LupusMelis

Hello fellow adult ballet dancers, I'm interrupting your thread by asking for your help! My regular dance school here in Sheffield, Hype Dance Company, needs to find a qualified and experienced ballet teacher to take over our Advanced, Intermediate and Pointe classes whilst our lovely teacher, Emily, is on maternity leave from May to September. With the short notice and everything I was hoping some of you knowledgeable members of the community might know of suitable freelance ballet teachers based in Yorkshire/North England. I've posted further details on the For Sale/Wanted section: http://www.balletcoforum.com/index.php?/topic/6509-advanced-ballet-teacher-needed-rad-pref-for-adult-classes-in-sheffield/ (not sure if that was the right thing to do, though). But if you do have any suggestions please go ahead and PM me! Thanks in advance everyone

First of all I hope I am posting this in the right place and aren't breaking any rules, but mods please feel free to move/scold and delete as appropriate! I'm hoping the knowledgeable forum members on here will be able to help with the following: My regular ballet school - Hype Dance Company in Sheffield, South Yorks - is seeking a ballet teacher for Advanced, Intermediate and Pointe classes for maternity cover from May until September (approximate). We ideally need someone who is skilled at teaching and developing adults, preferably RAD qualified. Class times are from 5.30 to 9.30pm on Mondays and 5.00 to 7.30pm on Wednesdays (hourly rate to be discussed). Contact Anna at Hype Dance on 0114 2706757 or email via http://www.hypedance.org.uk/academy/contact/contact.php for further info. Thanks everyone!

Put them on and really work through from demi-pointe to pointe in them (non-weightbearing of course!) and see if they start to soften that way. Grishko softblocks pretty much are as hard as their normal pointe shoes (minus the shank) and they really need to be 'worked' before they even start to feel remotely comfortable! Another thing you can do is wear them then grab a theraband and work through your feet: heel, demi-point to pointe and reverse with legs out in front as you would in a normal foot warm up. Make sure your feet and leg muscles are warm before you do this, though!

Thanks Anjuli. I agree that working in first position to find and strengthen usable turnout is also a really valid and effective way of training. I think a mixture of all these types of approaches can work if you can easily clarify what the goals are for each approach.

I hope you can find a way to watch it soon, LinMM. I think contemporary is generally a bit more inclusive and diverse than ballet (especially in terms of pursuing an actual career), but I couldn't really choose between the two. Over the years ballet has become a type of yoga to me, the more I begin to really understand the technique the more I begin to understand my own body and get lots of 'ah ha' moments.....probably sounds quite strange! And contemporary dance itself is so broad, I really love Cunningham but flowing, Graham style contemporary is fun too and I'd really love to expolore Gaga movement. I really hope you enjoy your first class, and look forward to reading about your experience in the Simply Adult Ballet thread. And as you say, so much is available to dancers of all levels and ages in this country. You've just got to search these things out and commit to them if you want to do it I'd be really interested in going to the spring LAB intensive but it's more a matter of being able to afford it than fitting it in (I always make room for dance ). I'm really hoping I will be able to get to Laban's Summer School this year, my yoga teacher has taught there the past three years and it just sounds like heaven. Feel free to PM away! And hello Christine, so lovely to see you on here

Hello Swanprincess I would recommend having a look at some of the articles in this blog (particularly the one I have linked to here), and possibly signing up for and carrying out the 4-week strengthening programme if your teacher approves: http://danceproject.ca/smarter-glute-training-for-dancers/. I would also really consider investing in some of Eric Franklin's books, particularly 'Conditioning for Dance', the exercises, imagery and kineasthetic approach have done wonders for strengthen my 'ballet muscles'. One simple way that you can find out the turnout that is useable for you in centre work is to: 1. lie on your stomach with long legs in 6th (so all the way together) 2. Starting with your right leg, lengthen it all the way down from the top of your glutes through your hamstring, and flow that energy out through your toes. If you focus on lengthening enough your leg will lift off the floor (don't actively seek to lift it, though) 3. When it is in this fully lengthened state, 'allow' it to freely rotate in the hip socket. Keep the front of your hips relaxed and soft, let your lower back be free of tension and just focus on the energy that you have created in your leg and how it enables you to rotate it. Your turnout WILL be very, very small, so don't panic if it's minimal! 4. Let the leg go back into the hip socket and melt downwards towards the floor. You will find yourself back in parallel. 5. Repeat steps 2 to 4 on the right another three times (making 4 in total) then do it all again on your left side. This is one of the most valuable exercises that my teacher Benoit Egloff taught me (he calls it 'Keyhole'). The range of movement is very. very small but gradually it will begin to increase as you learn to work with your body's energies. He made me feel better the first time I did it by recalling how professional soloists reacted the first time they did it, basically they cried because their 'usable' turnout was actually so much smaller than what was 'available' to them at the barre! As a balance to the releasing work, I also actively engage for strengthening by practicing simple exercises such as standing in seconde and moving from right to left without plie, fully transferring the weight so that I am completely on my leg. When I've found my center doing this I raise a working leg to 45 degrees and focus on reaching down through my supporting leg, reaching up through the crown of my head and engaging my upper back muscles so that the working leg becomes freer and I can start to open the leg more by pulsing it back (you can also repeat this with the working leg devant, but pulse upwards). I go through this type of routine a few types, starting with a relaxed turnout then opening and rotating a bit more and finally turning out to my maximum, all the while focusing on reaching and lengthening and feeling the connection in my inner thighs. If you have a flexible back really concentrate on letting your tailbone be heavy so that your spine is long and supported and keep your heart open. Then repeat on the other side! You can switch up the way you work too so that your body doesn't get used to it. Hope it helps!

