Kate_N

Just a little point of caution here: it's really important that ballet students work in parallel position, knees under hips and middle of the foot aligned under the knee, to balance all the work in turn out. I've been told by a physiotherapist that it's especially important when doing things like running & walking. Apparently, dancers can be injured from turning out too much in everyday life!

Yes, fair cop - it is a sweeping statement! But one which I'd argue is still mostly accurate. Competitions do give young students the opportunity to learn about performing to an audience, and can be valuable for learning stagecraft. But I think the demands of competitions as things in themselves, or on their own terms, are very different from theatrical concert dance (ballet or contemporary) in the industry. Even the competition ballet solo is quite an artificial thing, although there's a huge gain in learning the technique require for the standard solos (Kitri, named Fairies from Sleeping Beauty, and so on). That's why I think it's so very important for aspiring dancers to see as much dance as they can - to see the variety and creativity of our contemporary choreographers.

But that's competition/Eistedfodd stuff, which is unfortunately so far from the real art form in performance that it's sad the general public see it as representative of dance in any form. Have a look at the work of Mark Morris, anything done by Nederlands Dans, Christopher Bruce, Rambert, Martha Graham, Pina Bausch, Bill Forsythe ... any of the great modern choroegraphers, really. THAT is contemporary dance. Not the "lyrical" competition stuff.

Buses are very very much improved nowadays. They announce the stops and you can cross reference with a map app which shows your location as you travel along the road. Good luck to you both!

Congratulations! Oh to be 8 again - you've relived that experience

The differences between RAD and Cecchetti are minor, and are about different syllabi for graded training & exams. There are some differences in terminology (names of the arm positions are different for example), and there's the lovely arm position a la the Eros statue in Piccadilly Circus, which I never see in other syllabi, in the Cecchetti set 2nd port de bras. But I wouldn't get too hung up on the difference in an open ballet class.

No, PGCEs (or indeed any specific qualification) are not required for appointment to a post in an independent school. And are not required in academies (which are State-funded). That said, the better independent schools often have very highly qualified teachers - with PHDs in their subjects - and can afford to bring in industry experts for creative & performing arts subjects. Caveat emptor, I suppose. Although not possible so much within the state-funded system ...

And I was always taught that turn out is a movement or an action, not a thing or state (in contrast, say, to front splits).

Thanks everyone - your insights and experiences are really helpful! I drop in at different studios when I travel, and have done so for about the last ten years, but I still get nervous the first time in a new studio, so your advice really helps!

No words ...

I'll be in London at various times over the next few weeks. I usually take class at Danceworks with Hannah Frost and Christina Mittelmaier, but times etc mean that there's a Level 2 class at The Place tat fits my schedule. I've never done class there, so it'd be nice to see their studios. It's primarily a contemporary dance studio, so any experiences of their ballet classes? (I may just decide to do a contemporary class, but I can get various quite advanced contemporary classes where I live, whereas the ballet is fairly basic).

Oh dear! I can quite see your caution then. I've obviously been very lucky that I've never faced that

Are you sure it was her flexibility which was an issue? It might be worth finding out what motivated the "No." (Apologies if you've already discussed that here). Because flexibility without strength to use it, in proper alignment and with the sensation of turning out etc etc etc, is only good for tricks. Not ballet. Depending on her age, I'd assume a teacher would rather see a well-placed, maintained, and turned out extension at 90 degrees (hip height) with hips , pelvis, ribs and shoulders well-aligned, and a sense of line, than a leg thrown all over the place.

Depending on what "short period of time" means, I'd advise, from my own experience, that a basic beginners class, well-taught, can keep you in trim/training. If it's well taught, you'll gain things from it, even if the choreography and combinations are very simple. Where I live, I can only find a beginners' class once to 3 times a week (depending on my work schedule). When I'm in London, I do higher level classes, and find that I'm OK, although I also recognise what I'm losing through lack of opportunity for repetition & practice. But if it's a short period - even up to 3 months or so, you'll be surprised at how much you can just keep in tune with beginners' classes. I'm lucky however - I found a studio & teacher who is really well trained as a dancer and dance teacher - not just a suburban church hall set up, with a teacher who's not danced professionally ... So in my experience, I'd say it's the quality of teaching, not the level of the class, that you might look for.

