Kate_N

Xanthe, so sorry to read this. I was bullied as an immigrant child (to Australia) from the age of 7 until I left school. Low-level but consistent - coming from envy and cutting down anyone who might be a bit different. It's awful. But great that you know what's happening as you can work with your DD's school and the ballet school the boys go to to nip it in the bud.

About the feet: yes, some dancers (particularly who do a lot of pointe work) have their feet affected. But as others say, that's not necessarily inevitable. There's a lot in social media & public discussion about the hard work, pain, and suffering of ballet dancers (think of The Red Shoes!). I think (going into my professional work) that these stories are actually about keeping women docile and stopping their ambitions: if you dream big, so the cultural narrative goes, you'll have to suffer. (goes back to the Genesis story, and the way that Eve is condemned to suffer for wanting to know more - fruit of the Tree of Knowledge). These are powerful cultural narratives.

So, I was wondering if you could offer an alternative story - that dance training makes your feet strong, and flexible, and able to do things that other (untrained) feet can't. Some of the extra, at-home training for ballet students just starting to go on pointe suggests tat young dancers practise picking up tea towels with the feet, for example. Try it - it's quite hard to do! 

So could you discuss with your daughter how ballet will train al the tiny (intrinsic) muscles and bones of the feet, to make them stronger, more flexible, able to move faster, and help her control her whole body, for dancing, but also for singing. Ou feet connect us to the ground, but also allow us to jump! and fly. I think it's Chinese medicine that links areas of the feet with all parts of the rest of the body, and I can sort of see why.

Good luck to your daughter!

More information for Swindon (I just googled "swindon adult ballet"

Swindon Dance

New College, Swindon

There are some excellent classes in Oxford - recommended to me by someone who used to post on the old Ballet.co.uk site (I know some of you will remember her!). Susie Crow runs a wonderful adult ballet programme in central-ish Oxford. I haven't had the opportunity of taking class with Ms Crow, but I have skived off a work conference in Oxford to do the Friday night class with another teacher, Karen Sellick, who has retired now, I think?  But all classes in this programme are highly recommended!

Here's the link:  Ballet in Small Spaces

Moomin, you'll be FINE! Find a studio that can cope with a late starter, and join in. Remember, everyone's so busy working on their own stuff, that no-one will notice you (although I don't know whether that's the case with teens sometimes!). You'll probably be put in a class with 11 or 12 year olds to start with, but if you've already got a pretty good sense of movement, from playing sport, you'll catch up quickly.

It's a wonderful art, and a lifelong pursuit of perfection. 

I think part of the problem is just doing  "the syllabus as set." It can become a bit stilted, and it's not a reflection of how a normal class is run. A syllabus is just an ordered way of learning the repertoire of steps and their possible combinations. I hope your teacher also gives lots of on the spot combinations, or you can get to an open adult class occasionally.

And that allegro combination is pretty steady. You have a count "and" to straighten up between each sissone (one of my favourite allegro steps, 2nd only to temps de cuisse).

Oh CeliB, I'm a wizened old theatre professional, very unsentimental about the performing arts, but your post about your son's training has made me a bit teary-eyed. Toi toi toi to him in his next stage of life.

1 hour ago, drdance said:

making sure that your tummy button is directly above the middle of your standing leg, all while keeping your hip-bones level. 

oooo that is an excellent tip, which I shall use in my next class tomorrow! Thank you Dr Dance. I always learn something in here.

OK, Arucaria, until a qualified teacher comes along, my advice is to think about a few things:

Your knees are quite turned out, which suggests you have reasonable turn out, but I don't see it so much in your hip joint or in your foot. You've got well-proportioned, well-muscled legs which look as though they could become very strong & lean, but I don't see you using that potential. Thin about turning out as an action, that starts in the hip joint - where the head of the femur slots into the hip joint - and the process of turning out ends in the foot, & helps you show the heel, and stretch your ankle.

your pelvic girdle - your hips & pelvis - are moving rather a lot. You need to think a bit more about lower abdominal stability: my main teacher from years ago always used to say "Navel to backbone." 

When you're tenduing forward, you're letting your whole hip go with your leg. Ballet works by Newton's law of "Equal and opposite actions" (!) so to help you get the lovely long lean line that your legs are capable of, you need to think of resisting through the hip of the working leg, and keeping the hips square and level. 

It also strikes me that you're coming off your supporting leg. Keep that strong & in control - it's control of your supporting side that enables you to work the working leg freely. My right side is stronger than my left, and although my right leg is "looser" than my left, because my right side is so strong, my grand battements on my left are a good few inches higher than on my right leg -nearer to shoulder height , when right leg is just above waist height. It's because of the strength of my supporting side!

I find that British teachers rarely focus on "getting onto your leg" - but in classes I've done in the US, the teaching is always about getting onto your supporting leg.

