Kate_N

Also coming from a dance/theatre family (my mother & sister were/are professional dancers), I second what Harwel says. You have to take a long view, and keep as many options open as possible. With dance, things hap[pen both very very slowly (so I wouldn't worry too much about her "catching up") and quite fast (like injury). Get the best training you can, and keep up with a good general education. Teachers can't be 'straight' with you, because they don't know either. All they can say is how a dancer is doing now, and what s/he has to work on. But if your DD has had some good experiences in terms of auditions, placements in classes etc, then that's what you've got. Then training slow & steady, and it will be what it will be. If you can see her dance training as part of her overall education & training for life, then she will be well prepared. I think at the moment in the UK, there's such an anti-arts bias in public discussions and governmet education policy, sometimes it 's hard to stick with that "old-fashioned" idea of education as a way of building the whole person. The Germans in the 18th & 19th century got it right: they talked about the idea of Bildung - education creating a person to become the best person they could become, not just to get a job, or simply achieve this or that salary or degree, but "self-cultivation" -- to become the best person you can become. It's not a bad principle in life ...

My first thought was also about choreography & rehearsal & coaching. It would be completely unethical to enter independently using choreography learnt at her studio taught by her teacher, for example. So you'd need to be prepared to pay a decent rate for a choreographer's skills and also for coaching. This could be up to £50 an hour for a freelancer.

I should think that if Rambert is looking for a particular 'body type' then so are most other properly professional training programmes. I think you need to be very careful, and also very realistic about what you're auditioning for, and what you want to achieve through three years of professional-level dance training (I work in a university performing arts context). Of those, I'd say that Laban, LCDS, Northern, and also Rambert are going to give you really intensive top-notch contemporary training. Frankly Edge HIll & Middlesex, not so much. They will offer you a three year BA (Hons) in Dance, but not necessarily at a training intensity - nor standard of entrants frankly - to be really fully equipped for work as a professional dancer. But they will give you an all-round arts degree, which is also very useful for developing a career, just maybe not as a full-time dancer (there are always exceptions). And if you decide to take the University degree option, rather than the intensive professional training as at Laban or The Place (although they also offer degrees), then I wouldn't be looking at Edge Hill or Middlesex. They're not highly ranked in the field: Roehampton or Surrey universities are far more demanding courses, with a better all round education. Do you know how you perform in relation to others at your age/education level? I think you need to audition for a few places such as Laban or LCDS, to see how you go, and whether a career as a dance professional is realistic for you. As for training elsewhere in Europe (remember we are European too!) Yes, there are not the equivalent of £9k pa tuition fees (although the actual cost of a performing arts degree in the UK is nearer to £12k pa) but sometimes you really do get what you pay for! Other European countries rarely have the mix of academic and conservatoire studies that we have in the UK. The ability to study for a degree level qualification in dance at Laban etc is unique. Other European education systems tend to separate out training into conservatoires, and higher education into universities. OK, so you won't pay fees in other EU countries. You also will have difficulty getting a loan or maintenance grant to live on, and you won't always be able to study in English. Do you have family elsewhere in Europe? Do you have another language? Are you comfortable going to another city in another country and finding a flat or house share? Most other EU countries don't have the standard hall of residence style of student accommodation - students either live at home and commute (like my French family) or flat share as young working adults (like my German family). These are just things you need to think about and be confident you'll be OK about! It's a big & complex set of decisions. Good luck!

Munchkin, that sounds great! I'm glad you found a class you could get to with your busy schedule. And it sounds as though it's a studio where they take adult students seriously. Personally, I like to get away from the barre and move sometimes, but a class that takes the basics of technique seriously, and builds on them is a gem. You can add other kinds of classes that get you moving as you go on. It's also great that it's a 90 minute class. this is standard, but so many small suburban studios offer only an hour, or even only 45 minutes. I don't think you get enough in that to learn consistently unless you do 3 or 4 a week, so can rotate elements of the centre eg focus on adage one day, allegro the next. My regular class in this little city is really well-taught, but only an hour. My teacher is very talented & manages to get a lot into that hour, and gets bare beginners dancing really well (I'm in awe of her ability to do this) But when I go to a longer more advanced class (about once every 3 or 4 weeks), I realise how much I'm losing skills - in petit allegro particularly. So you've really found a great studio! Good luck for the future Michelle_Richler, you are taking a risk in performing in two events so close together! I hope they both know ... The theatre world is full of anecdotes about performers running between theatres. Those stories rarely end well, so I hope that real life has better endings for you!

