florence

Check out the Nationwide Flex One account for 11 - 17 year olds. DD has one and we have been very pleased with the way it is run.

fantastic news. Huge congratulations to your DD

There's Dance Forward over the Easter weekend at RAD HQ in Battersea, not sure if they still have spaces.

DD's term does not finish till 2nd April and it's impossible to get time off school for a year 10 so too early for us this year. Done other Central courses which have been excellent.

first they mess with the shape of the segments in a bar of dairy milk chocolate and replace the nice chunky pieces with those silly dome shaped things, then they start adding all sorts of rubbish like popping candy and cola beans to make 'marvellous creations' (marvellous, I think not) and now they mess with the cream egg.....is there nothing sacred?!!!

check out the 3 year full time course as well.

Hi DanceKelpie Although I appreciate it would be a long journey for you, if you can get time off college, School of Ballet Theatre UK (Hinckley, Leicestershire) are running a 'Men in Motion' workshop on Thursday 5th February with AD Chris Moore and MB New Adventures Principal Christopher Trenfield. Can't get a link to work but go onto btukschool.com, click on The School then on News and scroll down. Good luck with all your auditions.

Does anybody have any experience of the International Ballet Summer School? I think it was held in Carcassonne last year and is in Dresden this year. Thanks

yes please, DD would be VERY interested. Definitely had a case of 'Chrimbo Limbo' in our house last year!! Residential option would be preferable for us.

Have a look at the 'nakd bars' and the 'nakd protein crunch bars'. There's a website. Some of them are fruit based but they do a ginger one and cashew nut one. I know a couple of professional dancers who like them.

son - cricket mad daughter - ballet mad I stagger between the 2 trying to work out the finer points (or pointes) of both!!

just found an email address via the facebook page, thanks

thanks tutugirl

also having trouble getting onto the ballet page on the school's website. Just comes up with 'moorland ballet coming soon'. Do you know if they are updating it Tutugirl. Do you know how else we can access information, perhaps I should email one of the teachers? thanks

We also bought one from thebarre.co.uk. We trawled ebay, amazon etc and tried out ones owned by friends and this one was by far the sturdiest of all the free-standing barres that we looked at. highly recommend.

don't know how old your DD is but Bloch children's convertibles go up to age 12 - 14 years. My DD says they are pale pink, good quality, nice and smooth, wear very well and the waistband is fine. We got ours from Dance Direct £4.95 but they are out of stock of that size at the moment(grrr!!!). There were some on ebay a couple of days ago.

DD did Central last Summer. She had just done her Int Fdn exam and had already done a couple of terms of Intermediate and was just 13 and did the one week course. There was quite a range of dancers with a few vocational girlies. I think there were about 20 in the group. They worked them hard and the teaching was generally excellent with plenty of time for personal corrections for all. They did pointe work everyday except on the first day. They also had pilates most days although DD said it was quite basic. They did character and contemporary most days. They also had the chance to watch the Central vocational dancers in a rehearsal. It was well organised and well planned. They had 5 full days classes Monday to Friday and on the Saturday they had class and then a rehearsal before a performance for parents.For this they performed as Lilac Attendants from the Prologue of Sleeping Beauty and then a lovely contemporary piece. There is also a 2 weeks course for dancers 14 years +. Later in the holidays she did the Harpenden Summer Ballet School which was excellent and brilliant value for money. If you can sort out accommodation this is definitely worth a look. Some of the girls knew each other from Associate classes or from their regular dance school but DD didn't know anybody. She settled in very quickly as she was made to feelvery welcome by the teachers and the other girls. The teaching days are shorter than Central but the standard of teaching was first class.

There is an excellent book by Zerlina Mastin called Nutrition for the Dancer ISBN 1 85273 135 9. As well as chapters on carbohydrate, protein, fat and vitamins and minerals, it has lots of facts and useful tips about a healthy diet for dancers and shows how to calculate your individual calorific intake. I think there are reviews on Amazon.

My DD started pilates on the recommendation of a physio after she dislocated her kneecap. She has loose ligaments in various parts of her body and was told to do pilates to strengthen muscles to compensate. We eventually found a brilliant lady who is a pilates teacher and a ballet teacher. DD has learnt so much about how her body works when she dances and also learnt how to avoid injury which is essential for her as she's been told that having loose ligaments makes her more injury prone. She recently did a class with a new teacher who complimented her posture and commented that she had a 'core of steel'. DD would definitely recommend pilates especially if you can find a teacher who knows ballet also. Her teacher is in the Salisbury area.

I think we had the same lady, the receipt said her name was Lucy. She was very helpful and spent a long time with us trying on numerous different shoes. We arrived at 10am on a Saturday when they opened so got served straight away and had the benefit of a second fitter's opinion as well as we were the only customers in the shop at that time. Very pleased with our experience there.

DD's teacher has recommended Freed pointe shoes for her. We're going to Freed on Saturday, any particular fitter we should ask for?

Thanks for highlighting this. Will be great to see them down South.

Luckily my in-laws live just outside London so we're only 20 minutes into Farringdon. Good luck with finding accommodation mum in a spin.

my dd has a plume one from Dance Direct. I think it was about £15. It has 3 layers of net so it's quite basic but looks OK.

Hi mum in a spin. The 2 week course is advanced, 14 years + with minimum Intermediate or equivalent. The one week course is 12 -16 years with a minimum of Intermediate Foundation or equivalent. My dd is 13 so doing one week only. We did get the sample timetable and I guess the colour group you are in depends on age, ability and dance experience, so can't really answer your original question but would be interested to hear from anybody whose done Central before.