mimi66

Paul Lewis taught open classes before - for a long time. His class was normally billed as "advanced" or "pro". As this will be a new class, he might be changing his target audience - at least at first. But normally "some previous experience" is a ballet short hand for at least intermediate level (elementary for places like Pineapple and DanceWork)... Having said that, there is no problem in trying out and see how it goes. Paul Lewis has quite a few "followers" as well, so I would expect they will all be there. There should be plenty people to follow if you get lost .

Well I have been quizzing my Japanese dancing friends.... and I have found out that:- -There is no vocational school for ballet in Japan. Ballet is taught at various private studios, some with own company, some without. There is no national ballet company in Japan equivallent to RB, ENB, or POB etc in a sense that they are all private entities. No public funding at all. So children attend those studios after school in the late afternoons to early evenings. -However there are many established ballet studios, the olderst with around 70 years of history. "Elite studios" (ie who regularly produce Prix de Lausanne contestants) are more or less spread around the country. - The popular teaching methods is Russian based. This is becasue of first generation Japanese ballet dancers were trained by the ex-dancer Russian refugees (of the revolution) who settled in Japan via Sibria in 1920's. In recent years one sees RAD being taught, but this is more for recreational minded children. - Class size varies, but normally up to 20 for those under 11 year old. - Most bellet studios nowadays introduce pointe shoes for girls around 11, give or take 18 months depending on the individual child. General view over there is that a child should be doing at least 2 classes (60min upwards) a week for at least 2 years before they will be allowed to add pointe class. The pointe readness is assessed by the teacher and without her permission noone goes on pointe. - Among the "good" studios it is generally frowned upon to entre children under 11 to ballet competitions, particularly to dance on pointe. - 11 year old is more or less a cut-off point. Most of those children who does not want to/cannot pusue ballet seriously will quit at this point. If you are not ready for pointe by this stage, there are not many classes to accomdate them either, unless they attend classes designed for younger children. - Over 11 year olds will gradually increase their classes, and by 15 those who will be aiming to become professional ballet dancers will be more or less taking 2 classes about 5 to 6 days a week. This will be decided by their ballet teacher. Also quite often at this point, some children will change their ballet studio if their current studio cannot meet their training requirments. This will often take a form of refferal to either to the studio the teacher was trained her/himself or to the studio of other teachers also trained at the same studio. - Generally ballet studios will have a recital at least once a year, so every students get some performace experience. Post 11 talented children will start dancing adopted version of classical variation on these occations. Also after this stage the studio will start entering students to competitons. There will be extra lessons and coaching, plus reharsals for the performance. - My friends wonder if Japanese system (or non-system) may be a bit more flexible due to the private nature of the studios, so talented children can be better accomodated. The above is just a snapshot, and I am sure only a limited picture. But I hope it might give some rough idea of how they train in Japan. Oh, about turning. I was told that it is not uncommon to do pique turns and Russian chaine across the floor in the 2nd years of ballet (those over 8). However, they do not intruduce pirouettes until students can hold decent turn out. They learn soutenu turns earlier on, though. Also, I must add that, having looked up some bio's of prominent Japanese dancers, not all, but many of them are children of dancing parents. For example 2 current members of RB (both male) have parent or parents who danced professionally and later set up their own ballet studio's. Edited to say that, reliable public trasport (not cheap, though) and relatively low crime rate probably also helps - older children can get to the ballet studios and rehasals after school or weekends on their own with relative ease - mum's taxi only necessary to the nearest station in the evening to pick them up.

To be honest, I think most of those child prodigies - be that music, dance, or sport - grow up to become "normal" or average citizens. Often one never hear of them once they are past 16. I knew of a few local prodieis (music) myself, and I am saying this from my experience (my mother teach - still!- piano). We don't know what will happen to this Korean girl in 5 years time. And surely she is being talked (watched?) about because she is a rare case? Carlos Acosta did not start ballet at 3. In fact many winners of Prix de Lauzanne, including Tetsuya Kumakawa (who was already at RBS before entering and winning the Prix) did not start ballet until aged 6-7. This years' 1st Prix de Lausanne winner (17 year old) started ballet at 7 and took ballet lessons only 2 days a week until he turned 15 (assuming that google translate had done the decent job!), although since then he has been taking classes and coaching 6 days a week after school (normal school, that is, not ballet nor art school), at a private ballet studio. I really think this "3 year-olds being pushed by mother to do ballet" is bit of a myth - is this because of Miko Forgarty (who by the way is actually British by nationality, though being Swiss as well) in the film "First Postition"? It is a sort of myth Hollywood would like to promote, but in reality I think it is a very rare case. I do agree with Ribbons that training between age 10 - 15 is cruicial. I am very curious to know what sort of training children (with adquate apptitude for ballet) all over the world is recieving.

Pastel, I don't think this statement is true. Most countries, at least G8 (or 12 or 20, whatever it is now) countries they have the same level of strict educational requirements Obviously there will always be some exceptions, but certainly that is not the norm. I don't feel this type of sentiments ("if they are better than us, they must be cheating") will lead to constructive discussions in terms of solving a problem (if there are any). According to another posters from Australia, there are, in Australia, clearly some private schools who train children differently from the way you have discribed - and I do not think those schools or parents of children are disregarding the "strict educational requirements". Do you?

