Kate_N

Tabby, I think I must just be unfussed by my tights digging in - I was thinking about this thread in my lunchtime class today - I've had a forced hiatus & so a carrying more weight around my middle than I like - and yes, the Plume black footless tights I put on over my leotard cut into my middle, but I used this to remind me to pull in my abs. Have you thought about a unitard? That would give you a long smooth line, all-in-one, and no problems about separate leotard & tights?

I'm a dress size somewhere between a large 12 and a 14, and I wear Plume footless tights,XL, which are plenty big enough width wise. OTOH, I'm only 5'6" if you're taller, then is it the length that's an issue, rather than breadth? They're not really long enough, but I don't mind the mid-calf finish. If I need something on my feet, I wear cotton socks. Could you just get some of those flesh coloured ballet socks when you need a covering for your feet?

Wonderful news, and thank you for sharing it with us. I've got such a big smile on my face as I read this thread - congratulations!

Ignore the Dance Mums (Annaliesey has some great advice on her thread!) But ... at 7 you really can't tell what potential - good flexibility, musicality, enjoyment, athleticism, well-proportioned body - will turn into at 11 or 14 or 16. Best just to enjoy learning the wonderful art of dance, for its own sake. I'm nearer 60 than 50 and still do 2-3 ballet classes a week, for the sheer challenge & love of it. However good she is, however talented, she needs to love the work of ballet & then she'll have it for the rest of her life.

Many congratulations to your DC. Can I also say - you say it's luck, but it's not - it's hard work from your DC and their teachers. It's great for young people to learn that hard work, as well as smart work, can get them where they want to go. Even better than luck!!

But sometimes it's parents wanting bragging rights "Oh my daughter's only 9 but she's already on pointe" - I'm sure there are Dance Mums who've said that!

I remember doing the old Intermediate and what used to be Elementary together (when I was a teenager), which are now Inter Foundation & Intermediate I think? Lovely syllabus back then. You could look on YouTube to see the kinds of combinations - lots of young people post short videos of them doing their syllabus work. Some better than others - don't use the vids as tutorials, but you'll see the kinds of level of work.

But it's neither directly one nor t'other - your palm will not face directly downwards, not directly open to the audience. I always establish my second by establishing my first - then simply moving the arm out. Although I do turn the wrists occasionally - anything such as tendu or grand battement derriere, I tend to adjust the palm a bit downward, and in grand battement a la seconde, I know my palm opens. BUT - that is more to do with the arm turning from the shoulder/back, than the palm in isolation. I know that sometimes, for some combinations I prefer a wider higher second, and other times a lower more rounded lower second seems to suit the movements or style or music more. But I'm not a teacher & I don't do exams, so you probably need to take advice about the style preferred for the exam.

Birmingham is a really good centre for ballet. Annette Nicholson is a wonderful teacher, so the advanced classes mentioned upthread would be worth thinking about. Her studio is maybe 10-15 mins walk from New Street Station. http://www.nicholsonschoolofdance.com/ The School is also on Facebook. The extra classes are called "Progressing Ballet Technique" Also, have a look at DanceXchange in the Birmingham Hippo - they run all sorts of classes, including some CAT schemes I think, and during the school holidays, there are a couple of outside hirers who organise classes. I think that's where the RAD Associates are held. And BRB do a fair bit of outreach work. http://www.dancexchange.org.uk/programmes/classes/ I think once you start attending some of these more professionally oriented schools (Ms Nicholson was a Soloist with the BRB) you'll get more guidance about ways forward for your daughter.

What everyone else says - some great suggestions there (esp. keeping the website up to date!). Also, as an adult dancer, I'd like to see a timetable and a timetable for adult students. Also, if "serious" adult students are welcome to attend graded lessons - or even just the invitation to ask about that. A sense of welcome to all sorts of dancers of all sorts of ages, and not the assumption that "Ladies" just want to do Jazzercise (yuk) and have fun or lose weight. For some of us, ballet is a serious hobby, just as for others it's tennis or golf - and amateur middle-aged players of tennis or golf are never regarded with raised eyebrows the way adult ballet students are. But almost as important! I see so so so many dance school websites which are just painful to the eyes to look at - all whirly glittery junk. A clean, easy to read site, with intuitive navigation, and the ability to jump from section to section really stands out for me. Also - I know websites are always works in progress, but I do get disappointed when the top menu promises all sorts of things "Blog" "Testimonials" Videos" etc etc, and you go to those pages and there's -- nothing!

This thread is making me think of the show, Chorus Line, and the number "I Can Do That" "One day my sis won't go to dance school"

oops, sorry! My sense of humour fail I hope he gets to do something he really loves, be that cycling or ballet. Or both!

