Kate_N

It's so wonderful seeing this series again. Wouldn't it be interesting to know how the young people who participated are faring now? Has there been any follow up?

I've read probably thousands of UCAS statements for a performance-related degree over the years ... Can I commend this straightforward advice: Also pleeeeeeeese try to avoid saying "passion." We take it for granted that someone who wants to undertake an intense 3 years (or however long) in a demanding area of learning has "passion." Focus on what you'e learning, how you understand and process your learning so far, what you're particularly focused on, and how you want to develop your learning/training to a professional standard. If you've done youth ballet, competitions, performances, reflect on how those have assisted your training (don't talk about loving to be in the spotlight or similar) - but think about, instead, what has learning repertoire brought to your education and training as a dance artist?

This is so very true - at least from what I've observed in teaching older teens/young adults over the last 30 or so years in higher education. Those children who are supported but not helicoptered are then well-equipped for the further challenges of independent learning.

I've been watching some livestream (paid for) theatre/drama performances. I've been sent a link which is good for 48 hours in one case. I don't find that a problem - it's more like going to theatre!

You are attending ballet classes, taught by an experienced and qualified teacher, I hope? If so, then trust to the process. Ballet is a slow and steady training regime. For pirouettes, as a student, my thinking is about training the retiré movement (in the US they call it passé) on the flat at the barre, so to develop strength in the supporting leg side, thinking about my relevé, so I can pull up strongly on demi-pointe, and spotting so I can control the turn. The glute muscle in my supporting leg is my focus on training the relevé into retiré. The turn is the last thing I think about! Outside of class, you could do simple strengthening exercises for your ankles: holding gently to a barre (or sofa or chair back or stair bannister) stand in a careful parallel position, and rise up on both feet to demi-pointe, checking that your middle toe, ankle, knee, and hip are all in line. Do maybe 10 repetitions to start, working fairly slowly. Then the same movement on one foot, then the other. Again do slow repeats, being careful about alignment.

Thing is, the body, ability, and talent will always eventually show - either to advantage or disadvantage. And parents who try to undermine others for the hope of 'prizes' will be stymied by this eventually. You can't buy a place at a really good vocational school (UK) or pre-professional programme (USA).

I tend to ignore the orientation of the teacher because, I agree, it is really hard to follow - So I have to go back to all the schoolbook training of croisé, effacé etc ('the 8 positions'), and set it to myself as a mental exercise to work it out (have to think fast to get it). Ballet choreography in the centre is usually pretty logical - one foot after the other - and I'm really impressed by the ways that various teachers are creating centre exercises which move through lots of stuff, but are doable in small spaces.

Seems to me, it's pretty clear from this thread that neither version of arch "enhancer" has a place in ballet! Apart from anything else, I'd be worried that the "chicken fillet" version of enhancer would slip or otherwise indicate its presence. On the 19th century stage, it was not unheard of for male performers to pad the calves of their tights, and for women to pad their thighs and buttocks, but tights then were knitted cotton or wool, so much more solid anyway. And more performers, not just dancers, wore tights - men especially, in tragic roles.

One of my Zoom teachers is being really careful with teaching us the 8 directions. It's great! It's stuff I learnt doing Cecchetti graded work, but it doesn't often get taught in open drop-in classes even at a basic level. But if you know croise devant or efface devant etc etc, and if you're secure about turning en dedans or en dehors, then it really helps. So we're learning this stuff through drills & by rote. Two of my Zoom teachers say that one of the advantages of Zoom is that we have to learn the choreography - we don't have people around us to subconsciously copy or follow, and they're right! I think I"m getting more confident about just doing things with no mirror & no-one to follow out of my peripheral vision.

It's not either/or. Good friend of mine - a Southerner through & through - is an avid follower of non-League football, and nuts about opera. Although he's a stupid fool about ballet ...

