Kate_N

This (free) documentary has just been released on YouTube: What Dancers Do. It features the company of Robert North at Krefeld-Moenchengladbach (in NordRheinWestfalia, near Düsseldorf, in Germany). It's a company I know reasonably well, and I've watched Mr North's choreography over the years - his choreography is just gorgeous - the end of "Bach Dances" makes me want to get up and jump! I've also had the privilege of hearing his amazing stories about working with "Martha" and "Merce" (Martha Graham & Merce Cunningham). It's a gem of a company, in a Stadttheater with really interesting programming in dance, opera, and plays. Lucky Gladbachers!

I think this is very sad, that you and her teachers have responded to natural development in this way. Does your daughter love studying ballet? Does she enjoy it? Surely, that is the essential question - not whether you should lie to your daughter. Surely, the job of a parent is to support a child in her dreams, and help her to cope emotionally with the comparison? And the probability is, that in 2 or 3 years all those other skinny young girls will also be going through puberty. So it's just that she's a couple of years ahead. Can you not reassure her that what's happening is normal, and she doesn't have to stop her serious study of ballet? Why would you lie to your daughter about this, or collude with a teacher who has very odd (and totally old-fashioned) views?

This has been my experience: I've been able to do regular classes every day with really wonderful teachers, and at a variety of levels. I've improved immensely in really basic technique, and got very strong. All in my kitchen! I've been so appreciative of teachers' abilities to give such expert corrections online (even if I miss the actual hands on corrections), and really, this has got me through lockdown. So thank you for doing this!!

oo thanks for that tip, @Tango Dancer- the workshops sound great! And I know from Ms Losardo's classes at DanceXchange, that I will learn a lot. I'm getting to the age when huge improvements are never going to happen, so I love to learn from teachers who can offer new and interesting ways of working.

Oh no! How very sad. This year has already taken so many from us. Still thinking about Helen McRory ...

It sounds great! Sorry I can't attend regularly, but are drop-ins (when work permits) OK?

This sounds wonderful, although the timing is impossible for me (work 🙁 ) but I think you taught classes at DanceXchange? I think I've done your classes and enjoyed them.

Most of the posters here are based in the UK. In my experience, most sponsorship funding is usually based in the dancer's country of citizenship (so for your daughter, Denmark) or the school itself. Have you enquired of the school, or your national education department?

And I'd also strongly endorse @Anna C's advice about reading https://dancers.invisionzone.com/ as I"m pretty sure there are several parents of DCs who have travelled from overseas to study here or in the rest of Europe.

The usual thing in UK vocational schools is to pursue UK secondary school qualifications, and these are generally part of the programme of studies in full-time ballet schools. Such qualifications are nationally standardised, although with some differences in the 4 nations of the [devolved] United Kingdom. The GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education) at around age 16 and then the matriculation qualification - A Levels (Advanced GCSE) or BTEC (a more vocational/practice-based qualification) or the International Baccalaureate or in Scotland, the Highers. These higher level qualifications (A Levels & equivalents) enable progress to university education, if desired. There are some differences in standards between the UK and the US because of much earlier specialisation in the UK (for better or worse). They are nationally standardised in terms of standards, curricula and examination/assessment, rather than local/State based as in the US. Going from GCSE to A Level/BTec requires a much greater degree of specialisation than in the US. And it's a 13 year system (from start of school to matriculation -it's never called "graduation" from secondary school 😉 ) whereas I think the US system is 12 (but I could be wrong there, family members have skipped years going from the EU to the US system). My experience of years of teaching US exchange students at university level, (and what I also know of family members' education in the US) is that A Levels are the equivalent of the AP system in the US - and nearer to the standard required for Freshman university year in a US college. My French & German younger family members would also argue that the French Bacc or the German Arbitür are also of a very demanding standard - again, this is about specialisation, and also US university basic degrees are 4 years rather than our 3 years (except in Scotland where university students do 4 years & generally graduate with a Masters qualification). We don't use the US practice of SATS for university entrance. So your DD would have some adjustments to make in terms of her level of study according to her age (I jumped up 18 months going from the UK education system to that of a non-European country as a child). However, she'd have internationally-recognised qualifications which are very transferable across Europe. It might depend on what she wants to do in terms of a dance career - stay in Europe or return to the US? And the Plans B or C or D if there isn't a dance career - where might she want to live, study and work post high school? Personally, I would think it would be quite tough to be in a UK/European vocational dance school and be doing a very different kind of secondary school syllabus. But you know best how your DD can work & organise herself.