Why not try it, and see whether she enjoys it? I don't think there's anything technique-wise that would harm her, and understanding the groundedness, and freedom of contemporary dance styles would be a good thing. That is, unless what your daughter's teachers calls contemporary is also what is sometimes called "lyrical" - sort of mash-up of ballet & contemporary with a lot of tricks and not much dance philosophy or aesthetic. At my studio, run by a very experienced dance teacher, who's also highly trained in pedagogy, there are contemporary, ballroom, and street dance classes for children from the age of 6 or 7. Her philosophy is that children need to try lots of things to see what clicks for them.

I'm not sure what age Grade 1 is - somewhere between 8 and 10 years old? Maybe it's also important to let her know that the exam isn't an end in itself. It's simply a marker of where her ballet development is at the moment, and she's learning and growing all the time. It's important for her to recognise her progress and learning, not focus on the exam result as an end in itself.

If we join the EEA we will have freedom of movement just as we do now. As I keep saying, historically and statistically, ballet is an international art/profession. Always has been from its start. The creative industries are international. Long may they remain so - we are all human beings who live on this one earth.

Well, I haven't taken class at KNT, but the Advanced classes at DanceXchange are at an Advanced level - the one on Saturday morning was taken by a teacher who said she set us the same class as she'd set for a professional class.

Why not telephone the company to ask about London stockists: http://www.wearmoi.co.uk/index.html Also, DanceDirect seem to have them online. But you'd need a "live" fitting first, I think.

I don't know about dance companies, and I agree with other about the difficulty of advising you on this. You seem to be seeking our validation of a decision you've already taken. However, I work for an organisation which subscribes to the "Two Ticks" code of treatment of people declaring disabilities. If an applicant for a job declares a disability and meets the essential requirements for the post as listed in the person specification for the post, then we are required to interview them. Often they are not competitive against the field of other applicants, but the idea behind the "Two Ticks" policy is that the obstacles in front of a person with disabilities are such that if they meet the base line of essential requirements, they are worthy of an interview even if those without disabilities have more than the essential requirements. In that situation, it may advantage an applicant to declare a disability, if they meet all the essential requirements listed for the post. In a previous job (and in another country, so slightly different legislation) I used to work with someone who had a chronic illness. Because it was a mental illness, and because of all the prejudice about mental illness, he never declared it as a disability. However, he couldn't cope with the pressures of the job when it really came down to it. Several of us had to take on more work, and deal with the greater level of stress this person's denial caused the whole team. Even those of us mentally healthy suffered a degree of occasional mental ill-health as a consequence. The colleague's selfishness, although understandable, is something I find hard to forgive, to be honest - even though I know denial of his condition was a symptom of the condition. However, I also saw the cost of having this chronic illness - my colleague really did pay the price. He had to go onto a part-time role, with consequent loss of salary. But he really couldn't do the full job. So I'm ambivalent - my colleagues and I also "paid" for our colleague's disability. And his lack of declaration - when the crisis hit, it felt like dishonesty, frankly. So personally, looking at it from the point of view of the employer and the person's colleagues, I think there's an ethical duty to declare IF you think that you'll need "reasonable adjustment." However, I understand the reluctance because of prejudice and misunderstanding, particularly around unseen or mental health disabilities. However, the cautionary tale from my experience is that not declaring led us to distrust & feel angry towards our colleague.

The EU mechanism for equalising qualifications is the Bologna agreement. The difficulty historically was that most other European countries offer a 4-year first degree (rather more like the Scottish degree), whereas England & Wales offer a 3-year Honours degree. But the intensity of the E&W degree was shown to equal the rather more elongated 4-year degree elsewhere. The UK qualifications framework is the National Qualifications Framework. All UK public universities are overseen by the QAA. Some links: http://www.qaa.ac.uk/en http://www.accreditedqualifications.org.uk/qualifications-and-credit-framework-qcf.html http://scqf.org.uk/ https://www.gov.uk/what-different-qualification-levels-mean/overview http://www.qaa.ac.uk/en/Publications/Documents/qualifications-frameworks.pdf PS Northumbria won't come up well on any published league table (except on widening participation), but that doesn't mean that it doesn't fulfil the criteria of the QAA and the national qualifications framework.