Sorry, but why on earth are you against him trying ballet? Just because you want to lose your ballet mum persona? Why not allow your son to experience all the stuff he sees your daughter doing? And experiment with not being a ballet mum. It's quite possible, and there's even a club on here of "undance mums" I can't fathom why anyone would stop a child doing something they've shown an interest in, and which an older sibling is doing.

Pirouette, I think your point about how we could enhance and encourage the education of young dancers in the UK is really important. And even more so with the rapid changes in our pre- and post-16 education system. For example, the adoption of the EBacc poses a specific threat to the presence of the creative arts in the GCSE curriculum. The concern amongst those of us in the business of creative arts education is that it will become the preserve of the rich (Eton has an amazingly staffed and resourced theatre programme, for example). There's an electronic petition doing the rounds (you can find it on FaceBook) if you share this concern.

I think almost every country has its protests against so-called foreigners "coming here and taking our jobs"** particularly when some job areas are fiercely competitive (such as professional dance). So sometimes, UK nationals are the "foreigners"! ** I have no truck with this attitude - just using this phrase as an extreme stereotype.

The latter, of course. And at the time, there were more jobs in Europe than here. European companies are still offering more opportunities for dancers from all over the world. The couple of European companies I know very well (from the inside as it were) have an exciting mix of nationalities. The audiences love it, and the level of creativity is vey high.

Annaliesey, your post cracks me up! What, in the name of whoever, are "advanced ankles"? Does this mean that other people's ankles are only "intermediate" or, heaven forfend "remedial"? Honestly, you just have to feel sorry for these rather small-minded people don't you? Although it takes a tough skin for the jibes not hurt a little bit. The urgent text is a great excuse. Good luck with surviving.

Harwel, I'm glad my view as merely an audience member and looker-on of careers in ballet is chiming with your far more hands on experience. One of the professional performers in my family has made a very good career outside of the UK, in spite of training here. And you only have to go to our US parallel ballet site: Ballet Talk for Dancers - to see a similar concern about US-born & trained dancers being "pushed" aside by "foreign" talent. Including British dancers! I do think that thinking internationally is the necessary next step in that series of steps from the suburban ballet school as a hobby, to discovering the passion & talent, to dipping a toe in the bigger waters of Associate programmes; then auditions for vocational programmes; then international ballet competitions; then auditions for companies. Each step takes one away from the comfort zone of the known & the familiar. But that discomfort might well be the thing that is the making of an artist.

Ballet is an international art & business. It always has been. The earliest "sensations" on the London stage in ballets such as Giselle were Italian and French. UK dancers work all over the world. If you start to close the doors in British ballet companies to non-UK born dancers, are you prepared for the rest of the world to close their doors to us? The thread started here yesterday about going to vocational school out of Britain would be impossible. And so on ... It's a rather problematic and potentially xenophobic approach. And bad for ballet audiences! As for schools - I know from working in a university that non-EU students pay what it actually costs - £9k per year tuition fee doesn't cover the actual cost of a university education. So those pesky foreigners actually subsidise our own domestic & EU students' costs. In universities, international students do not displace home/EU students - they are a different set of numbers. And we have a world-class education system - we should be proud that our schools and universities attract the best of the youth from all over the world. Lots of UK-born (if that's your criterion) teaching the talent from all over the world.

Thing is, that while mild dyslexia is generally something pupils and students can find ways to deal with coping strategies, there are some versions of dyslexia as a learning disability which are part of a syndrome which can include dyspraxia, and difficulties with visual and spatial processing. So this more pronounced form would, I think, make vocational training & professional employment difficult. It's just very difficult to advise you in the way you want to be advised. You seem to be seeking a particular answer. We can't give it to you.

I read these fora fast, but I thought you were asking about professional (vocational) training as much as employment. I think the harsh thing is that in a world with very many talented dancers, if the potential employee had some of the difficulties eg picking up choreography that you describe, they would be less likely to be employed. Even if the reason for the slowness was disclosed as a disability under the terms of the DDA and/or other EEO legislation. You mention asthma - fairly common chronic disease (I have a mild form). Fine if successfully treated & medicated. Much more difficult if either not properly treated, or requiring lengthy hospitalisation etc which meant that the dancer had substantial time off. A certain level of sick leave can be accommodated, but there are limits which any employing body has to set and monitor. I think that an invisible chronic illness, such as depression, for example, might be a parallel. Fine if successfully treated & medicated. Much more difficult if either not properly treated, or requiring lengthy hospitalisation etc which meant that the dancer had substantial time off. What you're describing - although it's really not completely clear - is a much more fine-grained judgement call, and will depend on the specific talent of the dancer, and the specific conditions of the company. A larger company might be able to support the sort of disabilities you describe; a small contemporary ensemble might be more difficult. But things such as difficulties in picking up choreography and non-verbal cues off-stage will limit a dancer's versatility and adaptability, I'd have thought. I think their talent would have to be quite extraordinary to outweigh such limitations in doing the job of a dancer in a professional company. But really it's hard to answer you with the degree of certainty you seem to be seeking. You don't give context: you don't say why you're asking these questions or on whose behalf, or about what sort of professional employment situation. You may not want to, so as to preserve your anonymity, but it makes it harder to comment usefully if the problem is not presented with clarity and context.

