drdance

This is exactly my point.... Was he doing a daily ballet class during that time? He obviously had good ballet technique to get a contract in a company, and it is likely that the strength, flexibility and fitness he gained helped him get that contract. As for the 'ritual' of the daily class. I agree a warm up is vital, and it is during that warm up that the mental preparation for the day happens. Perhaps 15 minutes of this time can be spent on balance, pirouettes etc to 'check out how they are today' but I still maintain that not all of the daily class needs to be done daily. I'm brave enough to do it... I know it works. I just need to win the lottery so that I can run a company/school to prove it!

Exactly. Dancers' schedules need to change. There's no time to add something in, most places already work their dancers harder than perhaps they ought. The question is.... is anyone brave enough to drop a class once or even twice a week? This then brings in the idea of balancing training to avoid overtraining syndromes. Most other elite physical performers will do something different each day to allow specific areas of the body to be worked hard one day then recovering the next day whilst working on something else. There's no real need (in terms of practicing skills or technique) for professional dancers to do a full technique class every day especially as they will use the same skills during rehearsals. It would be more beneficial to replace one or two of these classes a week with fitness training. But of course no-one has been brave enough to try it, so no-one has proof that it won't be detrimental, or that perhaps it might even be beneficial! The science and practice in sports all indicate that that it would be beneficial but until it actually happens I can't see teachers/artistic directors/dancers trusting it.

This issue about advances in fitness training/sports and it not translating to ballet is something that constantly baffles me. I did a lot of research that proves that fitter dancers have better performance (elements like placing, line, accuracy, virtuosity). Yet dancers don't see that fitness training (this includes flexibility) is as important as technique. They might 'throw in' a little bit of fitness or pilates once a week but would never consider an equal balance between artistry, technique, and fitness. At MIDAS I call this the 'golden triangle'. So many times people neglect one aspect of it. Without artistry, we get gymnasts and tricks. Without fitness, dancers don't perform to their best ability, and are more prone to injury, and without technique dancers don't get very far!

I've been at many many festivals where the adjudicators always say that they like to see students doing the ballet solo sections because it's the hardest discipline to get everything looking good, and I do have to agree.

My personal opinion about the amount of national that RBS give the lower school to perform is that they are concentrating so hard on making their ballet technique correct in class, that they don't want to have the children 'perform' ballet without exemplary technique to go with it, which is very difficult. I think they prefer to give the children a chance to perform beautifully with pieces that are less technically demanding in terms of pure classical ballet, so that they can still show their artistry and work on stage skills (eg using the space, being in lines/spaces, working as a team etc) and have performance experience without worrying about every leg, foot and arm being perfect. Like I said though, that's just my opinion!

I have just come home from a lovely day in London having seen the Royal Ballet School performance at the Linbury studio theatre, ROH. The standard, as ever, I'm sure, was superb - with some really talented young dancers. The year 9 group were particularly noticeable (in my humble opinion!) and it was also lovely to see a pas de trois performed by graduating upper school students. I'll be attending the ROH performance (inc. the famous Grand Defile) next Sunday - I'm really looking forward to seeing some more stunning work! Edited to add: I have a pupil at the school - very proud!

While it might appear to be showcasing non-English dancers, it's most definitely using British choreographers. As a student teacher and very newly qualified dance teacher I taught George Williamson who went onto Elmhurst and then ENBS who is now an emerging choreographer. Work by Jenna Lee (ENB) is also being performed.

We still have a couple of places in both age groups - Juniors should be inter foundation or grade 3/4ish and seniors at least Intermediate and above (in Birmingham) at the end of August - the whole focus is 'back to school'. Anyone interested can email me via the MIDAS website

Thank you to everyone who has supported MIDAS over our first year. For anyone not familiar with us, we decided so begin the scheme after developing a passion for healthy, happy vocational dance training. I'd like to take this chance to introduce who we are and what we do, and why we do it! Between the 3 main faculty members we have a vast knowledge base of sport and exercise science, vocational dance training, educational and pedagogy, dance fitness and psychology and we firmly believe that the best dancers need to be physically and psychologically fit and strong as well as having good technique and versatile artistry. As professionals, we have all faced similar barriers in dance teaching; we have exceptional knowledge and firmly know that our approach works, yet despite being good teachers, we have not been able to fulfil our dreams to teach in vocational schools, regardless of the fact that between us we hold one PhD, 2 (and a half) masters degrees, a PGCE, 3 batchelors degrees, published work in peer reviewed journals, and teaching qualifications with several dance societies. It was our personal opinions that dance lessons that centre around a syllabus, and traditional non-syllabus ballet classes tend to concentrate on technique and artistry at the expense of fitness, or technique and fitness at the expense of artistry. And we know from recent research, that professional vocation dance schools and dance companies in the UK may produce expressive dancers with good technique but that professional dancers are often still not physically or psychologically equipped to cope with the rigours of training and performance, which is reflected by the high injury rate that still exists in professional dance. Our classes are unique. We are independent in that we are doing something that does not follow the training style or syllabus of any particular school, tradition or organisation - our classes only include exercises that we believe are directly relevant to dancing. The term associate does often indicate that training would be associated with something existing, but it has also taken on a meaning of it's own in dance training and 'associate classes' generally mean extra, audition only, more vocationally minded classes (largely to do with the Royal Ballet's 'associates'; note that Elmhurst tried to use a different term for their part-time classes but have now taken on the term 'associate', and as dancerbabe82 points out in the thread, the Newark 'Midlands Associates' use the term 'associates' too). As we approach the end of our first year we are genuinely excited to see the improvements in the young dancers that come to us, and have had some great feedback from parents and teachers. We are extremely grateful for those people who have been open-minded enough to trust in our knowledge and vision, and that includes people on this forum - Thank you. (PS spaces still available for our back-to-school course!!!!!!!)

I'd like to let everyone know that MIDAS (www.midas-dance.org.uk) are doing a 'back-to-school' training course from Aug 20th - 24th, Monday-Friday in Birmingham. The course includes ballet technique, lots of dance-specific fitness eg flexibility, balance, strength, power as well as some simple anatomy, artistry, performance psychology, contemporary, jazz and classical repertoire. There's still places for students from age 10 upwards. Katie Love (finalist from So You Think You Can Dance) is also going to be teaching workshops on the last day.