taxi4ballet

I've wanted to take up dance for a while and have been waiting for a local school to start offering these classes. This term there are now three dance schools within a reasonable travelling distance which are offering RAD Silver Swans classes, but I can't go to any of them. They are all held during the day, and I am at work. The syllabus is specifically designed for the over 55's, but I can't retire for a long time yet, and many of us will have to work until we are 66 or 67, so many of us are missing out on this opportunity, So really this is a plea from myself (and no doubt others aged 55+) who would love to join in. If you and other schools nearby already have, or are adding, Silver Swans to your school timetable, please would you come together with other teachers in your area and arrange for one class to be held during the evening so that those of us who are not yet retired can get a look-in. Thank you!

The only thing Nadine Dorries knows about the arts is what it's like to appear on telly in I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here. And that went down like a lead balloon with her constituents, not to mention the local Tory party HQ... especially since she pushed off to Australia without telling them, and they only found out where she was because it was all over the newspapers a couple of days later.

Oh good grief, she's my MP. I don't know how much she knows about culture, but she didn't give a toss when I contacted her about funding for vocational dance training several years ago.

Similar thing happened to me at work once. My boss (the Financial Director ironically) and the other big cheeses were off to Cheltenham for a corporate jolly on Gold Cup day. I gave him a fiver to bet on a horse in the Gold Cup and the starting price was 16/1. He decided not to place my bet. Apparently my horse had such long odds he didn't want me to lose. Well the horse came in first. He gave me my £5 back the next day, and I did ask where my other £80 was, but I never got it out of him. I fiddled my holiday entitlement instead!

There are several clips on youtube but they all seem to be the primary grade. You might have to contact the RAD and ask if they know of any other recordings.

What are they paying?! 🤣

I've got to be honest, I only know two of those celebrities.

Something to bear in mind about Tring is that although it is a boarding school, overseas students need a nominated 'guardian' or similar who lives in the UK.

Teenagers aged 14/15 do decide to start ballet, often as a result of taking GCSE dance at school. Most dance schools will have had enquiries from teen beginners before, so why don't you contact a couple of local dance schools and see what they can offer you?

From what I understand, there were additional mounts available. They aren't machines, and they do get injured or have an off day. Apparently that particular horse had already acted up with another competitor earlier in the day, so why she didn't take the option to change horses I don't know. Maybe she'd ridden it before and got on all right with it.

Everyone's opinion is welcome on this forum, and the poster makes a valid point. It may not necessarily apply to the OP, but it will to others, whose ambitions for their child outweigh the child's ability.

It could also be that maybe.. just maybe.. the teaching is just not good enough, and that the standard of training at the school is perfectly good enough for once-a-week recreational dancers, but not of a high enough standard to bring out the best in students with natural talent and vocational potential.

That explains it then.

The Bloch website isn't all that great, is it?

Half an hour for a grade 1 class doesn't sound long enough to do all that much; 3/4 of an hour to an hour's class would be better really. Half an hour is more suited to tiny tots than for age 7+. Agree that if she is showing potential then she could easily cope with more than that. The cheerleading thing sounds like a waste of time so unless she really loves it and doesn't want to give it up, I'd knock that one on the head.

Good grief. Wonders will never cease.

You never know, if they are changing the dates the AD might be able to attend his own upper school finals instead of being at the Prix de Lausanne.

This is definitely not describing anything that goes on in the UK. The biggest clue is in the words 'high school'.

Thanks all, she went shopping yesterday apparently and got some Roch Valley stretch canvas ones, and she's happy with those. Cheaper than most, too.

The second brood of wrens in our garden should be fledging any day now. And in other news, there's a great toad living in our shed. I tried to catch it and usher it outside earlier, but it resisted all my attempts. They can't half move fast when they want to!

I have gone cross-eyed wading my way through that lot at this time of night, but at first sight it may well be pro-rata. To be more certain I'd have to put my work hat on, print out the whole thing, and sharpen my pencil...

If they are looking for in-depth discussions on ballet as an art form, then I'd suggest that they look no further than the many thousands of threads on this forum.

For 'relevant' read 'woke'.

Why does art need to be 'relevant' anyway? How relevant is Constable's Haywain? Should that be stored away in a vault to make room for a recent work of art depicting a more modern piece of agricultural machinery?

The world today is a horrible place in many respects. To be honest, if I'm going to take out a small mortgage for theatre tickets I want to be transported to a fantasy land, not subjected to gritty realism.