Travelling Ballerina, thanks for your thoughtful postings. I am trying to find silver linings in the current mess here in the UK (other countries do seem to have managed better ...) and one of the silver linings is that I now do ballet class every day of the week, bar one (I do floor barre that day which is v relaxing). I am learning from teachers I am familiar with, and at various levels of advancement. I am learning - I know I've improved since March. A few gaps - petit or grande allegro has virtually disappeared, and I've given up bothering about multiple turns - good clean singles are enough. But when I can actually get back into the studio safely, those will return. One of my teachers (who is strict!) has said that actually she can see more on Zoom - I know that the corrections I get are really specific and hit the spot. I miss hands on corrections, though, but increasingly teachers weren't doing those anyway. Another teacher, whose class I did only occasionally, I have come to really love working with her - and she says she has come to like teaching on Zoom (she didn't like it at first). So for someone living 2 and a half hours' travel from London, and 7 hours from New York, it has been an unexpected blessing of this dreary year of lockdown to be able to classes with wonderful teachers. To be honest, it will be really difficult to have to give this up ... My regular local studio is a gorgeous lovely place, but the standard of classes is much lower (my teacher is fantastic, but most of the other students are very basic beginners).

Not syllabus classes, but for Intermediate level (open studio level descriptors): I've been Christina Mittelmaier's Zoom classes throughout lockdown. She offers a Beginners/Improvers on Mondays (not for complete beginners - more like a New York Advanced Beginners level), an Intermediate class Friday mornings, and now an Intermediate/Advanced on Sundays. Ms Mittelmaier is a wonderful kind and nurturing teacher. And she has watching & correcting us on Zoom down to a fine art. You could also look at Steps on Broadway - I do Noriko Hara's Intermediate level classes (when the 5 hour time difference means they're not at midnight!). Ms Hara worked with David Howard and her classes preserve his beautiful flow & line. They are also very lovely to dance, and Ms Hara is absolutely so sweet & encouraging. She really gives everything to her students. You can find their classes by googling - not sure if it's OK to put commercial links here.

I'm so sorry that you've been upset - I too was a bit shocked at the implications & suspicions being expressed by some posters. Your passion for teaching, and your expertise & generosity shine through. Toi toi toi.

Oh yesssss! that is one of the things that irritates me. I suspect that people think it's more "proper" or correct. But it just sounds like Hyacinth Bucket-speak to me. I like George Orwell's essay on writing & speaking direct clear straightforward English. The use of "myself" instead of me, or - perhaps even worse - "yourself" instead of you, just sounds so faux posh.

Your DD needs to look at working destinations of Dance Science graduates. I doubt that such a degree would enable her to work in therapeutic rehab style work - wouldn’t she need a specifically health care-related degree such as Physiotherapy? The studio owner of my lovely local studio was a professional dancer then studied Dance Science at Masters level. So it seems to be a very good degree for training dance teachers. My teacher is excellent but I’d go to a properly qualified physiotherapist for rehab. I’ve just looked at the Wolverhampton Degree in Dance Science - it mentions graduates “going on” to train in physio, rehab, massage therapy etc. So she’s looking at Bachelors plus Masters on this sort of path.

Toi toi toi!

Thank you for saying that, @coniger - you're more eloquent & polite than I could be ... For better or worse, the UK is a country where there has been a very long tradition of buying educational advantage (fee-paying academic schools of all sorts, for example). In my view, if we accept this system, I don't think we can pick and choose which opportunities for this sort of purchase are OK, and which are not. And to direct this personally against some respected & expert teachers & coaches seems to me to be somewhat close to breaching the ethos of this forum.

Is this the place where I can admit that I have an enduring crush on David Mitchell, and this article makes it more intense ? 😍

Indeed, Tulip! I saw it go on when I was a teenage ballet student - my sister (who went on to have a very successful career in an excellent company) was particularly targeted by such comments. We ere talking about this the other day. 30 years later she still remembers the hurt of the envious comments. I think that’s why I find some posts on this thread a bit uncomfortable.