Thanks Janet. The wording is absolutely fine, I forgot to respect the privacy of the individuals mentioned when I first wrote the post and shouldn't have referred to them by name.

Thanks everyone for your feedback and comments Can any mods help me to remove the names of the ladies in my post regarding the 'real women' scandal? I don't seem to be able to edit it. Funnily enough I met with and talked to one of the producers from Rare Day about the show before I even went for the audition to get more information about it and find out exactly what it would all involve. I did leave the meeting feeling that my hopes for the show and the company's were along the same lines, but it turns out that my standards and expectations of quality were actually very different to the reality of the process. One of the biggest things I have been able to take away from the experience is to only commit to something that is authentic and which I will have control over, particularly if that project is voluntary! In answer to your questions LinMM, I was heavily involved in dance before I got involved with the programme and am still committing myself to classes pretty much everyday! I am applying to study vocational courses at all the UK contemporary dance schools, with an audition for NSCD coming up the week after next so I'm hopeful that I will be able to find a place that will accept me and develop those areas that I need to strengthen. I'm determined to pursue my goal of dancing professionally, especially in works that really push the boundaries of my physicality and ability One day I might even reailse my dream of dancing Jiri Kylian works on a professional stage! In two weeks' time I will be taking part in my Sheffield dance studio's 10-year anniversary show, and we are performing a really lovely ballet piece so I'm really looking forward to getting back on stage again. Not everybody had such a negative experience with the Big Ballet project and many of the others are eager to take things forward and they have a website where you can stay up to date with them: http://www.bigballetuk.com/big-ballet/ One of the positive things about the show is that these wonderful men and women have been inspired again by their love of dance, and it's obviously helped them fulfill their own personal goals. I'm sure they won't stay quiet for long Sorry to read about your negative experience with journalists, Fiz. That's partly one of the reasons I have stayed away from doing press and appearances in relation to the show! LinMM, you should be able to download 4OD as janice and ellen mentioned above. It's such a shame the full performance wasn't shown on the telly, my brother hasn't even been able to watch it yet because 4OD keeps crashing :/

We had a team of professional make-up artists who applied the make-up, but I have been led to believe that make-up & costume 'looks' were devised under the direction of Monica Loughman. The colour combinations were a very unfortunate choice and made us look very clownlike. You probably didn't notice on the TV but each of us had art deco patterns spray-painted in gold around the eyes, which was a lovely touch, but sadly got over-powered by the orange blusher and lips! The camerawork was very irritating indeed. But so glad you were impressed with the performance. A few of us went to town on the acting side of it since we were so restricted physically (stage, costume, lack of choreography) so it's nice to know that viewers were able to see that!

Hello everyone Thanks so much for making me feel welcome here! I'll definitely be sticking around Primrose, I didn't take any offense at your post! As a dancer it really did feel to me like our 'Swan Lake' was a bit of a pantomime. You're completely right that we weren't shown at our best in the footage that was used in the final episodes.We had some lovely classes with Wayne, during which he taught us Princess Florine's variation from SB (demi-pointe only) and we all had a go at promenading in arabesque with the gentlemen (which they really enjoyed and got to learn valuable lessons about weight placement, balance etc)...so it's a real shame that these didn't make the final edit. But that's Reality TV for you, I suppose! And just so you all know, this show was intially sold to us as an arts documentary!