Never too late to catch up!

The above posts reminded me of something I have read - and made me thinkg that apart from the excellent teaching, the reality in the professional ballet world may also be the reason why RBS is such a popular choice for overseas students. When auditioning for a post in ballet companies, first they look at ballet schools the auditionees are trained. I think this was mentioned at one of the interviews at this year's Prix de Lausanne. It went on to say that the purpose of Prix is to find talents who have been learning ballet outside those "recognised" schools and send them there so that they can add the school's name to their CV - and it makes all the difference. So I think, for some overseas' ballet students, it is a bit more than the case of grass is greener elsewhere... those kids are already looking beyond the training stage. (of course that is because they are exceptional dancers in their own land.) I think RBS is particularly popular because graduating there leads to actual employment possibility for many Japanese or South American dancers, most of who will not be even considered (purely because of their physique) by some other companies. Young dancers-to-be accept certain things as a fact of life rather than fight them - they don't have time to wait for improvements in the system! Those students know that if they go to Bolishoi school or Vaganova they have very little chance of joining the company. Some still go study at Bolishoi, but those students would be regarding Bolishoi school as a spring board to the next step.

So many lovely memories of "first ballet"... what a nice way to start a life long pleasure! I was expecting more "Nut Cracker" to be the first ballet, so a bit surprised that "Swan Lake" seems to be the most popular choice. In my case, we didn't really have choice. In a regional city where we used to live in the late 1960's we only ever had "Swan Lake" . So my first Swan Lake with the Royal Ballet was followed by Kirov, and then Bolishoi. I loved all of them. The first ballet I booked and saw was Bolero with Jorge Donn (the Bejart Ballet) - I was blown away!

I saw this man's single full programme as well. Of course his excution was great, but I was so impressed with the choreography- every move (yes, even jumps and turns with shoulders up! ) had meaning, not a wasted moment nor those horrible "prepartion for the next flashy movements" moments. The Russian (Plushenko) had the presence and star quality on ice, but I found his routine too boring and too "cut and paste" as in almost randomly fititng big flashy things... I had to google and find out about the choreographer - turned out he was an ex-ABT ballet dancer! By the way, I love listening to Robin Cousins' commentary. He is not the one to be blinded by all flash "look how high my leg get up to". I felt his comments on ice dance performance, particularly about lifts (don't try big tricks if you can't do quality - well, he put it in a more diplomatic way) was spot on. Am I wrong in thinking that he has been to RBS before becoming a figure skater?

I wonder what other established ballet vocational schools do. Anyone? I have heard somewhere that one POB school student was allowed to go do the classes outside the POB school in the evening because she was "a bit behind". Not sure if this was exception or the norm, though, as the student in question was Noella Pontois' daughter, who then joined the POB and made it just below the etoile rank... I will ask my cuban (who went to the same school as Carlos Acosta) friend of mine next time I see her. I know from what she told me that they assess students out every term (!) - but if you graduate there will be a guaranteed place at the Cuban National Ballet.

They do in Japan. And schools are normally pretty unco-orporative - Ballet there also, at least from schools, seen as "posh kids' passtime" though in reality it is anythig but, as this forum members are well aware. They might overlook absence days if they go to Prix de Lausanne, but that's about it. Also any sort of scholarship is unheard of for ballet - though there are plenty of scholarship and plus guranteed entry to university for talented children who play other sports such as baseball or figure skating - or most of Olympic soprts.

Well pushy "stage mothers" exist all over the world (Margot Fontyne's mother, for instance?) , "tiger mother" tradition being more Chinese/ Korean, though - 5000 years of tradition!. However, I do see that in other parts of the world the family members (including the extended ones) seem to be prepared to make a lot of finacial contributions to train talented children. Public in general (other than parents) I think are more aware of the financial burden of training a child.

Ribbons, my previous comment relates more directly to Melody's comment (one before yours) . Having read your comment above, one thing came to my mind... the training method. To my knowledge, in Americas and in Japan, most popular method of teaching is Russian-based or Russian infulenced. But this would not explain how Australians make it, as I would imagine RAD is more popular there. Edited to say that I am not making any comments about RAD method here. This is just a causual observation. I still think key factor is that there will always be certain number of people who would make it to the top...say 1%? It is just that some countries are more populated than others, so pure numberwise there will be more people who get to the top if they are from certain country.

I was under the impression that most foreign dancers dancing with RB or BRB are mostly RBS graduates. They tend to get scholarships from various competitions (eg Prix de Lausanne) at younger age and obtain their places at RBS or other vocational school. Miyako Yoshida, for example had started learning ballet at 9, then at 15 she had won a scholarship to RBS and graduated from RBS before joining BRB.

The cut is very important, I guess. I forgot where I have read it but there are some sort of general rules for which shape upper body suits which type of cut. May be it was about the bathing suits, but I think that's equally valid for leotards.

