Black Swan

sorry still can't get it to work or feature the images

Sorry don't know why the link from the Chester Chronicle didn't work but try www.chesterchronicle.co.uk and put Hammond Dance Show or Triple Bill in the search box as there are some fabulous images to have a look at!

http://www.chesterchronicle.co.uk/news/chester-cheshire-news/hammond-chester-stage-dance-triple-741934 Professional critics at the show on the the Friday Night, but i haven't seen any commentary in the dance press yet but here is a link to the local press piece for now for those with an interest.

Aah yes 2 dancersmum, now i look again at the programme, i agree Stillhead was a very mature piece & choreographed by a Natalie Maloney - lovely piece!

Hi Miracle, I thought Peer Pressure, Choregraphed by Esther Cameron, Mary Sheath and Will'O'Donnell was a beautifully created, age sensitive, story telling GCSE dance piece that IMO should be a straight 'A'. I nearly mentioned how much i also loved the simplicity of the Gasoline Alley piece featuring David Needhams Choreography and two Senior Males Students (Sorry don't know why but no names mentioned in the programme, which is a real shame as they were worth an individual mention). I love anything that brings a true masculine flavour to mens dancing a duet and think the football/world cup connection was very salient and clever! What did you think?

Excellent end of year show this year at The Hammond and i was surprised not to to see any commentary, as the quality of this years show was in my opinion one of the 'tops' .....so for what its worth, here goes my entirely personal and non professional perspective of the two shows i watched and thoroughly enjoyed:) The show was split into 3 acts this year: Act 1 featured 2 classical and 1 contemporary ballet piece from the Upper and Lower Dance Students, Act 2 was devoted to lower school performances only, featuring a range of Classical, Contemporary, Jazz, Tap and Musical Theatre performances and Act 3 featured the Upper School with the same range of genres, as described in Act 2. I thought the 3 act show was a brilliant idea and i particularly liked 3 medium sized individual ballet acts featured in the first act rather than one longer piece. 1st Act comprised edited highlights of; Giselle: Choreographed by Jane Elliott and danced by selected Upper School Dance Students from across the range of the 3 year course, the girls coped incredibly well with the gruelling graveyard scene repertoire, which always has me wincing with the sheer effort of the lined formation piece with veils, although it was a bit of a shame to see only highlights chosen that led to the featuring of just 1 boy? Some parents of boys must have been disappointed with this arrangement, not to mention the boys themselves? Orchestriana: A delightful classical piece choregraphed by Antonia Barron and Hana Gosling and danced by the entire lower school (quite a challenge that but everyone did get featured), although inevitably with such a large cast, not everyone was given an opportunity to demonstrate their skills, progress or capability. Social Progress: Choreographed by Anthea Garratt - Ms Garratts Choreography is always a real treat, she certainly knows how to chose emotionally charged music that gets the audience entirely hooked and its clear how much the students love and energetically rise to the tribal nature of her distinct and recognisable choreographic style - i didn't want this piece to end! 2nd Act comprised; Entree: A classical Entree opened the 2nd Act, which set the tone with an impressive and stirring start, involving the entire lower school. I don't think any parent can watch such a thing without feeling emotional and proud of every child in every year perform something so very grown up and professional as this and to see them all so beautifully coordinated on a stage together at the end. There were 8 accomplished and thoroughly entertaining dances in this Act and 1 musical theatre piece. The three that stole the show for me were; Salvage Our Future, a contemporary piece choreographed by Chrissie Eccleston-Tuoghy and movingly performed by all year 10 students, I Am On My Way, a musical theatre piece from 'Violet' the Musical, directed by Toni Cummings and performed with total conviction and professionalism by the whole of year 10 and 11 - not a dry eye in the house from any of the departing year 11 students parents here and Anything Goes, a rousing, show stopping tap number choregraphed by Chrissie Ecclesston-Tuoghy and Wendy Lockwood, that made you want to jump right out of your seat ....and we did, as this one led to a standing ovation from many overwhelmed year 10 and 11 parents mid show on the last night! 3rd Act comprised; 8 thoroughly entertaining and professional dances. Particular highlights for me were Haunted, a contemporary piece that opened the act, performed by the Year 2 Upper School students, Choreographed by Tracy Baxter, Tea Party a very imaginative and clever, witty street dance piece performed by selected upper dance students across they 3 years and choreographed by Emma Jane Thomas, Hot Rock, a jazz piece performed by selected students across the 3 years which merged into a clever Finale choreographed by David Needham, who certainly knows a thing or two about creating thoroughly entertaining, foot tapping and hand clapping end to a show, guaranteed to brings an emotionally drained audience to its feet for one last hurrah! Well done Maggie Evans and the Hammond team, we loved it all, there wasn't a disappointing number in the show actually, it was all terrific, but these are just a few of my thoughts and favourites, for those who want to know more about the Hammond All best wishes to Hammond staff, students and parents for a well deserved Summer Break Black Swan

Many thanks all for sharing. Best wishes,

Would anyone with experience please outline how Northern Ballet School advised pupils/parents of the audition outcome? Also how long did it take to receive advice about the outcome? Many thanks

apologies for Dyslexic letter reversal ...should have typed CDET not CDTE in my post!