Think about trying to separate the bottom of your ribs from your hips by pulling up (but don't splay the ribs or raise the shoulders). You need your hips to be a lot quieter. 

Your knee on your working leg bends a bit, but I think that's to do with the working of your foot on the floor. I realise that your demo vid is on carpet, which has very unfriendly resistance, but I think you could work your feet along the floor a bit more. Think about toes leading, and peeling off the floor, and licking the floor coming back in (I find the return to 5th the hardest bit of a tendu).

Your legs overall look as though the backs of your thighs aren't fully engaged - your whole body looks a bit loose & relaxed. Now, relaxed is good! Dancing with tension is not great, but muscles need to be engaged. 

Can you think about your breath more? breathe in before you start a tendu, and tendu out on the exhale. That might help direct your energy, which in the video, looks a bit unengaged. 

But you have lovely long legs and obvious flexibility & a good bit of turn out. These just all need to be activated.

oops all the typos (stupid phone ...)

I'd second doing open classes, or classes with some free work. And "chunking" - there are several combinations which are pretty standard: in the centre, for example, chassé, pas de bourré, pirouette; or chassé, pas de bourré, glissade, big jump. And so on.

And yes, Select*from's advice is great: if I'm struggling with petit allegro (or rather, when I struggle, there's no if about it!) I try to get the directions and the rhythm. I try to get the "bigger shape" of the combination, then gradually work back to the details. It also means I don't get in other people's way!

That's really interesting, CeluB - that they rehearsed the class. It looked like a performance rather than a class. My professional dancing family member trained in a version of the Vaganova system, up to about Year 7 I think (then she got a full time ballet job) and whenever I watched actual class (as opposed to end of year showings of work, they didn't do exams) I remember even that high level being very simple and clear at the barre - although I also remember thinking that 8 grand battements on demi point, en croix, at the barre, was both simple and very very difficult- 32 grand battements on demi! 

I thought they looked more like a normal company class in the grande allegro, which of course is the Russian male specialty. And where they all get those thighs, which are bigger than those of most dancers in say, the Royal Ballet. But perhaps more noticeable because they all seemed so tall and very thin in the upper body.

Their grace in the upper body was very beautiful. I loved the way their torsos, port dear bras, and heads all seemed so relaxed and fluid. I'm betting that's not how it felt, though ?

Is she starting pointe work ( can't remember if that's in what used to be Elementary)? Because we started wearing old pointe shoes with the shank taken out - so just the box - as a way of gradually getting used to doing everything in pointe shoes. Of course, we did actual pointe work in pointe shoes!

Otherwise, I can never really see the point of soft blocks/demi pointe shoes. If you're working your feet, ankles and turn out properly and being taught well, with sufficient variety and challenge, then your feet and ankles will get strong!

Just to join in the exclamations & congratulations! Beautiful.

But gosh, it was fast - not really a barre that is a warm up & conditioning of the body ... more a showing of their virtuosity. 

Congratulations to your son! I hope he has a long & productive career.

Just catching up - re heat, humidity & being in the Kennedy cEntre (gorgeous building & on the water, so not as hot as downtown). Cardigans! Often in public buildings in the US, the   air-conditioning is set at what I would consider a mild refrigerator temperature! So a warm cardigan, and maybe a light shawl or big scarf (I always carry a pashmina) for her neck & shoulders. At least, that's been my experience working in various public buildings in DC.

I'm not sure there's been any abuse? We've all managed to put different points of view, and outline disagreements without abuse, as far as i can see.

It's just this bit of just this thread. There's loads of other useful information and yes, debate! 

So please don't leave this site just because of a few heated discussions. They're part and parcel of being human.

It's really difficult to advise place X over place Y. In my work, the research activity at Roehampton is recognised as making it a very good place fir dance, but I don't know about the daily schedules. 

Have you gone to Open Days? you can ask about a typical daily schedule at those sorts of events? Have you auditioned for either or both, and you're considering offers? There are often what we call "Offer Holder Visitor Days" where you can go, holding your offer, and look for the things that will help you decide. Things to think about:

studio space - is it bookable by students? is it available to students? how many studios? how busy?

Course structure: what is the balance between practical studio/creative practice, and theoretical studies? What sorts of modules? 

Library - what resources are available?

Housing & accommodation

Student life: student societies - if they're important to you

Employability help: what artistic directors visit? are there opportunities to be seen?

Current students: talk to them! ask questions about their lives & studies

If you can't get to an Offer Holder day, you can also do a fair bit of this research by really digging into each university's website. Get past the UCAS adverts and PR (we all have to have that!) and try to find the department's web pages. There you may be able to see module descriptions, or at least an overall course structure.

