Dance*is*life

Well here's an interesting point in a topsy turvy world. When I was at the RBS in the 60's you had to be British or Commonwealth to be accepted. White Lodge girls and boys were pretty much guaranteed a place in the upper school and they were normally only expected to do two years (the rest of us had to do 3) finishing in the Graduate Class. Company recruits were taken from Graduates and also a few from the top class below Grads - Theatre Class, which was usually where the good ones not from White Lodge were placed. The "foreigners" were only accepted into a special class for overseas students and the standard in the overseas class was lower than the rest of the school.

So what on earth has happened in the last forty-five plus years? The EU for a start, I suppose, but also non-EU too. The school gives scholarships to outstanding students in the Prix de Lausanne and YAGP for example. I am wondering if in order to preserve their reputation as one of the best schools world-wide, they prefer taking super talented students from abroad whose training has been more intense than the average British dancer. Still that doesn't really explain why they now take so few from White Lodge.........

I thought this was supposed to be the non-dance section?   But the policeman directing traffic is standing in a beautifully turned-out first position!!!  Wonderful film - thanks so much for posting it.......

I have to say that I am surprised about the canvas split shoes for the younger kids  as mentioned above.  I would be very interested in seeing some proper medical research.  I mean maybe I'm just repeating some old-fashioned mantra!  I do justify my insistance on leather shoes though because they definitely last longer and stay in better shape than the canvas ones, which tend to go into holes and get filthy very quickly!  (Yes I know you can wash them, but most kids wait so long before doing so that the dirt won't come out)

I actually won't allow my students to wear canvas split soles, because they don't give enough support or resistance for strengthening the foot, but I do allow them to wear leather split soles.  They are a great compromise and I wear them myself for classes.  Bloch do an excellent one in a nice coloured pink leather with a diamond shaped canvas insert under the instep.  They definitely give a better look to the pointed foot than the full sole leather shoes, but still offer quite a lot of support.

 With regard to the post above, there have been some welcome additions to vintage ballet performances on DVD and these include one with David Blair in Pineapple Poll together with The Lady and the Fool starring the divine Beriosova. 

Also, I totally agree with A frog above - I saw POB in Manon and it left me cold too.  No comparison with the RB in my opinion.  Oh and yes Seymour's Anastasia was incredible - particularly the second act - as was mentioned above.

Has anyone seen the Boris Eifman ballet company?  Now there is a company that acts as well as they dance - brilliantly.........

Natalia Markarova as Odette in Swan Lake - her arms ARE wings. Galina Ulanova in pretty much everything she did. I have a DVD of her in Giselle and it's an incredible portrayal. I will also never forget a performance I saw of Ekaterina Maximova with ENB as Tatiana in Cranko's Onegin. It was in 1989 when she was 50 and she was totally believable as a young girl with a crush on a sophisticated gentleman.

I think you also need a certain type of personality to succeed too. Talent, hard work and dedication are one thing, but you need to be tough to push yourself forward and fight for promotion - not every talented dancer has this.....

My son and his wife live in a flat on the coastal road by the sea front. Anyone can park in the street and in the evenings or any time at the weekends, they sometimes circle round for half an hour or more looking for parking. Many a time, they'll ask for a lift because they don't want to lose their parking space!!!

If your daughter knows the work and the teacher considers her ready to take the exam AND your daughter doesn't want to go up without actually taking the exam then I would tell her to go ahead with it. I would suggest though that she make time to practise even when you're away on holiday. Can you get her the music to practise to? It's a great pity that she won't be able to rehearse with the exam pianist, but hopefully, she'll cope. If you take your exam at Headquarters you don't get a rehearsal with the pianist first, so as long as she listens and responds to the music it's not so terrible. I have to say that I am surprised that they only have one rehearsal with the exam pianist - it is different working with a pianist rather than from a CD, because it's not a recording which never changes. On the other hand it's easier to respond to "live" music. Perhaps her teacher would agree to give her an extra coaching session when you get back from holiday?