Well clearly we all have very different experiences about our children's training and i am very pleased to hear that you have had such a positive experience, i note you are a dance teacher by profession and i have observed along the way that dance teaching professionals who are also parents do seem to have special and more informed relations with schools than those parents with less dance training knowledge. As i say, my own experience has been mostly positive but when it hasn't, it been hard as a 'lay parent' to address this credibly, as the feed back from your child on anything negative tends to start insidiously and by the time you feel you have a significant issue on your hands that needs addressing (some parents never do of course!) you can be half way through an academic year and the 'die is cast' so to speak. Its also very difficult to give constructive feedback on a problem, if you have no insight as to what the criteria for success is for that class, in other words what would good or bad teaching look like from a professional training standards perspective? What would success or failure look like from a students perspective? If thats not made known to parents and students from the onset, then how does anyone measure or credibly demonstrate if what your child is receiving is good enough or progressive enough or not? I think this thread was originally started to flush out what 'i wished i had known' and 'what we think should be made public' to help us as prospective parents and students have a greater understanding of the quality of dance training establishments and the standards within? Personally i very much support any effort to improve the standardisation and transparency of quality assessment through sensible, fair and useful benchmarks. Ultimately, as parents we can then help our ourselves and our children make wise and personalised choices in the beginning of their training years and as a parent i would find it so beneficial to measure through the availability of transparent credible evidence if those high training standard of training are consistently maintained throughout their training experience. I don't think in her capacity as Lecturer at CDTE Angeline would be asking this question aimlessly, i suspect she knows bench marking and transparency is not at optimum levels and her research is aimed at moving towards such a goal constructively?

As I say, as a parent, i am not concerned about scrutinising the mandatory requirements of dance teachers qualifications, fitness to practice or insurance status - I accept that employing vocational schools and regulatory bodies do a good job here and have that well covered and i very much hope that doesnt sound ignorant?! My 'wish I had known' list is more about the types of things a parent and student finds hard to get to know until they are tangibly experiencing a specific teachers capabilities and approach and how if the schools 'wised up' by using standard employee performance monitoring to assess teaching quality as they do in mainstream teaching they could more easily benefit from and protect their own teaching standards and reputation. For example: what objectives have been set for the class in question for the next academic year or even term? These objectives may be about level of achievement for students in an internal assesment or external exam? They may be about defining clear lesson plans and objectives and communicating those effectively to peers, students and parents? They may be about working specifically with identified students with additional learning needs ( either because some students find a certain aspect of technique or a syllabus challenging or because of injury or absence)? They may be about collecting an acceptable standard of 360• feedback from a credible expert observer, students and peers about their views on what it's like to be on the receiving end of their training or contribution to vocational school life? They may be about monitoring students flexibility, body conditioning or dance fitness and facilitating a specific plan to demonstrate consistent progress/ improvement against a previous terms results? Ultimately, if there isn't a plan, there isnt a set of agreed objectives and there isnt a process in place to monitor and measure achievement against an agreed benchmark and outputs, then there is no quality assurance or accountability in place - which given the ambition of the majority of dance students is to perform for a living and access the best possible training to facilitate this would clearly be desirable for all.

It has always amazed me that schools who are on the receiving end of taxpayers contributions/government funding are not compelled to demonstrate that their training outputs are worthwhile/beneficial at a higher level than non vocational training/more successful than not in facilitating employable graduates and that their standard of dance training meets a common and stringent level of quality assessment from a consistent, external and credible perspective?! I am not talking about an Ofsted type of inspection here - we know thats common to all schools but something that specifically deals with and protects the standard of vocational training on offer and something that may actually help Heads of Schools and Heads of Dance address poor or mediocre teacher training quality or reveal those who simply demonstrate the wrong teaching approach so that something constructive and to the benefit of all can be done about it. Luckily my child's vocational training experience has been mostly positive (not always, but mostly!) but there are those few teachers who seem to coast along, not doing anything very detrimental but not doing anything particularly remarkable either that can severely stall and interrupt training progress. If you and your child choose to sacrifice all that you have to sacrifice when facing a vocational training option, i think it reasonable to expect the training on offer to be nothing less than consistently outstanding and remarkable in all training disciplines don't you? I also think that as its standard employment practice to annually appraise employees against set objectives and performance outcomes, vocational dance tutors should be no exception to to that rule and may even find the process of benefit to them in accessing additional training to meet their individual development needs? Anything formally reported that would help me ascertain/scrutinise that this process was appropriately in place and monitored against key performance indicators from a dance training perspective would certainly be valued and welcomed by me.

Thank you Julie W your experience confirms what we have been told and that is that if you want to have any future dance career then removal of the sessamoid is not an option. Regrettably the conservative route of rest, elevation, ice, custom orthotics, high impact trainers and topical anti-inflamatory gel is producing no improvement for my vocational DS, despite him limiting his dance training from all high impact work since Christmas followed by no dance what so ever since Easter. As you would expect we have taken expert physio, podiatry and orthopaedic consultant advice throughout but we are now looking to seek info from anyone who has personal dance experience of this, just to make sure there is nothing extra that we could consider that might help him - especially as we now have the opportunity to really concentrate on trying to get on top of this during the summer break? We have a good understanding of this condition ( i am an orthopaedic Nurse) and have researched it well - regrettably my DS does have an anatomically vulnerable foot in that he has an extreemly high arch and prominent ball of foot - which although makes for a very beautiful point, does little for him in terms of strength and resilience to cope with the intensity and impact of vocational training.

I would appreciate feedback from any dancer, parent of dancer, tutor or therapist of dancer who has direct experence of this debilitating foot condition. If you or your dancer/s have had success or failure in rehabilitating from this condition i would greatly appreciate knowing more about your experience of recommended therapy, treatment, specialists and outcomes. Many thanks

Mr Keith Hawkins