The thing to realise about both those degree programmes is that they are not conservatoire studies like Laban or London Contemporary (at The Place) or Rambert. So they are Arts degrees first & foremost, and there will be a higher proportion of "contextual" or theoretical studies than at Rambert et al. And you should see this as a good thing! If you have auditioned for both universities & conservatoires, but not reached the standard required bu a conservatoire, your career in dance may be a more mixed career. It doesn't mean you won't dance for a living of course! Or conversely, if you go to a conservatoire, you are not guaranteed to dance for a living! But today's dance artists, in other than the top schools which feed through to companies (eg RBS, Paris Opera etc etc), have much more varied careers, and will need a full range of thinking & writing skills at a high level, as well as dance skills at a high level.

9 hours ago, LinMM said:

Thankyou for clarifying that mph just trying to get my head around all the official terms

Sorry Lin, but "cis" is not an official term. It's emerged  (transposed from chemistry studies & according to my science colleagues at work, misapplied) from activism around transgender politics. It suggests that biological or born women are compliant in their gender roles; it also suggests that sex is "assigned" at birth. It's not - sex is a  matter of biology, genes, chromosomes, etc.  You can't really "assign" that, it just is.

"Gender identity" is an inaccurate term as well - it confuses socially constructed & imposed gender stereotyped roles with identity. So - according to the gender roles of the 60s & 70s when I was at school, I should have been good at cooking & sewing, and not maths, science, & history. According to those gender roles, I should have married & had children, instead of becoming a senior person in my field. According to these ideas of gender identity, women shouldn't argue back (I think it's interesting how much mansplaining is going on in this thread); they should be being pleasant, nurturing, helping others. And so on ... 

Frankly "gender" is oppressive rubbish. 

And in dance - to wrench us back on topic - some of the real pioneers have been those women who have challenged the limitations imposed on women in the dance world, as well as beyond. So let's celebrate Isadora Duncan, who wrote about "The Artist of the Future"

Quote

The dancer of the future will be one whose body and soul have grown so harmoniously together that the natural language of the soul will have become the movement of the body.  The dancer will not belong to a nation but to all humanity.  She will dance not in the form of a nymph, nor fairy, nor coquette but in the form of a woman in its greatest and purest expression.  She will realize the mission of woman’s body and the holiness of all its parts.  She will dance the changing life of nature, showing how each part is transformed into one another.  From all parts of her body shall shine radiant intelligence, bringing to the world the message of the thoughts and aspirations of thousands of women.  She shall dance the freedom of women.  

or Bronislav Nijinska, the "forgotten" choreographer of Ballets Russe. And so on ...

Edited to add: I suppose my overall point is that the terminology and ideas around 'cis' and 'trans' are in debate at the moment. While this thread & this message board are probably not the place to go into detail about the debates, they are quite important, as some of the more radical activists are proposing changes to our laws which impinge directly on hard won women's rights. In this broader context, sitting an exam as a transgender person is not really the thing that is being debated - it's fine, as is the politeness of calling people by their preferred terms and pronouns. So to keep labelling me as 'cis' is as offensive as labelling Sophie "he."

On 22/04/2017 at 12:44, mph said:

3. gendered assumptions are hurtful  -  even  for  cisgender people  - why shouldn;t  people  learn  things which are historically   or  classically   the preserve of  the other  gender?  -   see comments in the tap thread along the lines of  ' it doesn;t matter  if boys do tap as they don;t need  the ankles to do pointe '  ...  (  even  disregarding my  gender identity,  this would still be something i would raise having worked  as a  man  in Nursing ) 
4. various words  used to describe people are slurs  ,  people  seem to have no issue getting this with regard to  race  and religion and to some extent in the use of  slur words against ciswomen 

5.  cisgender is not  an insult  it;s a statement  of fact,  where  cis or trans is directly relevant to  an issue. 

6 . sex (  the bits you were born with) , gender identity  (  how you  feel and identity)  and sexuality  are seperate and you can;t make  assumptions on the others based on one thing 

 

I've been away & off-line, and am just catching up with this thread, but I have to say that I find "Cis" particularly as applied to women, just as offensive as "misgendering" a trans-person. And I also have a real problem with the appellation of Mumsnet - a major site for the community of women - being dismissed as a "nest of vipers" - that does tend to tip over from sexism to real misogyny (is it really SO threatening that around 10,000 women discuss things frankly on the internet?). 

Sex is biological, and cannot be changed.

Gender is a set of socially constructed expectations, assumptions, and behaviours. We confuse sex and gender at our peril.

Most feminists - and I am one (I teach & research women's studies at a research-intensive university amongst other things) - want to get rid of gender, and the boxes that gender ideology tries put people into. The ideologies of gender are particularly harmful to women (sexual violence, murder etc etc etc), but they're also very harmful to men.