Honestly - the worst thing that can happen is that she might get a lower mark than she would have done and that can happen to the most prepared pupil under the stress of exam pressures. I always tell my students that working for the exam is what really counts and not the result, as, however many guidelines they put in place, it all boils down to the opinion of one person, who sees them dance the exam once through over a period of less than an hour. It's the hard work that they put into preparing for the exam that makes them improve and advance, and, whatever the result, that is what is important.

Applause for whoever wrote that breakdown for pirouettes - it is absolutely spot on! I think pirouettes are all about co-ordination and the push off, plus the releve, the head, the arms all coordinated together all at the right moment are what in the end makes a good pirouette.

Even worse than standing chatting in shop doorways is people standing and smoking in them, because legally they are outside the shop and can smoke. I won't go into the shop if I have to hold my breath in order to pass through the smoke.

I started ballet at 3 years old and my parents were determined that their budding ballerina would get to see as many live ballet performances as they could afford.  It therefore probably wasn't my first performance, but my Dad managed to get tickets for us to three performances of the Bolshoi's first visit to London in 1956 when they performed at Covent Garden.  He queued up for hours to get the tickets and when he got to the box office he was informed that he would only be allowed to buy two tickets per performance.  I have no idea how, but my darling Dad managed to charm the guy in the box office into selling him three, so that he could take me too.  I was so thrilled with it all and in particular Galina Ulanova, of course, that I wrote to her to tell her and to invite her to tea!  I got a sweet letter back from her secretary and a signed photograph, which I still have by my bed.  There is also a newspaper cutting from the local "News" showing a photo of me resplendant in tutu under the title - The girl who invited ballerina Ulanova to tea!!!

My husband and I were once visiting a stately home, when we came upon a gathering of vintage Rolls Royce cars.  They were all parked along the wide avenue leading to the house and the owners had set out very smart picnic tables and chairs with hampers of chicken, glasses of champagne etc etc.  Anyway, as is wont to happen in an English summer the clouds appeared and it started to pour and when I say pour it was bucketing down.  It didn't bother our aristocratic car owners, however, they simply put up umbrellas and continued their picnic undeterred by raindrops dripping into the champagne...........  we fled to our car!

I have a student who has moved to London and was accepted for the touring company.  She is thrilled and really looking forward to it.  The Peacock Theatre company looks amazing!  What lovely photos!

I think it's not that we make up rules, just that sometimes when we learn a new syllabus as I did with the Higher Grades, we are told something which we then keep in our minds as gospel and don't notice when they change them!    I do think that this was the case with Grade 8, because I remember thinking that as I didn't intend to teach both grade 6 and 7, I wouldn't be able to enter them for Grade 8 anyway and actually didn't bother learning it well because of that!!!  They may have changed it years ago, but I didn't need to know so missed the info

I am rather surprised, however, that your teacher insisted that IF and AF are compulsary, because that has always been clear that they weren't.  They are however good preparation for the Inter and Adv.1 and worth teaching. I find that my IF's are usually around 11/12 and therefore about 13/14 by the time they are ready for Inter, although sometimes they are as old as 15 by the time they take Inter.  However, in my experience in order to get to a high enough level you really need to have taken Advanced 1 by age 16, when if you are accepted by a vocational school you will have two years to take Advanced 2 and then Solo Seal the third year.  Of course it is possible to take Advanced 2 from a private school, but it's not easy as you really need to be having multiple ballet lessons and pointe lessons a week in order to do so.    It's much easier at Vocational school, where, apart from their RAD exam coaching, which is usually extra, they have so many non-syllabus ballet and pointe classes a week.

If you are not sure that something is correct, you should be able to check on the RAD site.  They have an internet file called Exam Rules and Regulations I think, which pretty much covers everything.