Yes, my organisation (I'm leading an international coalition of theatre/performance researchers & curators) got this answer as well. We're now calling for a bit more consultation with the international community of performance researchers. Equity is also concerned that members who have donated private collections via special arrangements have not been consulted.

😅😂🤣 I liked the report on this morning’s Today programme of plans for a statue of Dominic Cummings at Barnard’s Castle, to be located outside the local Specsavers.

What you're describing @MPattisounds like a version of 'kinaesthetic intelligence.' An aptitude for learning in a particular way through physical cues (rather than words, or visually, etc etc) Other things that determine 'potential': one might add the potential for a physique which is currently in demand in classical ballet companies. These are fairly well accepted: in girls/women: small head, long neck, legs in proportion to torso (or slightly longer), strength without bulk, as well as a fair degree of natural/passive turnout. For boys/men, probably slightly different, in that broad shoulders and probably more of a consideration of the proportions of strength/weight/bulk to size. For both sexes, overall, it's about the dancer being able to create visually pleasing body movements & shapes, I suppose. There's also possibly an issue of height - again, at age 11, it's potential, isn't it? My mother was at a vocational ballet school in the late 40s/early 50s (which is still going with an excellent reputation), and a schoolmate of hers was rejected for White Lodge because of potential physique issues (proportions of torso, spine, and legs) and the prediction that she would grow to be "too tall." I know a very talented teacher in the US who attended School of American Ballet all through his teen years, but because he's short for a man (I'd say he's under 5' 6") he was told that he probably wouldn't achieve a company position - although he has legs & turnout to die for when I've done class with him ... It's never a level playing field ...

Thank you so much @TwoDancers and @Anna C for your wise words. Some of the speculation about children on this thread is close to the bone at times.

Oh I see, yes, that is difficult @Pups_mum And I agree, it is a puzzle I've wondered about as well. I suppose because ballet isn't like sport, where - although the spectators are important - the main point is playing a game, and winning it! Ultimately, ballet is a performance art and needs an audience. But yes, it's really hard to keep up top-level training outside large cities. I've found that myself, and just have to live with losing certain skills or experience with kinds of steps etc. But I never had full-time training to an extremely high level - just adequate at Advanced syllabus level. And there's a limit to how many studios will let a middle-aged woman dance with 15 or 16 year olds!

This is lovely @Pups_mum as an adult (perpetual student) dancer, I'm still doing almost daily classes for the love of it, the beautiful music, the delight of trying each day to get a little bit better at some difficult stuff. But people (outside of the ballet world) are surprised to hear it. It's odd - if I cycled or played tennis, or played bridge, or whatever - no-one would bat an eyelash. Children with good training in ballet and dance have something beautiful for life! There are quite a lot of professional dance-related roles: education & outreach officers with the UK-wide network of funded dance agencies (not agents who get you work, but places like Swindon Dance or DanceXchange or Ludus); fund-raisers, stage technicians ... and so on.

Brava times a hundred, @Harwel And your point about the fundamental requirement: is so true. And the physical gifts are never a 'level playing field' particularly when added to the requirement for musicality, communication ability, and the desire to want to use all these attributes. I remember having some physiotherapy treatment years ago, and the physio was a consultant to a major Olympic athlete team. She'd pointed out something in the way my legs worked out in turnout, and we were talking about the extreme physical requirements of dancers & athletes. I'll always remember her statement that Olympic class athletes had to be pretty much biomechanically perfect, because the intensity of training led to injuries otherwise. I think it's pretty similar for dancers.