Thus my comments earlier about gender stereotypes and ballet: the very problematic statement that IF someone wants to be a "ballerina" they must be female. I think it would be more truly and fundamentally pioneering for a young man or boy to broaden the notion of what it is to be a man or boy, rather than succumb to harmful & limiting gender stereotypes. After all, it's only what women have had to do over the last several hundred years or so - suffering all sorts of hostility & violence in the process ...

I have worked closely with a couple of transexual people - I've seen the level of bodily dysphoria that the condition involves - it's akin to the complete body dysphoria of the anorexic, for example. I think the current focus on the outward and stereotypical signs of gender (Oh she likes boy's games, she's really trans") is deeply harmful to both boys, girls, and those who are dysphoric. It is unfortunate that the whole thing has become such a fashion (for want of a better word) in the same way that anorexia is a kind of fashion. 

So this is just to explain my position & request that we don't use the term "cis-woman" - it's as offensive to women as misgendering a transwoman.

And now back to ballet - and maybe we should celebrate the dancers & choreographers - many of them women - who have tried to break down the limits of gender as a socially-constructed system - in dance: I offer us Martha Graham and Pina Bausch to start with,.

My teacher has done the PBT training, and offers a 30 minute class before our ballet class. It doesn't hurt! But she is an EXCELLENT teacher.

Anyone's achievement in passing a ballet exam is to be applauded, but that clip is SO full of really sexist assumptions - that only girls do ballet, so if a boy/man does ballet, that means he's a woman? That is very illogical thinking, which embeds harmful gender stereotypes. In most ballet classes I've been in over the last 40 years, men & women do much the same thing. In advanced classes I used to do in Birmingham, the teacher would give the men a slightly different ending for grande allegro & sometimes set pirouettes from second for the men  as part of a pirouette combination in the centre. And we know that most vocational schools will give teens Men's and Women's classes, to work on jumps/turns and pointe respectively.

But there is no such thing as "boys' ballet" and "girls' ballet" and it really annoys me when people perpetuate that myth

And I think it's necessary to point your feet in ballet? 

I think this is a whole load of band wagon jumping. A man can take ballet exams - why does he have to become a woman to do them? And I say this having close colleagues who are transexual, but they just want to get on with their lives and don't claim to be special or pioneering. They're just normal people.

I'd agree - see if there's a way you can organise your child to fly into Dulles. You have to clear Immigration at the first airport you lan in the US, and connecting flights can be really nail-biting (been there ...) Clearing US Customs & Borders can take up to 3 hours on a non-US passport, if you come into JFK at the same time as to other jumbo jets! I always try to fly into Newark, because a) Immigration is quicker; and  it's easier to connect either to Manhattan or DC. 

I spend up to 6 weeks a year on the East coast for work, and I like to fly into Newark, and then get the train down to DC. Lovely ride & AmTrak trains are very comfortable. And their Quiet Coaches are actually QUIET. I generally find in public Americans are politer & more gracious than Brits on public transport, sadly.

So I'd really recommend trying to fly straight to DC. From Dulles, from memory, you can connect to RR Airport reasonably easily - if you google, you'll find shuttle services. Or go on to a travel website such as Trip Advisor and ask. Washington & the DC area is pretty safe, and well set up for travellers, and because it's the capital, they have an excellent and cheap public transport system. Not the same as most other US cities, bar NYC and SF!

Try this website:

http://www.flydulles.com/iad/washington-flyer

If you go to the Shared Ride section, you'll see that there's a SuperShuttle between the airports for about $US30. I think the taxi quote is around $US70

If your DC is good at buses etc, it can cost as little as around $US% to get from Dulles to RR by the bus & then Metro system. RR is also served by an Amtrak station (from memory).

Have a great trip - I won't be there this year, unfortunately & I'm getting homesick just writing this - I love DC - it's a wonderful city with so much to do & so much going on. Hot in the summer though ... I remember walking out of the very air-conditioned office I was in, to 102 degrees and 99% humidity.

I think you need to be very careful of scare-mongering and rumour. Manchester is a big city & anyone living there, particularly in the more densely-populated areas - needs to have some street awareness. 

Parents always ask this sort of question at Open Days - so your sister - or better still the intending student! - should ask about personal safety. Universities take that VERY seriously. But, honestly, scare-mongering doesn't help.

(And you might want to take the name of your nephew out of your post - it's could be identifying, and while it's our choice to write about our own lives, maybe it's not your nephew's?.)

I'd see it as a compliment.

I was in class a couple of weeks ago - the first time for that teacher at that studio, and she picked me out & asked me "Are you Cechetti trained?" (Yes, I am), and she commended my fluidity & dance quality to the class - I said I was faking it, and she said "Yes, of course!" 

I think that was a compliment!

And of course, as soon as I was picked out in class, I made a mistake ...

Oh yes, TYR, I've done Nina's class (when she fills in for Renato) and done stuff to that track - we were doing something a bit Balanchine. We may well have been in the same class even before the ENB workshop a fortnight ago.