Kate_N

There are various 'pre-professional' studios in London which offer more than 1 hour a week - a search of this forum would probably give you a few leads.

Toi toi toi (from a Lancastrian in exile!)

There is no single answer to your questions, Beezie! I think if you do a search for those terms (eg "Associate") on this website, you'll find lots of threads with varied experiences & opinions.

The main thing is to find a studio which fits for your child and your family. You'll find that many of your questions will be answered via your studio.

Arrgh. I get back from a conference in mainland Europe late on 7th October, and need to go to another research event in central London early Saturday 8th from Gatwick. Hmmm, may have to look at bus transfers. 

I suspect you mean St John's Wood? So central north-west London?

Danceworks is central London & on the Jubilee line (Tube stop: Bond Street) and has an excellent children's programme. There will be lots of other recommendations I'm sure!

May, there's an Instagram account I follow called 'balletbun_' An adult dancer (with children) based in Stockholm - she posts beautiful images. Maybe if you followed her & DM'd her? Or posted on her posts to ask?

Hi May. Lucky you -  a week in Stockholm - a beautiful city.  Do you ever attend Nina T-M’s classes? She may be able to give you recommendations. 

Here's a direct link to the Centre de Danse du Marais. The programme looks very good. And their Graham classes are amazing (not what you're looking for in terms of classical ballet, but Graham works well for classical dancers)

https://www.centrededansedumarais.fr/planning/

When I lived in Birmingham I used to enjoy the weirdness of Fierce. I saw some good stuff; I also some godawful stuff.  But it’s a hugely inventive festival - well worth cherry picking! 

Oh wow @ArucariaBallerinacongratulations! I too, remember when you first started posting as a 12 year old or so. It's wonderful that you're continuing your journey into life as a professional dancer. 

My sister did class in Paris for a while when she was on the dancer's audition tour of Europe - she told us about being in class behind an elderly Zizi Jeanmaire (who trained with Roland Petit). I think she did class at the Centre de Danse du Marais - I'll ask her next time we speak.

A quick google gives me this blog: https://www.inspireddiversions.com/article.php?id_art=213

And the Centre de Dance: http://www.paris-danse.com/

Toi toi toi!

What about "Ballet with Isabella"? She trained at the Vaganova Institute, and offers quite a wide range of types of teaching, both live & online. Christina MIttelmaier teachers at Danceworks & Pineapple (both in London) but all classes are streamed. Her training is Vaganova-inflected, and she danced professionally in the US and Germany - both countries which value the Russian style.

You could also look at the offerings at Steps on Broadway, where there is wide range of really excellent ballet teachers, and they do a reasonable online delivery. It's hybrid, which means that the class is live in the studio, and streamed - just like Pineapple & Danceworks. If you're in the UK you'd need to deal with a 5 hour time difference.

Hi Davidyon, you may find that doing a complete beginner's class in ballet - and preferably one where you enrol for a set number of regular classes with the same teacher & students - will be more effective (and economical) than one to one lessons. In ballet class, we often learn from each other, and I suspect you'll also find a greater range of available teachers. During the summer many studios take a break, but here are some starting suggestions for Amsterdam, although caveat, I have no personal experience of any of them.

This studio looks gorgeous: https://www.zhembrovskyy.com/ballet-beginners

Or here:

https://amsterdamdancecentre.nl/adults-oud-west/?lang=en

2 hours ago, balletbean said:

where they offer both a student on the degree course shares the same classes as another on the Diploma course even though there’s a significant difference in the fees

Some suggestions:

I think you'd need to look at the learning objectives and outcomes for each course, and the modules within each course (if it's modularised). It's likely that there are different benchmarks and marking criteria for the different levels, even if they share some classes. Also, there may be other kinds of, and extra work set & assessed for the degree level course.

18 hours ago, LinMM said:

Even the thought of having to go on the tube on a day like today is enough to nearly bring on a panic attack!! 

I was out & about in London yesterday running various errands which couldn't be avoided as I'm just about to fly to California for work. I was walking around in the middle of the day (unfortunately) and it was hot, but I lived in Sydney for 20 years and it was no worse than a very hot day in January there - except we'd get 3 or 4 days (or more) in a row of over 35 degrees without the drop in temperature at night. But the Tube was quite empty and cool - even the Tube walking tunnels were cooler than above ground!

9 hours ago, rowan said:

Those places went to Vaganova graduates and one from elsewhere

This could be as much about the style, as the “name” school. My (anecdotal) observations are that the Vaganova style is recognised and valued in Germany, as this was the main influence in the former East Germany, for example. 
 

In the same way that Australian dancers are often quite recognisable for a particular energy, and American dancers, trained in the very fast style for Balanchine, differ from the more restrained classical style of English style dancers.

The differences are small, and about emphasis, but at the level of a major German company, for example, might be what tips things. Polina Semionova, for example, trained at the Bolshoi,  had a cult following in Berlin! At this level, it’s about what the Artistic Director is looking for. 

I’m sure that your daughter knows all this though @rowan

58 minutes ago, Kerfuffle said:

looks like the problems that British dancers face are across the board, be it vocational or non vocational.

I'm perpetually puzzled, in this discussion, about where posters are getting their evidence? Apart from anecdotal observations ... 

9 minutes ago, Kerfuffle said:

I suppose the frustration as a parent  is probably the worst if you have trusted a place to prepare a child for a career and then feel let down.

But that career is NEVER a given.

