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Flora

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  1. Flora
    Sarahw- I remember worrying about this last year and feeling Yr 11 DD did not need endless days off considering early Jan auditions. There really isn't a lot of provision over Christmas so DD did Danceworks in London, stretched, did pilates and swam every day she wasn't dancing. This year we have the opposite problem. She is doing a Nutcracker and it is a gruelling 12 hour day.
  2. Flora
    Re the question "How many pointe shoes does a DD get through per term?" for us the answer is one pair of pointe shoes per week.
  3. Flora
    Re intensity of training, how many hours of training a day at the school? DD is also overseas but not Russia. She is clocking up 7-8 hours a day in the studio but only 5 days a week. There are no weekend classes or rehearsals. Not sure what hours are like at the UK Upper Schools.
  4. Flora
    Aileen, I was interested to read your post. DD has started training abroad and a huge difference I have noticed is a much more positive atmosphere around the chances of having a career and generally speaking a happy environment in the dance studio, where the dancers seem to have much less strong opinions on where they need to train in order to succeed. Maybe we have just been lucky so far and I know some people have had bad experiences overseas. I do feel though the attitude of some UK ballet teachers is all to often much too negative, including in the top schools. Too many UK teachers pick their one or two favourite students in the class and basically teach and correct only those students, at the same time throwing out only negative (often body focussed "you need to lose weight" or "you have bad this that or the other") corrections to the other students. This approach just ends up persuading every dancer that they are either amazing with 0% effort or useless with 100% effort, both equally counter-productive and untrue. Just my personal opinion but to me a good teacher should be correcting and encouraging every single dancer in the class, so that every student leaves feeling they have had something of a mini private lesson. There are some teachers who seem to do that, it is not impossible. I've also noticed one or two of the top UK schools seem to have a hugely patronising style of teaching. I appreciate the UK system of training may be slow and repetitive and it's certainly not for me as a non-dancer to judge whether this is right or not. Please, though, these are committed artistically minded young people. Surely they don't need to be spoken to as if they are 5 year olds?
  5. Flora