Generally tagging on -- I was the lucky recipient of a free class pass at Danceworks, and used it yesterday to try out Christine Mittelmaier's Intermediate class. It was fun! Fast at the barre, but lovely lovely combinations with lots of port de bras and use of the back. I fear that I didn't do the choreography justice, but if I were able to get to Danceworks more regularly on Sunday mornings, I would learn so much in that class. Highly recommended. But not for beginners

Brava to everyone starting again! Isn't it a great feeling in class? Beautiful movements to beautiful music. I'm interested in the worries about creaky knees. Maybe I'm lucky (I'm now 56) and have very few problems -- tendinitis which is treated but still there, but doesn't stop me doing anything and a nagging hamstring strain, which again, I just ignore/stretch out. (It hurts more when I'm not dancing/exercising than when I am). I do 2 to 3 dance classes a week - more if I can get them. But the other thing is that I've always cross-trained. I do a bit of running - about 2 to 3 sessions of 30 to 40 minutes a week mostly on a treadmill at the gym, and I do Pilates or yoga, and also weights - currently in a gym "Pump" class with light weights (never more than 20 kg on the bar). I'm fit but not excessively so, but I think that the weights work I do, and the consistency over many years of dance means that my muscles are strong and support my bones & joints. I wonder if consistent & careful cross-training including some sort of weight-bearing exercise (good for the bones) would help your dancing? Particular attention to leg weights exercises might strengthen quads etc which all support the knees. It might be worth a chat with both a physiotherapist and a properly qualified personal trainer .

What does your DD want to do with dance? Probably around 1% of current ballet pupils will end up working professionally as ballet dancers (that's the statistic that's bandied about), but maybe 10% will work with dance in some way. So adding in some high quality teaching in other dance forms couldn't e a bad thing. But high quality, so it complements, rather than counters good ballet training.

I've been Admissions Tutor for a performing arts department, and a Personal Statement needs to show that you understand what the course/s you're applying for are about, and what is involved in studying dance at HE. The advice I give here is for writing your UCAS PS. Please, please, please don't write about your "passion." We take that for granted, and it's not very meaningful. Show in more concrete detail how you've followed your ambitions, rather than telling us about your feelings. Show how your school studies, plus your extra-curricular studies, have prepared you for study of dance at a very advanced level. Don't just say that they have, give us some evidence. The website: The Student Room, can be useful for getting ideas about [uCAS] Personal Statements. But caveat emptor: it can sometimes be spectacularly wrong. All the misguided rumours spread by all the misguided students in the world ...

BeckyL, have you asked for advice on Ballet Talk for Dancers pointe shoe forum? You need to take a range of photographs of your feet (there's a Sticky post telling you what is needed), and the forum is American, but the pointe shoe experts there seem to be VERY good. Mods, I hope it's OK to recommend another site for this specific purpose?

Canvas shoes go in the washing machine, and if you put them straight on afterwards, they mould to your feet. So they'll stretch out again after slight shrinkage.

This is such a helpful & interesting conversation. Obviously the first aid formula of RICE needs detailed & careful adjustment according to the nature of the injury. Really interesting. Maybe it's the difference between an acute/trauma injury and the general wear & tear of extended and strenuous exercise? The latter is where an ice bath might be useful.

Just a note: if you have very compressible toes/feet (I know I do), then some form of padding such as a spacer between your big toe and second toe might be useful. This video has some interesting techniques. The taping looks a bit too hard core, but a simple spacer might help. It's a really good series on the insider's view of pointe work.

Also, a good first aid is the RICE formula. Rest Ice Compression Elevation Best translated as: a bag of frozen peas on the affected part, while you rest your foot on a chair!