I see what you're getting at, but there are a couple of points here: a) people are all different; people with disabilities are all different; disabilities are all different. So ... the judgement would have to be made on an individual basis. An anonymous internet forum isn't really the place, because we can't see you, we can't help you evaluate the individual case here. B ) although someone said upthread that dancing is not acting, but - dancing is acting, just without words. It is a performing art, and communication, and the ability to communicate, is essential. The technical training is not an end in itself, but a means to performance and art at a high level. c) under the DDA, "reasonable adjustments' have to be made, and since 2010 or thereabouts, educational institutions were bound by it. But the point is that they must be reasonable. For a professional performer training programme, some of the things you've mentioned might be difficult to adjust. And if the student is not able to develop to deliver the 'intended learning outcomes' (what we work towards in universities) with the standard pedagogy of the school, this might pose a problem to difficult to be dealt with via "reasonable" adjustment. Some of the disabilities you describe would make me wonder whether the person was able fully to follow a course of full-time/vocational training in dance, frankly. In applying for jobs, if an organisation is a "Two Ticks" organisation with regard to disability, that means that an applicant - disclosing a disability (although not its specifics) - who meets the essential criteria of a post is guaranteed an interview. But not the job. As for disclosing - I think you'd need to take proper advice over disclosure. But I would say this: in a work situation (and I know because I've had to manage a situation like this), if someone does not disclose a disability, but then claims or requires 'reasonable adjustment ' or 'reasonable accommodation' in order to do the job to a required standard, that employee would be subject to disciplinary proceedings. And if they had disclosed a disability, but were not doing the job to a required standard and were refusing to go through an Occupational Health assessment to determine 'reasonable adjustment' then again, it's a disciplinary procedure. The person themselves - student or employee - cannot determine their own 'reasonable adjustment' - at my institution it's done by an assessment team involving medical specialists, counsellors, and academic tutors. So it's complicated. I suppose, just as an audience member (not university lecturer managing this process), given that dance is a performing art, I'd be wondering why someone with some of the disabilities you list - for example, dyspraxia/dyslexia which suggest real difficulties in spatial processing & understanding, which for me in the sort of teaching I do are utterly basic to stage performance -- would want to train for a performance job, which requires a level of communication, picking up cues, quick response to chaotic change, and verbal/facial/bodily understanding that you say is limited.

This! Thank you for saying this - it's a ray of common sense. No one has a "right" to have their dreams come true, particularly not a dream so rare & difficult to achieve as becoming a professional ballet dancer in one of the world's major ballet companies. So to say that the RBS is mistaken in their selection because not all students they select at age 11 go through from the prep school, to the high school, to the company, is to blame the wrong thing. Bodies change, minds change, bodies are injured, pupils can't or don't want to work in the way they need to work to go through the whole RBS training. And I think it's wonderful that we have several ballet schools in this country which are the envy of dancers-in-training all over the world. The UK education system is one of the jewels in the national crown (although successive governments are slowly wrecking the secondary and higher education sectors) and attract the best & talented from all over the world. It's great that British values in art and education are so valued across the world.

Very wise, Primrose.

Way back in the 50s, my mother trained with someone (at Tring when it was a full-time ballet boarding school) who had been "assessed out" of the RBS because her measurements were thought to be indicative of growing "too tall." At 5' 2" (just) my mother was thought of as perfect "pocket ballerina" height. When my sister was going for jobs, at 5' 4" she was often shorter than most other dancers in the room. Things change, ideas change, aesthetics change. Some of the more acrobatic of our dancers or those with an athletic look (I'm thinking of someone like Dusty Button) wouldn't have been employed back in the 50s. It was commonly thought that "Asians" (Chinese, Japanese) couldn't do ballet because their legs were usually to arqué (bow-legged). And now we have dancers like the amazing Chi Cao. Things change!