Anna C

Definitely recommend maximum Physio cover with private insurance, @MumtoEm. Does the school have its own Physio onsite, or a Physio linked to the school? If so, it would be worth checking with your chosen Insurance provider that the Physio’s fees is in line with what the insurance company will pay. Also how many sessions per condition or per year. I would also make sure that you get cover for MRIs, CT scans and other potentially expensive diagnostic tests and scans.

I certainly am desperate but can’t afford an extra Swan Lake - and can’t now go on Friday. 😔

If anyone in London does do them, it’s likely to be Dancia on Drury Lane. 👍🏻

Firstly, I don’t know that So Dança even make pointe shoes? I can only find flats and jazz shoes on their UK website. Secondly, I can’t find any evidence to suggest whether Nikolay Grishko is a Putin sympathiser, or that boycotting Grishko shoes on ethical grounds will hurt anyone except the people in the factories (Moscow, the Czech Republic or China, depending where UK shoes come from), the distributors and the stockists. I know Dancia in London, Leanne at Straight to the Pointe and Just Ballet all stock Grishko. If you really can’t get hold of your daughter’s model then I’d take a trip to London to try other makes at Dancia, Bloch (across the road) or Freed at St Martin’s Lane.

Green/hazel/brown - blue is the only colour they’re definitely not!

In several of James’s Instagram posts, his eyes look green to me - perhaps his eyes are like my daughter’s, which change colour depending on the light. 🤔

Don’t discount Central, lay_enpointe; I’m not sure why you thought it wasn’t for you but during my daughter’s 5 years as a Central Prep/Pre-Senior, both the ballet and contemporary training were excellent.

Hi Iris and welcome. Post-graduate programmes I can think of off the top of my head are: Northern Ballet: https://northernballet.com/academy/professional-training/professional-graduate--programme Royal Conservatoire of Scotland: https://www.rcs.ac.uk/courses/professional-graduate-diploma-modern-ballet/ Ballet Cymru: https://welshballet.co.uk/take-part/pre-professional-programme/ London Studio Centre: https://www.londonstudiocentre.org/course/ma-dance-performance/ and (more Contemporary) Rambert: https://www.rambertschool.org.uk/courses/postgraduate-courses/ma-degree-rambert2/ There are bound to be more, but these are the ones I know of.

I am absolutely gutted. 💔 I don’t have tickets for 4th March and was so glad to get tickets for 30th April, which would have been a fitting final performance, especially given the wonderful Morera/Bonelli partnership. I have to say I’m also cross that this wasn’t announced before general booking and that no email has gone out.

All good advice. All I’d add is that if the school enters students for ballet vocational exams (e.g. Intermediate, Advanced 1) then pointe work will automatically be part of these classes, so although it might not be mentioned separately, it doesn’t mean they don’t do pointe. Putting on a show shouldn’t mean nobody does exams in “show year”, so I would query if that’s the case. RAD/ISTD run several exam sessions a year and pupils should be entered for an exam when they are ready, not have to wait a year because it’s show year. Ballet training underpins all training at good full time dance/musical theatre courses and if your dd is considering teaching, then RAD/ISTD Intermediate (or equivalent) is a requirement for most teaching courses. If you haven’t already done so, the first thing I would do is talk to your dd’s teachers though about her potential, and how they can help her meet her goals.

I agree. I’m pretty sure ADs and selection panels don’t have the time to go trawling through Instagram to see if a candidate is flexible enough to do contortionist poses and overstretching. They use application photos (none of which are tilts/extreme stretches) as an aide-memoir and look at how the candidates dance at audition.

I think you’re being very considered, Millicent. If it’s registered to you and only on your phone, then yes, you’d put your age. I still question the need to even look at Instagram in Year 5 - children’s school friends always have something that our children don’t! I used to sympathise with dd and say I could see why she wanted something “all her friends” had (this ranged from a limo to the year 6 leavers’ disco 😳 to an iphone, then a social media account before 13) but that it wasn’t something we would be doing and that I was quite happy for her to use “boring/strict Mum and Dad won’t let me” as an excuse. There is plenty of time to get social media and in the meantime, if you decide not to get it just yet, you can still teach her about safety online by looking at sites like this: https://www.thinkuknow.co.uk What you said about “showing off” struck me, because I always had a horror of “showing off” and even though it certainly my intention, the message got lost in translation, and got through to my dd’s anxious brain that performing with confidence equated to “showing off”. Looking back, I wish I’d either not mentioned it, or worded it differently so dd understood from a young age the difference between someone hogging the stage/pushing one’s way to the front of every dance and performing confidently, instead of tentatively. As a parent, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with celebrating your child’s achievements, posting a lovely photo of them dancing, and so on. That’s not “showing off”. 😊 Nor is it showing off to celebrate our own achievements and efforts. It’s all about finding a balance, isn’t it - and understanding why we are posting; is it to share something we’re happy about/proud of, or is it for validation and “likes”? Lots to think about.

Instagram requires children to be at least 13 years old before they can have their own account. I have never thought allowing my daughter to lie about her age in order to have SM before 13 is a good example to set as a parent, to be honest. Like Neverdancedjustamum I think 13 is too young for Instagram (and Tiktok). Dd was allowed to create a private Facebook account at 13 but on the proviso that she was “friends” with me, and that she only used it on our main PC where we could walk past from time to time. We also went through the “Think u know” pages on CEOP together as she reached each age, and she’s never encountered any trouble online. She now rarely uses social media because she can recognise how it plays into her insecurities. All Social Media comes with inherent risk; not just from a safety and security point of view, but also, with ballet and dance in particular, the risk of developing body image issues, eating disorders, and injury by over-stretching to copy other people they see. If you haven’t already watched it, the documentary “The Social Dilemma” is an absolute eye opener. Even I was shocked.