It's hard to do this over the internet as we can't see you, but it sounds like a few things: * you need better general overall fitness (one ballet class a week is not enough for that). Try a programme of walking - to the point where you get out of breath but can still speak -- for 30 minutes each day, and eventually you could even run for that time. * you need to develop a habit of stretching. It sounds as though you need to do some calf and ankle stretches. You could google/YouTube for "runners stretches" - deep stretches of the calves & Achilles * it worries me that you don't straighten your legs when you're on pointe. Are you strong enough for pointe? Are you able to stretch your legs fully doing that choreography on demi-pointe? Not being able to straighten your legs when you're on pointe could be for a number of reasons: you're not over the box of the shoe; tyour ankles aren't flexible enough; you're not pulling up enough; your core is weak; you don't feel confident on pointe. All these things can be fixed with slow steady work in consultation with your teacher.

I've always been taught that "turnout" is not a noun but a verb. That is, that "turn out" is not a thing or a quality or characteristic (or only partly), but that it is a process, and a dynamic movement. Hence the phrase "working your turnout."

Oh yes please, please keep us posted. I live deep in the West Country now, but "home" is Lancaster, and I could take a little dancing vacation in Manchester. I get very homesick for the north ... and when I lived there, there wasn't such an opportunity, apart from a couple of one-day workshops I did with Ludus Dance - we learnt the Big Swans from Swan Lake v. Petipa, and then the same piece of music with Matthew Bourne's choreography. That was really fun - mixing very classical choreography with Bourne's modern/contemporary take on it, and also learning steps choreographed for female dancers, then the same music in choreography made on male dancers. I've had experience of having choreography made on me as part of a group of adult contemporary dancers in a studio I danced at 20 years ago. I love that mix of repetition, trying things out, and improvisation that results in what should eventually look smooth and rehearsed!

Yes, Ballet_Rocks! That's what I've always been told in class when different teachers ask for different ways of doing things. They say that that's hy we do open class, with each exercise set on the spot. And last year, in a regular repertoire class I attended, we learnt a couple of different ways of doing the same variation. We were learning all the fairies from Act I of Sleeping Beauty, and my teacher said that the way she learnt one of them was adjusted slightly for her as she could do umpteen turns to one side, but fewer to the other. So of course, on stage, the choreography is adjusted to show off the dancer. And I remember learning a Kitri solo from Don Q, a big grand allegro piece, using music scored for Lucette Aldous of the Australian Ballet. She is tiny, and so the music was quite fast for grand allegro. So I've learnt a couple of versions of quite well known solos, and also learnt how to make small adjustments as I go. This is all about ballet as an art. And art, quite rightly, is never efficient! Neither is learning an art efficient -- we need to do lots of repetitions, and appear to 'waste' time noodling about, in order to pull it all together. Indeed, as a teacher in the performing arts (but not dance) I think there's a lot to be said for a rich mix of repetition, messing about, playing, and intense concentration.

AnnaLiesey, thanks for not being offended by my bluntness. It does sound as though the studio is not a happy place to be, and that somehow the dynamics have become that rather nasty mix of gossip & envy that I remember at times from my youth (shudder). It's tough dealing with that, isn't it? As someone says above, it's far better when parents don't hang around the studio, but it sounds as though the girl herself is complicit in some boasting. I hope you can give your DD some useful life tools to deal with that: ignore, ignore, ignore is the basic one, I think! A child of 10 or 11, however, isn't necessarily best placed to see that her training is beneficial. The stop/start you say she reports could be just as good for her -- slow and steady attention to the basics -- even if she feels she's beyond it, and more advanced. A tricky situation, and such a shame that you feel you can't speak to the teacher openly. Are there ways you can try, that will come across as completely non-judgemental and simply ask about the way your daughter is feeling and progressing, in the teacher's professional view? I think if you went from the point of view of your daughter's progress, not the issue of the other girl in the class, or the stop/start or slowing down of the class to accommodate her, would that be more productive? You could rehearse a conversation here, with the other dance teachers, maybe, to see what would work. Tricky situation, but if your daughter is still so young, it's not at all a disastrous thing in her trainng. Dealt with well, it will make her more resilient & able to deal with this sort of situation, which is by no means limited to the dance world, throughout her life. Good luck to you both!