I've experienced both - someone in an advanced class who couldn't follow the combination well enough, but didn't realise they needed to get out of the way. And now this delusional non-dancer in a beginner's class (the person in question is not even a standard beginner ballet dancer - she just makes it up). We all end up with things we can't do, or make mistakes in the middle of a combination, or just lose it. It's human. And I know that when I do a more advanced class (never Pro level of course ) so I can learn & push myself - I stay at the back, I go in the second group, and if I don't follow, I just step back & keep out of everyone else's way. I think the difficulty of people going to classes above their level is when they don't understand class etiquette and particularly the "Give way to those dancing" rule! My current teacher is brilliant in very tactfully managing this delusional student, but I know this student puts off some of my fellow students, particularly when she goes in the front line (it's very distracting to have someone doing a combination of yoga./acro/non-ballet poses when we're doing pirouettes from 5th!) or when she tries to correct others. It must be difficult for people who run studios though - ballet IS hard, and all the publicity about ballet as 'exercise' and all the lithe slim bodies used to advertise it across social media (and the regular newspaper reports of adult ballet) give people without any experience of ballet the wrong idea. So I think teachers of adult classes sometimes maybe have to balance how they'd run a class ideally with how to run a class according to their ideals.

I've been very fortunate down here in the West country (having moved away from the possibility of getting to the studio Trog describes!) to have found an excellent new studio. I can't get the variety of classes that I used to have (I remember the Tuesday & Thursday classes Trog describes) but my teacher is very very good. But our regular "Back to Ballet" class regularly has 15 students, and our teacher is expanding the number of adult ballet classes she offers. There are now 3 classes on offer, all not much above very basic Beginners, but so well taught that I think I'm technically stronger than when I did advanced classes taught by soloists from BRB. Our teacher is good at pushing absolute beginners, but like others I notice that some who think they're quite advanced, are actually not. We've recently had quite a "character" in our classes. Someone who thinks she is a very advanced dancer, but is actually delusional, and obviously watched too many "ballerina" films. She does her own thing at the barre & in the centre. It is hilarious, really - she doesn't follow anything our teacher gives us. If it weren't so funny, I'd get quite angry - it looks like a lack of respect - I think it's delusion and, sadly, mental illness. But can be potentially dangerous in grand allegro - I've ad to steer around her doing her "ballerina interpretive dance" in the corner, when we are doing what our teacher has set for us.

You can make lycra fabric stay if you use elastic. Get the lingerie stretchy lace elastic - it's light and if you cut it a bit shorter than the edge you want to hold, you have to stretch it to attach it (with a stretch stitch or widened out zig-zag) and it'll spring back when not stretched. The other way would be to line the leotard with flesh-coloured mesh as a base, and then cut the leotard. THe whole thing would be kept in place by the mesh base.

Can I suggest a possibly harsh answer (but a logical one) to the question about why some British-born & trained dancers aren't getting into the RBS Upper School, and then the company, or the ENBS School & then the company? That they're just not good enough? And that it's not about who was born where - there'll be aspiring dancers in every affluent country in the world who will also never be good enough. As with ANY training in a highly sought after but terrifically hard area (and actually, I can think of a few universities and other areas of training exactly the same or even more demanding than ballet) many will try & few will succeed. That doesn't mean that the training is a waste, at whatever level it starts & finishes. I'm a firm believer in education for its own sake - or rather, in the von Humboldt tradition, for its ability to help each individual become the best person they can be. But sometimes, despite all the desire & ambition in the world, people just aren't good enough to succeed at the very top of their profession. I think it gets all muddled up in ballet/dance, because a lot of young people start the training as a hobby, an extra-curricular activity, despite whatever innate talent or bodily aptitude that they have. They then get the ballet bug, and if they show a modicum of talent, they're spurred on. Which is as it should be. But in the national & international scheme of things, they may be mediocre in relation to the very highest standards of excellence. The parallel might be that not everyone who plays 5-a-side kick around is going to win the FA Cup final; weekend runners will never win an Olympic medal. Having those goals as ways of spurring you on might help you to become the best footballer you can be; but that might not be a striker for ManU. Not being good enough may be only part of the answer, but it's a logical part of the answer ...