Speaking from a ballet history perspective, I think we might wonder about the recentness of this phenomenon. people like to say that bodies were not so thin 50 or a 100 years ago, but nutrition etc were not so good, and people overall were generally smaller (my father at 6 feet in height was considered very tall in his 20s in the 1950s - he would be seen as 'normal' nowadays). Just a thought & a wondering ...

Yes, Tulip, I've seen that too, over many, many years ... and not just in ballet, but in other elite sports (family member years ago on the squad from which selection for the national Olympic skating team was made, for example). I think it happens in every elite activity where there is pressure of age, a very very narrow funnel from the broad recreational pool of participants into the elite echelons. It seems to me that some of the underlying - maybe completely unconscious - feeling/thinking in this sort of discussion (and I've seen discussions like this for years - it's not a recent thing!) is that there are a lot of young people desperately chasing something that is very very hard to get.

This is quite an extreme statement to make. Unless you're an expert ballet teacher, I'm not sure how anyone can know this, really. We don't see their auditions, not their daily classes & training. Surely part of the problem is that it's in these years that human bodies change enormously? Puberty is the point at which the adult body is formed via the specific actions of sex hormones to enable reproduction (we're mammals after all) - so girls ' increased oestrogen & progesterone promote the body's storing of fat to enable ovulation, while boys' high production of testosterone increases bone density, lung capacity, height, and muscle development. These things don't go away, and can fluctuate but by 21 or so the adult body settles down (sort of) - which is why working dancers mostly have that wonderful combination of strength and leanness. So for girls whose bodies store "too much" fat or boys who don't grow to an "acceptable" height there are issues. (Note I put those words in scare quote marks) But .... there are harsh truths to face. We know that for the rigours of any elite athletic endeavour, the body needs to be suited. No matter how much someone might love dancing classical ballet, if they don't have the biomechanical facility (eg adequate natural turnout) they run the risk of becoming injured. Not a problem for a recreational dancer, but a real problem for a professional. This is the same for ballet as it is for high jumping, or running, or shotput or whatever. I wonder if part of the issue here (in my personal observation anyway) is that there's an emotional investment, particularly around the way our culture perpetuates the images of "ballerinas" and pink sparkly stuff to little girls (while telling little boys ballet is for girls - it's mad!). So there's often a "dream" which sometimes just isn't achievable in terms of dancing Swan Lake on the Covent Garden stage ... I do think (and I can imagine this might be an unpopular opinion) that some of the criticisms of ballet & the ballet establishment in this thread are because of the sadness of these sorts of dreams not being realised for teen girls. I work with older students, many of whom have similar dreams or ambitions as star performers. I have the sad knowledge that 90% of them - although clearly talented - do not have the extraordinary talent needed for success in the theatre. I think there are parallels here ...

I like the one I saw earlier of FaceBook, with a Dr Who Cyborg-style character wearing a tutu, suggesting that "Cyber could retrain as a ballet dancer.' Yeah, she could ...

Also should have added Hurrah for @Pups_mum's news - it must be such a relief that - although your son is ill with a nasty virus - it is not COVID. It's really horrible being ill with anything at the moment.

My point is that the hours you quoted are pretty standard for a BA at Oxbridge (and lectures are generally not compulsory) but I rarely hear anyone citing the face to face teaching hours at Oxford or Cambridge as "bad" value for money ... I've long noticed an intellectual snobbery about this, where Oxbridge practices are seen as gold standard, but the same practices elsewhere are criticised (the tendency to mock Media Studies as a "Mickey Mouse" subject, for example), together with a tendency to misunderstand the role of face to face teaching in the humanities. In research seminar modules, my students need to spend at least a day a week (if not longer) reading set texts, and at least another day a week reading around the topic of each week's seminar. I suppose I could book a big lecture theatre, and we could all sit in it for 8 hours, reading the texts, and this would count as face to face hours?