Hi Mimi! It's made me a bit sad to think that for all the things that were discussed in that episode the "real women" thing was what the viewing public zoned in on. The clip shown was an edited version of a longer discussion and the way it was 'set-up' for the cameras was incredibly fake (I'd already spoken to Wayne and cleared the air by that point!). I can't speak for the other 2 dancers, but if I actually referred to "real women" (IIR I said ordinary people?) I meant it in the context of ordinary women and men who were not trained professional ballet dancers but were still trying to achieve the same goals. I and some of the others just wanted to be taken seriously as dancers! I do think it was taken massively out of context and I'm sure the others certainly didn't mean to infer that only women above size whatever should be considered 'real', how preposterous! And you can't imagine how cringeworthy it was to hear Wayne and some of the other dancers referring to trained professionals, who I respect and admire, as 'stick insects', 'ballet robots' etc. But in the dancers' case I think these were just ordinary, emotional reactions to being mocked in public by someone who they thought was their mentor. What doesn't come across in the programme was just how emotionally tense and stressful the 'classes' and 'rehearsals' were. Not only were some people having to deal with learning ballet for the first time, others were putting absurd amounts of pressure on themselves (I would be guilty of that!), it was weird having cameras filming class time and all those moments that you would ordinarily want to internalise things. Also the concept that was beginning to emerge was one of broken dreams, lost opportunities and hopes and not a celebration of the movement potential of the human body. I definitely found it a psychological challenge, and although the others may not admit it they may well have done too, so it was difficult to have a balanced reaction to things...at times we wouldn't even be able to stretch and cool down in the studio as you would normally do after class because Monica had to be filmed to discuss the evening's or day's events. Being denied those little, routine things had some surprisngly large effects (not least the amount of injuries sustained by the other dancers). PS: Sorry for the long reply!

Thanks Billy and Sheila for the welcome! I've been sharing tweets with you Sheila, and you'll be pleased to know I've just splurged on the Ainslewear leo Back onto topic, yes the costumes were extremely unflattering. They were absolutely stunning to look at, and the care and work that went into creating them was incredible but as dance costumes they just didn't work. The white swans could've been so much simpler, shorter skirt and lighter fabric and I think they would've been more flattering if they were.

Hello everybody I'm a new poster here, but have been lurking for a while...as I do! Having been a participant in the show I hope you don't mind me sharing my opionions, thoughts and general brain dirge on this thread... I am surprised by some of the comments and feedback surrounding the show here, but I do find your honesty quite refreshing! In particular Primrose's comment that the final performance looked more like a pantomime. Content-wise, it certainly did feel like a pantomime and more comparable to the am dram productions I used to be involved as a teen (which would involve a bit of dancing!) than any of the dance or dance theater performances that I have been involved in. I've never been so disappointed as I did when I realised exactly what I would be 'performing' to a crowd that would include some of my biggest inspirations in dance (David Nixon, Pippa Moore, Derek Deane) and having to perform the recital to Derek Deane in a rehearsal setting without costumes and sets felt so embarassing and so exploitative (funnily enough this was edited out of the final series). One of the major things that strikes me is that many of you have come to the conclusion that us Big Ballet particpants are either bumbling amateurs or unhealthy individuals who have no concept of fitness, strength and most importantly, just what is requried to perform dance to a professional standard. As far as I am concerned this couldn't be further from the truth. OK, so I'm certainly not a professional ballet dancer (I am trying to develop a career as a Dance Artist in physical contemporary dance) but I approach my ballet training with a very professional mindset. I am very, very commited to developing my classical technique to the point where I attend classes in Leeds even though I live in Sheffield and a couple of years back I even made the choice between training to compete for a UK title in kickboxing and training for my Grade 6 RAD exam. The latter won, obviously. I pay money that I really can't afford to spend on one to one tuition with my brilliant teachers and I have performed many times at community dance events and local shows, each of which I have treated with the utmost seriousness and professionalism. It's a big shame that my obsession with classical ballet and my focus on conditiong and fitness was also lost in the editing of the programme, and that I generally haven't been portrayed in a very authentic way. Yes, I may have been 'heavier' than my ideal weight at the start of filming this programme but I know that my weight fluctuates just as much as my mood swings so I haven't really seen it as a negative before. I thought Big Ballet was actually going to be a genuine performance and training opportunity, that I would really be able to zone in and develop my technique further with coaching from Wayne Sleep and Monica (who would pass up that opportunity?!) and that our Swan Lake would draw comparisons with Matthew Bourne's version for the way that it showed the capabilities of atypical ballet dancer bodies. Grand ambitions I know, but that is how seriously I take dance! And I was drawn in by an advert that called for 'Dancers, Athletes and Performers' and naively thought that we would be taken seriously in our pursuit of this, just as I am taken seriously by every other ballet teacher or contemporary teacher/choreographer that I have worked with. Amateur ballet and amateur dance in general in the UK is already so inclusive, I certainly didn't want to be a part of a reality show that continued to perpetuate the myth that 'ballet is only for skinnies' because I already know just how diverse the students are in the various classes that I attend. Those of you who take classes at the Northern Ballet in the evenings may well recognise me (especially if you watch this clip:http://youtu.be/-t1J4KzZJc8 ) I wanted to show a different type of female body performing classical ballet, a strong female body with explosive qualities but also a feminine softness. My turn as an 'ugly sister' in this 'Swan Lake' (or should that be puddle, ha ha?) certainly didn't show that I hope that the legacy of Big Ballet will be that more people put aside their worries and concerns and just get out there and dance if they want to. I'm glad that the show has started to open up some debate and discussion about aesthetics and what that means for the female form in ballet, so I feel I have at least managed to contribute to something worthwhile! Thanks for reading Mel