Well, thank goodness for that; the loveliest person (Rocco, apparently) answered the phone and was able to grab my tickets as I released them, then book them for me at the access rate. So all being well, I’ll be able to see my beloved Bonelli in his last scheduled performance at the ROH (still hoping for a guest spot as Onegin in future). 🤞🏻

A very nice man has answered. 👏🏻👏🏻 I’ve released my tickets and we think he’s grabbed them for me. 😂 Stressful!

Well, this is fun. Even though I’m signed in, my Access membership isn’t showing up on the booking pages, so it’s not giving me my companion seat. On hold but not hopeful of the phone being answered before I lose my tickets. Do I check out at full price then ask for a refund? Seems best but I’m not best pleased.

Absolutely; “froggies” is used quite often in audition classes to see what level of turnout children have. However, what it doesn’t measure is whether a dancer has the strength to *hold* turnout and work in active turnout (“froggies” being a passive exercise). This is a very old thread but a useful discussion on turnout, and explains passive and active turnout: https://www.balletcoforum.com/topic/1905-different-ways-of-measuring-turnout/

Absolutely heartbreaking. This afternoon’s free dance/long programme was very difficult to watch. I thought Robin Cousins was kind; he showed compassion for Valieva and was mindful that she’s only 15, which a lot of other people seem to have forgotten. I just hope that the IOC and the ISU see today as a wakeup call and remember that the person at the centre of this controversy is a 15 year old who has been exploited at best, abused at worst.

Yes, she has swayback knees, @Elz - these look nice (they’re particularly desirable in Russia) but as your dd progresses in ballet, it would be helpful if she can learn not to “sit back” into her knees. This is going to feel odd to her because for her, straight knees will feel as if they’re really bent, but it will benefit her knees in the long run. If her other joints are like this then she will undoubtedly have the turnout and flexibility for ballet, but what she might need to work hard on is the muscle strength to support the flexible joints and hold her turnout/pointed feet when actually dancing. I agree that it’s definitely worth her trying; the earlier children get used to the idea of auditions as a fun day out and a lovely ballet class, the better. If the Royal Ballet School are still doing “JA for a day” or similar experiences, that might be well worth looking at. And as people have said, if she isn’t successful as a JA first time round, there are other great Associate schemes - and it’s always worth trying a year later too.

In better news, I finally caught up with the Ice Dance free programme yesterday and it was terrific. Great to see Gabrielle Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron win Gold, especially after their upsetting wardrobe malfunction in the short programme at Pyeong Chang in 2018. Really super performances from the top 10.

At fifteen, there’s no question in my mind that Valieva is the victim, and the fact that she’s been met with “stony faces” from other competitors (according to Robin Cousins) saddens me immensely. Poor child. The most ridiculous part of all this is that no drug in the world can give someone the talent, grace and artistry that Valieva has in abundance; quad or no quad, she is still technically brilliant but also streets ahead of her competitors in terms of presentation, finishing every element and move with beautiful balletic hands and gorgeous lines. So the only possible motive for (allegedly) doping her is to get her to train for longer, which is in itself exploitative. I would like some good to come out of this whole sorry mess; the IOC needs to decide with some urgency whether a lower age limit is needed (personally I think the Olympics and Worlds should be for 18 and over), the ISU needs to do the same, and all children and teenagers in national and international elite sport should be protected from exploitation and abuse. It’s not just Valieva’s entourage at fault here, changes need to be made in all areas, and all those responsible should be dealt with swiftly. It’s all an unholy mess, unfair on the clean athletes of all nations, unfair on the medallists, but most of all, a terrible amount of pressure and focus on (and no doubt, a hefty amount of victim blaming from some quarters) a young teenager, which in my opinion is unacceptable.

It’s not really a case of being “weeded out by the course” because a student isn’t good/talented/determined enough; children are assessed out for other reasons, including physique (something that’s not in their control), and struggling to retain their technique during puberty (common, and can usually be worked through with good, patient teaching). Some might drop out through extreme homesickness, or because they no longer want to dance as a career. Some are there because it’s their parents’ dream, not the child’s. They might make it through Lower School training (11-16) but not get accepted into Upper School, or they might make it to Upper School but be assessed out after a year or two when the school brings in International students and competition winners instead. Of course it’s a really big disappointment when you’ve been working towards something since a very young age - sometimes the parent is more disappointed if they’ve been the driving force behind the scenes - which is why I always suggest that any ballet student needs a “Plan B”, usually in the form of academics like a good set of GCSEs in facilitating subjects. The chances of any 11 year old making it through 5 years of lower school, 3 years of upper school, and into a ballet company with a paid contract are frighteningly slim, especially in the UK post-Brexit. Six years after having to leave full-time ballet training due to a serious back injury, my daughter still feels sad sometimes about having to stop; it was a grieving process and a difficult journey for her, both physically and emotionally. But most dancers are very resilient, and with the right help and support, they find a new path.

Out of all the many dancers my daughter’s age who she knew from Associates/Summer Schools/full-time training, only one or two are still paid ballet dancers. Most of the others went to university or got jobs in unrelated occupations. A couple trained as Dance Teachers, one is studying sports science and nutrition. We often talk over in Doing Dance about the many desirable and transferable skills serious ballet students and dancers have, regardless of when and why they stopped training, and how their time in ballet is never a waste.

@Pixiewoo is spot on; here’s some but there’s lots more on google: https://www.planetdance.com/Freed-15mm-Satin-Ballet-Shoe-Ribbon