I have lived in Japan for a while - from what my dancing friends there told me, things are rather different from what we in the West sometimes assume. Their interests for ballet goes back longer than we might think. Ballet as a performing art was introduced around 1880's and after the russian revolution in 1917 russian dancers who fled from the communists government settled in Japan via Siberia and strated to teach ballet there. Ballet is not exactly a popularlist pass time there, but that is the same in the UK. It has been a popular thing for the girls to take ballet lessons for about 50 years now. Nowadays you see young dancers who are taught by their grandmothers. With regards to foreign students in vocational school here, one must keep in mind that those students were elite students in their own country already. In addition, one tends to forget that Japan is twice as populous as the UK. Japanese students here generally try harder, because they feel they are physically disadvantaged in comparison to European students so they know they have to be better technically and artistically. By the way, at least nowadays, no serious ballet studios in Japan put little girls on pointe until they are over 11. At least that's what I heard. I don't know what it is like in South Korea... I do hear that kids there do get "pushed" by parents a lot.

Spannerandpony, having read your comment I just remembered my childhood ballet class! Was I 8 or 9? It was an absolutely beginner's kids class, and... the entire class wore red (Kenzo's red) leotards with a little skirt, pink tights, and...wait for it...red leather ballet slippers! I have totally forgotten about it until now - it sounds coompletely bonkers now. I wonder if that had a lot to do with our mothers very much that film "red shoes" generation, and may be that's what they thought aspiring ballet dancers should wear. Not sure how it looked to our poor teacher...

Not sure if this is the right place, but I thought it would be nice to share the memories of first time you have ever been to ballet (as an audience). My first ever ballet was Royal Ballet's Swan Lake - it was just before I turned 4, was my birthday present. I remember I was just mesmerised by the whole thing, and apparantly I didn't even move from my seat during the performance. I would love to know who the cast was... don't think we bought the programme. I remember, though clearly, that at the curtain call I went up with my mother to the stage and gave Odette a stem of white rose (someone must have been holding me up...).

I guess the red leotard issue is that it is distracting to teachers' eyes. i have also read before somewhere, that in children's class uniforms are essential, and where possible everyone should wear their hair in the same way, so that everyone can concentrate on the line of their body. I also think I have read somewhere that children learn and develope thier eyes for the line better that way, again, as litte distraction as possible. Then there is the issue of "overs". I know I should take them all off before the class in theory, but I can't always have 30min before the class to propperly warm up. Also as I get older, some bits just need that extra layer - I wear flees socks over my shoes at the barre for instance - to warm bits in order to avoid injury. Make up was an interesting point. Once we had this 2 french girls (ex french ballet school) came into the class fully made up and everything neat and tidy. As we know that across the channel, we tend to turn up something a bit more scruffy (reverse snobbery?) and beaten up, and with very little make-up. Turned out that in French ballet school children (probably teens' thought) are told to wear make-up (not stage make-up, though) and generally dress very neatly in class. One has to make an effort to look beautiful in France, they told me.

There are, however, in an adult recreational open class, some sort of unspoken rules - or just snobbery?- aren't there. Probably not for everywhere, but in my experience, more advanced classes people tend to frown upon anything too "costumy" in the class. As if to say, this is a class, this is the place to practice your art and not where one plays with costume... Particularly when you haven't got to that standard yet. Actually, I guess it is just a practicality. Costumes can, and often aim to, hide one's physical shortcomings and used to create illusion. In class, one needs to see the line of the body clearly. There is a reason why in serious classes (as in ballet school ) you only wear pink tights and a leotard only. Nothing to hide yourself from.

A barre class sounds great, Fiz. Though I find that sometimes simple classes make my body ache more!

I and some of my class mates decided to call it "the third age" ballet - at least when we get there. It is going to be great, as we can all have our personal barre (aka zimmerframe). I would love to have Maya Plisetskaya as the coach... though she is probably much fitter than me!

Having seen the programme, I am a bit unsettled... Mostly I am somewhat puzzled by how the participants to this show seem to be craving to do "performance", or to be under the spot light. I am not saying it's a bad thing - just wondered, why is this craving? Why just poping into local adult ballet class and start learning ballet isn't good enough? If what they said on the TV was true, they have not danced ballet for a while, or never have done ballet before - so why start going back (or just start) ballet by doing a performance? Wouldn't someone thought of simply going back to any one of the local adult class? Perhaps people find it easier in this case, as they assumed (correctly) there everyone else there will be more or less the same size? A lot of question marks for me. Oh, I enjoyed watching "Christine" dance - she was at the RBS at 16...

Thank you legseleven, I must have been having a senior moment - totally missed those posts .

We have already mentioned "Tall Ballet" and "Short Ballet", but what about:- bowed legged ballet - with Natalia Osipova coaching flat footed ballet - can't think of any coach.. no arch ballet - again can't think of any coach... The possibility is endless.

Looking forward to the forum members' view! I can't watch either since I shall be in my class tonight, but will try to watch on catch-up. Really reallty hoping this is not going to trun into a sort of Victorian freek show.