In my field, I supervise the research of a lot of PhD students. I work hard with them to also prepare them for employment as academics (that's an extra bit of the job) but they're not all going to get jobs in their chosen field. Or they're going to have to move house & work, or switch fields, or ... 

'Twas ever thus.

15 hours ago, cotes du rhone ! said:

There is a ballet teacher with a very large social media following that shares his private students successes on gaining places at vocational schools and on associate programs. There’s lots of them. He obviously knows what these schools are looking for and has a system for success. 

I think I know to whom you're referring - he has posted here on occasion. I did quite a few of his online classes during the lockdowns which he generously did for free every day of the week. While these were not classes where we could receive feedback or individual corrections, his teaching is exceptional. The purity and simplicity of the technique he teaches, his pragmatic way of explaining how to do the simple and the difficult things (he's soooo good on balance and where you need to put your weight) are wonderful.

So a large SM presence does not automatically equate with lack of quality or playing the system.

I assume @cotes du rhone !that that is not what you are implying - but the debate on this & the other thread has tended to be in such either/or terms that are far too simplistic for the complexities of professional ballet training.

We need to consider the "and/and" as well as the "either/or" - which some posters are doing on this (and the other) thread, in amongst the whisperings of xenophobia and acting out of the understandable pain & bitterness at the toughness of the training and the profession.

Ballet at a high, professional level - like many sports, like music, like fine arts, like nuclear physics, like mathematics, like genetic biology and so on and on - is an elite profession. And so it should be.

15 hours ago, EverHopeful said:

But free class alone (with no other supporting syllabus lessons) can only be fun for the purely recreational dancer.

Er, no, sorry - most pre-professional dancers train in that way, and daily class for professionals is always a "free class." Some teachers might use a repeated set of exercises at the barre, so that pupils can focus on the quality of technique rather than having to cope with unfamiliar choreography, but the use of syllabus in no way guarantees a "better" training (from what I've seen over the years, sometimes quite the reverse). 

6 hours ago, Allwrong said:

She has dance-school friends going into smaller European companies who she hopes to emulate, which makes it look as though a more modest-scale dream might be possible.

 

Through family connections I know of several of these companies, and the work is excellent, regular performances to appreciative audiences, really interesting new choreography as well as the big classics, the possibility of developing as fully rounded artists into areas related to dance (choreography, scenic design, moving into other areas of performance) and stability and the possibility of family life in pleasant towns & cities. There is much to be said for the German Stadttheaters, for example. 

I wonder if part of the "problem" (if it is one, and I remain a bit more sceptical on that) of the RBS and the Royal Ballet, is that it's so visible, especially to those parents (and their children) who know very little about the theatre world. As others have pointed out, there are many excellent vocational schools in the UK. We are very lucky to have such world-class arts educators. 

6 hours ago, Allwrong said:

It's understandable when the most competitive schools are recruiting so readily from overseas where this sort of intensive training is clearly producing remarkable young dancers who can 'oust' locally trained dancers. Social media comparisons also have a part to play.

Just a general observation in terms of this point (not critical of your post  @AllwrongI think it's very wise) - but we might want to think about the fact that in other countries there are thousands of young people in ballet training, as there are here (probably hundreds of thousands!). So the handful of students we see here at one of the world's most renowned & visible ballet schools (RBS) are not necessarily representative of the training of the majority of dancers in other countries. We should be careful of making generalisations about whole countries' styles of training - or that misty place of "overseas" - from a few pupils we see here. We should realise these are the exceptional dance students, and logically, unlikely to be representative of the standards or norms of other countries.

I suggest anyone who wants to gain information about how dancers, teachers, and dance parents in other countries think about training, take some time to read our US-based "sister" site, Ballet Talk for Dancers. The same debates, the same anxieties about "all those foreigners taking our places," the same pain at realising that maybe your DC won't make it, the same concerns about teaching styles, the same wondering about whether to hothouse your child ...

And then we have someone like Ms Miko Fogerty,  trained in this way, who reached high levels in competitions, and had a very short career ... the push, push, push system doesn't guarantee a career either.

I loved learning  the “old” Cechetti Advanced syllabus (before it was divided into levels 1and 2). The adages were so nice, as were the set port de bras - all really clean simple lovely dancey technique. 

9 hours ago, The red shoes said:

However , she was right and yes I needed to hear it and yes she did me a favour as I didn’t try and pursue a journey which would delay the inevitable.  I am now a ballet teacher and ballet will always be my first love but I’m so glad she told me sooner rather than later. 

Thanks for saying this @Red shoesIt’s the tough part of a teacher’s life - giving hard news. I think as teachers, we have an ethical duty to do it directly and straightforwardly, but always with evidence.

11 hours ago, BalletBoysDad said:

Many international students have strong or adequate English proficiency that will no doubt attract a huge amount of talent to audition for WL.

Warning OFF-TOPIC 🤭

I’ve just come back from an international performing arts academic conference in which the working language was English.  I attend this conference most years, all over the world, and I’m always struck by the taken-for-granted high level proficiency in English by all my international colleagues, often from countries we’d perceive as having quite “poor” educational resources.

Many countries introduce second and third languages in primary school, and require proficiency in at least one other language for matriculation at the end of a child’s school education.

That we don’t, although the UK education system is one of the best in the world, is increasingly an ethical betrayal of our children, in my opinion. I have mediocre German, and a scratching of French, and every time I come home from this particular conference I look at my schedule and wonder if I could squeeze in another language or develop my competency in the ones I have. It’s a real problem in the UK for our young people in so many ways!