    Year 11

    Flora replied to BlueLou's topic in Doing Dance

    One step and one thing at a time. Make sure your DC gets sleep. Tell school they are ill if they need a day in bed (exhaustion makes you feel poorly. It is not a lie). I agree with Pups Mum. Stock the house with some gin and wine.
  6. Flora
    I guess the need for an audition video will be fine for most international candidates as they will have one anyway. As usual hard on the GCSE candidates who may lack both the time and the resources...
  7. Flora
    The whole ENBS process is incredibly expensive as they also require you to have a medical just prior to Finals which cost me about £200 pounds last year as I recall. (Our NHS GP does not believe in doing things on the NHS if he can avoid it).
  8. Flora
    Have lived in London for 20 years and have yet to find a nice cheap hotel for putting up the extended family. I put some family members up in the Lancaster overnight at Christmas - as I recall it was around £200 a room per night and all I can say is the rooms were quite awful. Watch out for places with bed bugs if you are picking somewhere budget. Good idea to lift the mattresses and check them before you open your suitcase!
  9. Flora
    Well done to them to get in, and not from the waiting list. Our DD was definitely in the "filling up the numbers" cohort in weeks 3 and 4! She was not ever made to feel at all awkward though. In the final show, one of the oldest groups did a modern piece with a corps and various solos. I felt a little sorry for those who did not get a solo in the piece and were only in the corps as the sum total of their role was pretty much to stand still on stage for about 20 mins. DD was happy not to be in the older group.
  10. Flora
    I agree. DD did RBS upper summer school this year and thought the UK students mostly fell into two groups: already at RBS US or (like my DD) got a place from the waiting list as a "filler" more or less at the last minute- in her case without accommodation. She also noticed many of the overseas students seem to be offered four weeks- so the two summer schools back to back which obviously further worsens the odds. It was a great summer school. DD loved it
  11. Flora
    Mmmm. Our DD is 16 training overseas and tells me her chums in London are having a pretty good time. Without singling out any particular school, I get the impression there is a fair bit of dancing and other things going on outside the studio too. Some schools perhaps more than others...
  12. Flora
    Ballet bean I will pm you
  13. Flora
    Year 11 is such a tough year and especially for those who have, or want to have, a pure classical focus. Our DD had two bitter disappointments last year getting RBS and ENBS finals but ultimately places at neither. When the ENBS finals results came out we were in a public place and DD lost it to such an extent I was worried someone among the many staring would call Childline .. ! Anyway, she came out the other side and is now training overseas and hoping to do YAGP. To be honest she is getting better training and more personal attention than she would ever have had access to in the UK. It has all come with a staggering price tag though. DD has two parents working their socks off to pay for it all. At least she is happy and massively grateful...
  14. Flora
    There are assessments every year at ENBS and they can and do assess out in which case you lose your place/funding
  15. Flora
    DD just finished RBS 2 week summer school in Covent Garden. She thoroughly enjoyed herself and the standard of the show at the end was, I thought, high. The classes included stage craft, repertoire, pas de deux, ballet and new creations. PDD was with older boys. Mostly taught by RB dancers or ex dancers and not teachers of the school. She was en pointe for nearly all of the day and got through two pairs of new pointe shoes in two weeks. This year her age group (16) seemed to be the youngest apart from a few international girls who had been moved up a year. There were a handful of UK dancers but they were few- mostly it was international. Dare I say, I felt a more serious summer school than POB which she attended last year.
  16. Flora
    Can I just say, I don't know Raymond so well but DD feels Josephine is one of the very best teachers in London right now. A hugely experienced teacher with extremely high standards and expectations - works her dancers very hard and gets an enormous amount out of them- but very nurturing and supportive. DD also loves Adam Pudney who does very inexpensive drop in classes in London at Pineapple and Danceworks. Interestingly DD is not too into lessons from ex-Principals especially recent ones. She feels they do not necessarily have the experience or the teaching knack. Just because you are a stellar dancer does not necessarily mean you have a teaching gift I suppose.
  17. Flora
    Kate_N My DD was in that class - do you have a link. I can't seem to find it but would love to watch. Thanks
  18. Flora
    The waiting list is definitely not a waste of time. DD has been offered a place from the waiting list several times both WL SS and Covent Garden.
  19. Flora
    It's hard to judge surely or be totally categorical about the best thing to do from a pc remotely with little idea of the situation and not knowing the people involved- other than of course to say the right thing to do is put your child first. We were in a difficult situation at one point with our child involving a teacher and we took the approach suggested by Tabitha and decided to hang on in there. I was in two minds but the time with that teacher was coming to an end and our child was adamant that making a big fuss would also make life harder in class for the few weeks that remained. The next year everything transformed and general happiness/sense of well being totally revived with a different teacher. In your case, that may or may not be the right thing but I feel for you as they are incredibly difficult decisions to make. Having said all that I suspect you are receiving lots of responses voicing very strong feelings because there are a lot of mothers out there who know there are issues with odd teachers in a number of the UK ballet schools. I'm not a ballet teacher or a dancer but as an outsider I'm shocked by some of the things I have heard - for example, young people vomiting before class because they are quite simply petrified of the teacher or pointing to a child's legs in front of the whole class and saying this exercise will help with that bit of flab on you or saying to a teenager that bit of your body is "disgusting". And happening in more than one school. On what level is this sort of thing acceptable in any school let alone those receiving public tax payer funding? Sadly pianists do not speak out and there is an attitude that in the ballet world "you need to learn to get on with everyone".
  20. Flora
    Yes Keepdancing. It might have been three places ultimately, all to non-UK. All the "no" candidates were told and came out of finals at the same time. Those who were retained were just a few and included perhaps one UK dancer. Only international candidates were offered a place in the end. Unlike last year finals didn't include WL who were auditioned separately.
  21. Flora
    I'm sure most dancers are not put off and apply even if they feel the chances are massively remote because you just want to know for sure if you are of interest or not - and that certainly keeps RBS' P and L nice and healthy. You can't blame RBS for encouraging everyone to apply. It wasn't until DD got to finals that I really understood how remote the chances were: the main application process turned out 30 odd finalists and I think they took 2 non-UK candidates in the end.
  22. Flora
    I'm not so sure. Judging by the numbers who are assessed out even at US the schools seem to be often disappointed by their choices when it comes to it. Certainly at RBS...
  23. Flora
    Looking around at ENBS/RBS finals this year it certainly felt you need to be pretty tall ideally, long legs, flexible and, I would say, very very thin. DD's view is body shape, feet and height count for a lot more than natural dancer quality/musicality or stage presence when it comes to US auditions.
  24. Flora
    50 odd girls - very high standard..... Unlike Royal there were more UK dancers as well as international candidates. I gather there are to be loads of candidates at Elmhurst tomorrow too.
  25. Flora
    Very best wishes badballerina. I hope some other options come up for you.
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