Well, we were originally told that you have to pass both 6 and 7 before taking 8, but as you were so surprised I checked on the website and it seems that they have changed the rule and now there are no pre-requisites for the Childrens or Higher Grades only for the vocationals.  Sorry about that!

I suppose it really depends on how many lessons a week they have to train the Higher Grades.  I don't do Grade 8, but it's quite difficult and the dances are long and need a lot of strength and style.  Difficult to teach in just one 60 minute lesson a week, I would imagine.  We get about 6 months to prepare our students for the next exam session, although we also do some preparatory work at the end of the previous year, but we have twice a week lessons of 90 minutes for anything over Grade 5 and 2 x 75  minute classes for Grade 3 and 4.  I teach Grade 7 between IF and Inter, because I do think they need to mature a bit before taking Inter and the Academy recommends taking 2 years between the Vocationals.  Grades 6 and 7 are actually interchangeable - you can take 6 after 7 if you want to, but you have to have passed both to take Grade 8.

It was I believe mentioned in passing, but the mobile phone mania is one that gets my goat!  People sit in restaurants at the same table, but talk loudly (of course) on their mobiles to other people at the same time, or they walk along the street talking loudly or wait in queues talking loudly or cross streets without looking because they're talking loudly on their mobiles, but the worst one is the cars that pootle along in the middle lane and when you eventually manage to pass them, you can see they are texting whilst driving!  

I don't live in the UK and our exam session was just before Easter.  I received the results by e-mail yesterday and immediately started notifying the students of their results.  We do get the results quite a while before the actual certificates and report sheets, so as I know that it takes time to post those to us,  I give out the marks at once and put the poor kids out of their misery!  Perhaps your schools are waiting for the actual paper results before giving out the marks.

When ballet teachers talk about strength, it has nothing to do with being able to swim 20 lengths or do 16 push-ups The strength that is needed for the new Intermediate syllabus, is, for example, the ability to balance a rather difficult adage, holding the legs at a good height without wobbling. It is about core strength and control of feet and legs and arms and back. But ballet technique is far more than that. In our feedback session with the examiner after the session, she noted how important strong technique is. She explained that having a strong releve onto demi-pointe for pirouettes not only enabled the student to execute a good pirouette, but also allowed him/her to use the dynamics of the music correctly. The muscle work needed for ballet is different from sport, because we need to show beautifully elongated lines and not tough bunchy muscles. Actually even in sport there is different muscle use and power according to which sport you're doing.

I entered students for the Intermediate for the first time this year and they found it very difficult, particularly as they had not learnt the new Intermediate Foundation before working on the Inter syllabus. You definitely do need stamina and technical strength - that is true - but you also need quality and musicality and presentation as well. I think rather than worrying about doing extra activities to build strength, your daughter should practise, practise, practise all the new steps that have been introduced, double pirouettes both en dedans and en dehors, batterie, etc etc etc! If she's getting enough ballet lessons a week, I'm sure she'll be fine.

I was at the RBS in the 60's and when I joined there the style was still very English. After Nureyev's defection things started changing and when he began working regularly with the company his influence permeated the school too. Gradually I think the style became quite Russian, but I think that it is important for companies to maintain their heritage and I believe that the powers that be also felt that. I have watched classes at the school over the years and it seems to me that the style is now far more eclectic and much more English in its attention to detail than it was for a period. When I was at the school, as it is now, you could have RAD classes in order to take your Advanced exams. We also had Cecchetti classes. I keep hearing reference to RAD arms, but I am not sure what is implied with this remark. Yes they may be less expansive than Russian ones, but is that such a big deal? A syllabus is just something on a piece of paper - the teacher is the one who breathes life into it. I remember when a group of teachers held rehearsals for their vocational exam students together. The interesting thing was that as I was sitting there watching a class of students doing exactly the same exercises, I could clearly see that they looked totally different in their execution depending upon which teacher had prepared them. I also see differences in my own pupils in their style and I have taught them all exactly the same way - personality determines how they dance.