The other thing to remember is that no-one posting here (as far as we can know!) is on selection panels or staff at the various vocational schools where children are auditioning. So any judgements any of us make are always going to be partial and not really informed by enough information. The teachers among us who have had pupils go to vocational schools may have more insight, but they're professional, and not going to speculate, I would hope. And brava @glowlight especially your final point None of this speculation really answers @Momapalooza's question. First-hand experiences of other parents generously sharing on this board suggests that there are many roads to Rome ...

Thank you so much for saying this @SissonneDoublee I find these threads bordering on uncomfortable in the way they speculate about and discuss some children via hearsay, not first-hand experience. Fair enough to post about one's own DC, and share that first-hand experience, but I find the speculation about other children, about whom posters know very little at first-hand, close to distasteful.

My advice would be to get off social media. It's edited and "curated" (very annoying misuse of a term which indicates knowledge and expertise). It isn't the real world, and it's not particularly healthy if you take it seriously. Presumably your DC are being taught by experts whom you trust. Talk to them.

Just to add, from the perspective of someone teaching at a university, there is nothing wrong with encouraging your DC to slow down a bit. Gap years are great! And might be quite important for those moving from the intensity of a vocational dance training into other areas. I've been teaching for over 30 years, and what I increasingly see is hothoused anxious driven young people. Current secondary school education is an over-examined treadmill of benchmarks, tests, assessments - SATS start at age 5 nowadays, don't they? We try to get our students to slow down a bit, to stretch out a bit, and to breathe and take a look around them. We've toyed with making our entire first year a Pass/Fail assessment (first year marks in our degree don't "count" to the final degree grade) just to take some pressure off the constant 'grade grubbing' that they've faced since the start of their school lives. It's about prioritising education over schooling, if you see what I mean ... Lives are long (we hope!) and although for young people it all seems urgent and desperate, we can help these talented people by encouraging them to slow down and take the time to work out what they really want. Edited to add: it's apparently a well-known phenomenon that many young people go through something like a second adolescence in their late teens/early 20s (sort of 7 year cycles). So there is a further bout of self-questioning, emotional ups and downs and so on. Sometimes young people are diagnosed with depression at this age - I often wonder if that's not just a consequence of the young person under pressure, and going through this final stage of growth into physical/biological adulthood - the brain takes until early 20s to mature, for example. So some sort of thrashing about looking for life's meaning and purpose seems to be a common experience of the late teens/early 20s, for many young people, not just dancers.

Knowing the current job market in mainland Europe in state-funded theatres/companies (fairly static & affected by the pandemic), I'd say that landing any job would be a bonus!

But on a more positive note - HUGE congratulations to dancing children (and parents for surviving ...) Even to have auditioned is a big thing - brave and ambitious. That's great.

Umm, at the risk of being annoying ... 😉 maybe the fees cover staff time for administration of applications, acceptances & rejections, and all the queries in between, as well as the time taken by expert staff in viewing the auditions - whether they're in person or via video or online, that time for staff is still a resource ...

Society for Theatre Research: Online Lecture Online Lecture: Putting Britain on Point: 150 Years of Teaching Dance Thursday 11th March @ 7:30pm This lecture will be given via Zoom Webinar. Please book on the website and we will email you the live link 24 hours before the event. In conjunction with the current display ‘On Point: Royal Academy of Dance at 100’ at the V&A, curator Jane Pritchard will look at how young people have been trained in ballet and dance over the past century and a half. Beginning with the establishment of the National Training School for Dancing in 1876, the presentation will consider the development of dance schools for those who wish to become professional dancers and schools for those who wish to learn for pleasure. Discussion will take into account the situation before the development of such institutions now known as the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dance (founded 1904), the Royal Academy of Dance (1920) and BBO Dance (1930) and how such British organisations have now acquired international status. Read more about the display here: https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/on-point-royal-academy-of-dance-at-100 Jane Pritchard is Curator for Dance at the Victoria and Albert Museum, where she curated the current display ‘On Point: Royal Academy of Dance at 100’ in the Theatre and Performance Galleries. Book a free place via our website: https://www.str.org.uk/product/online-lecture-putting-britain-on-point-150-years-of-teaching-dance/ If you have any questions, please contact our Lecture Series Coordinator Valerie Kaneko-Lucas via events@str.org.uk.