Oh dear. Can I be frank? You can have no concern about any other child but your own. Just focus on your own DD. Don't compare; don't encourage her to compare. Just encourage her to do her best to become the best dancer she can be, not to beat another child, or compare herself against others. If you think that the class/teacher is no longer helping your DD to become the best she can be, then THAT is the reason to look at other teachers and studios. In my reading, your post suggests your wasting your precious time and energy thinking too much about the other girl in a way which sounds rather carping or envious. Focus on your daughter. She needs your focus, not your envy or dissatisfaction about another child. There's nothing you can do about the teacher's policy and treatment of other children. I say this so bluntly because I've seen the effects of parents whispering and comparing their young children. It is horrible for the children, and a waste of everyone's energy. Believe me, it's really horrible for the children concerned. I'd bet that the other child knows you and other mothers are talking about her. (Been there, done that, go the tshirt). Talent, success, and learning are not a zero sum game: one child doing well doesn't take away from another child. They will all learn more and better if they learn together and co-operatively. Studios where there's jealousy and competition are often not very happy or productive places to learn. I hope you find a good solution for your DD. It sounds as though there are other reasons for dissatisfaction, but please, make sure the reasons are to do with your DD's learning, not about the teacher's professional decisions about another child. Apologies for being blunt, but I really mean well.

Wonderful report, Terpsichore. Thank you for posting.

I was wondering if we needed a new thread anyway? This one is very long.

My teacher shows both, and I've learned both. Her reasoning for teaching the basic beginners in the class the version without the fouetté is that a single en dedans pirouette doesn't need much force. I find that's true -- in a single it's pretty easy to just sail around once. But it emphasis the way there are several "right" ways to do things doesn't it? I love talking to experienced performers who will talk about the various versions of choreography. And in class we're all working towards being ready to do whatever is asked of us by our teachers.

In the midlands -- if you can get to Birmingham, you're spoilt for choice. I've seen the sports physios based at the University. They have two big practices.

I had tendonitis, and saw a sports physio who also deals with dancers. I'm guessing I'm older than your DD (a lot older ) but I'd second the advice of rest, and physiotherapy. My physio checked my gait, checked my flexibility and muscle tension throughout the whole leg and hip/pelvic girdle. and recommended some stretches, including the "Alfredson heel drops" - on a stable step (I use my stairs at home), with heels hanging over, dropping for 5 counts, up on 2 counts (I changed it to 5 and 3 as I count in 8s being a dancer!). 3 lots of ten heel drops, twice a day. As I got stronger, I was recommended to do them on one foot only. But it's a STRONG exercise -- don't do it unless the physiotherapist recommends it. My PT also checked that I wasn't rising up by gripping my toes. He said that a lot of dancers did that, and it contributed to the tightness in the insertion point of the Achilles tendon. His homework to me at my final session was to dance without tension! The heel drops are tough, but that homework is far far harder!

Back from a lovely holiday with a rather spasmed back -- I'm hoping ballet class tonight will help me stretch it out! Proff that holidays are not necessarily good for me. I've been reading about all the summer workshops that have been held for adult students -- great stuff. I must try to plan for doing one next year. But like others, I'm a bit puzzled about a desire to learn the exact repertoire before attending a workshop. It seems to defeat the purpose of attending the workshop to work with a specific teacher, learning a specific piece of choreography. And also, I've long been taught that, as a dancer, you need to be prepared to change the way you do things for a specific teacher or choreographer. There's no necessarily "right" way of doing some steps or choreography. Although there are many many wrong ways ... For example, in my basic beginners class (the only one I can attend regularly at the moment) the others are learning the en dedans pirouette. I learnt it with a fouetté leg into the retiré, but we're doing it with the leg going straight from the lunge to retiré at the back of the knee. I find it a bit weird, as I"ve been using the fouetté technique for years! But that's what the teacher is asking for, so that's what I do. I think maybe, Michelle, that you're quite new to ballet & the theatre/performing arts more generally? I was literally brought up in the theatre, so it's interesting to see the responses of a newcomer to my world -- I think that your comment about being "plain speaking" is probably something you need to be a bit careful about. The arts world runs on recognition of and respect for talent and knowledge -- it's not the business world! Although in my day job I'm quite a senior manager, in the ballet class, I am the student, and my teacher is the teacher, and I respect that relationship. BalletRocks, you're doing a great job of giving information about the KNT workshop -- I'm from the north west but currently exiled to the West Country, and I wish that when I lived up north, KNT had been in existence. I must try to get there for next year's workshop. Toi toi toi & merde to you all, and please come back & report on what you learnt for those of us about to go back to work <grumpy face>