 I think that what people tend to forget is that the RAD is constantly updating and changing their syllabi.  They are now in the throes of teaching totally new work for both vocational and children's syllabi and the style is quite different from what it once was.  It's an excellent training system for both advanced students and the little once a weekers for whom it is particularly good, in that they are very careful about not asking for anything that might harm the growing child's body.   I personally have some concerns about the turn-out and height of legs being forced in Russian training.  Students in the Vaganova school in St. Petersburg are carefully selected with perfect "ballet" physique and can be asked to do things that the average child can't and shouldn't do.  So in my opinion at least, if you're only going to study an hour or two each week, you'd probably be safer sticking with RAD.   

A system or a syllabus is only as good as the teacher who teaches it.  There are wonderful Russian teachers and excellent RAD teachers and children can thrive and become professional dancers doing Cecchetti, RAD, Balanchine, Vaganova etc etc.  What in the end allows a child to develop strong technique is the number of hours spent training each week and I do believe that ideally once a student is more advanced, they can safely tackle different styles/training systems.  I teach the RAD exam syllabi in our school, although once the exams are over each year, I teach non-syllabus classes.  Once the students are up to Grade 7 they add on a third 90 minute ballet class with a Russian teacher and have no problem taking his classes.  They understand that he calls things differently from me and I explain to them that that is fine.  Correct technique is correct technique and I haven't really found any conflict in what he requires of them and what I do.  I am surprised that your friend's daughter is doing Grade 7 with Advanced Foundation - I teach Grade 7 between Intermediate Foundation and Intermediate - however, I presume that it's in order for her to get extra classes.  Anyway, I would say let her try the Legat classes and see how she gets on.  I don't see that it would do her any harm and it would widen her range.  As I said above - what's important is having enough classes and if the teacher is good then the system is less important.  Of course, it may not suit her, but it's certainly worth trying.  

Can 13 year olds apply for the girls' scholarships or are they only from 14?  And is it too late to apply?

I had a male student attend when he was at Elmhurst and he loved it.  The photos of him on the web site were fantastic and I could see just what a high standard there was. He did the RBS SS 3 times and actually felt that this was even better, because it had such a professional atmosphere, less school like.  I haven't had a good enough student since then - there are so few with the right physique and strong enough technique, who can actually afford it   However, this year, I have a student going for one week (she has a school trip which clashes with the first week, so she's just going for the second week) and I am delighted for her - I just know she's going to lap it up!  By the way - it's not that expensive compared to other SI's in the UK, because their accommodation seems to be cheaper.   Good luck to your daughter Tulip!

Just found this thread and have to put in my 10p's worth!   I adored Miss Saigon and saw it four times! With songs like The Movie in My Mind, Why God Why and Last Night of the World, it's quite emotionally draining!  I have also seen Blood Brothers four times!  I actually didn't enjoy Les Mis the first time around!  My husband splurged on box seats, but the seats themselves were dreadful - they'd lost all their padding and the first act seemed doubly long as a consequence!  We were also too near a louspeaker and too much on one side.  The second time we bought tickets more in the middle and I loved it, so I think that sometimes external influences can affect whether or not we enjoy something. 

I have over the years seen many musicals in the West End and am rarely disappointed, but there have been some that I could have done without - Rent for example - couldn't understand any of the words and found the theme depressing rather than moving.  My niece lives in Manchester and on visits to her I have seen a few excellent shows that previewed there before the West end opening, including Ghost and Sister Act, which were both excellent.  I adore musicals, both stage and film, from the "let's put on a show kids"  Mickey Rooney type musical, through the great ones like West Side Story, Carousel, Oklahoma, King and I, South Pacific, My Fair Lady, Sound of Music, etc etc and I sometimes thought I should have had a career in musicals rather than ballet!  I actually auditioned for some when I was young, but my dancing was too "classical", so I stopped fighting the inevitable!!!