing something right, because they rarely drop out of the school to escape it !!!! We're the only school in the town to teach ballet seriously though and everyone knows it, so that helps. We don't have entry auditions, so have a mixed bag of students, but luckily the intensity of the training is enough to enable the talented ones to reach a high enough level for acceptance in company trainee positions. And the less talented ones, without the physical attributes, still enjoy their training, love dancing and show an acceptable level of technique.

I'm afraid I don't know how much they cost exactly, just that they were quite a bit cheaper when bought by Russians. Our daughter-in-law's parents bought them for us on line (we saw Don Q) as a gift. I hope that they didn't just say that they were cheaper, so we wouldn't make too much fuss about their inviting us! By the way, I have had some wonderful best of house tickets for West End shows for 25 pounds by getting Senior concessions! Actually, the first time I asked for them, the box office clerk asked for ID and the woman who had been in front of us got rather upset - apparently she hadn't been asked to prove her age!

There was an ad which showed a young man doing pas de deux and "enjoying" it very much (wink wink) whilst his mates looked on enviously. Think it was for beer or something. Anyone know what I'm talking about? It was very funny!

aileen - there is a basic fee for two lessons a week and then an extra charge is made for each additional class. However, the more classes you add, the less you pay for the class, so the 6th lesson would cost an extra pound a week and the 7th one is free. Thus the exams at the advanced levels are considered very expensive here at around 140 pounds sterling. They could pay membership and so pay less for the exam, but there are no real benefits to that (apart from a magazine three times a year) especially if they don't take the exam in the end. In the school where I teach, I would say that the majority of the parents are able to pay for the exams up to the lower vocational levels, although some are against exams in principle. Then there are those who really can't afford it (single mums for example) who get a discount from the school for classes, but sometimes even that isn't enough and they have to cut down on the number of classes. I often help out if there's a particularly promising student, who can't afford the exam, by paying for them and letting them pay me back in installments. Learning to dance is an expensive business! Kiwimum6 - I think that the majority of vocational schools only offer RAD classes once a week. The idea is that if you are getting high level ballet classes on a regular daily basis, then you just need one class a week in order to learn the set material, because the technique is already being taken care of in the non-syllabus classes. That is of course the ideal way. A male student of mine who went to Elmhurst, joined that school having passed his Advanced 1 with me at 16. He then had one class a week for about 4 terms so as to learn the Advanced 2. He had to go down to London to take the exam and even so there were no other boys with him! And he got a fairly high Distinction. I have thought a lot about why so many RAD schools in the UK offer so few hours and I think it may be related to the fact that it is presumed that children who want to take it up seriously will go to one of the vocational schools, and that those who don't are therefore classified as recreational dancers. Would anyone agree with that?

Don't forget that Baryshnikov also had a rather successful acting career in films, TV and theatre.

Let me make sure that I understand your question, aileen. Did you mean do they do Higher Grades if they don't do Vocationals? In our school, everyone learns the same syllabus and moves up with the class each year, whether or not they have taken the exam. Not every student is capable of or wants to take exams. Not every parent can afford to pay for the exams, so we do not insist on that being the criteria for moving up. They have enough weekly training hours to cover the work properly, so it's not a problem to move them all up together. I do let as many as I can take the exam if they want to, but sometimes that backfires. In the past I would only let the better ones take the exam, but then I realised that if I allowed the weaker ones to take the exams they invested more effort in their training and usually improved quite a lot. The problem is that they are used to getting very high school marks, so find it hard to accept that they have passed ballet with a mark in the 60s, which sounds to them very low! Of course, I am delighted when they manage to pull off a reasonable Merit mark, especially if I thought they might fail! After Grade 5, we do IF, then Grade 7 and then Intermediate. We do sometimes continue on with the Advanced Vocational levels, but the costs of the exams are so prohibitive, that we often prefer to just give them non-syllabus advanced classes and not bother with exams. Occasionally I have taught Grade 6 instead of IF, but I think I get better results when I teach them IF. I don't bother with Grade 8.

Dance Direct the catalogue dance wear retailers have several red leotards on offer. Bloch, Capezio, Mirella and Plume all had nice looking versions.

Our IFs get two 90 minute ballet classes a week, plus two or three other dance classes (modern etc) . In our school they do IF after they have finished Grade 5, so there wouldn't be much point in taking the grade classes again. I usually add on an extra half hour to the schedule once we start pointework. I imagine a lot depends on how long their actual IF syllabus classes are (60 or 90 minutes).