invisiblecircus

Wow, very surprsing and interesting that she won't stay in the post until the end of the academic year. Are there any potential internal candidates for the role?

No she wasn't, at least not as a competitor. She is currently in her 3rd year at Academie Princesse Grace. She performed Jean-Christophe Maillot's "Abstract" for her contemporary variation, surely having a huge advantage over the other competitors for that piece!

1. BROWN Mackenzie - USA 2. FIGUEREDO Gabriel - Brazil 3. SASAKI Sumina - Japan 4. WAKIZUKA Yu - Japan 5. WU Shuailun - China 6. DA SILVA João Vitor - Brazil 7. JOAQUIM Alexandre - Portugal 8. SUMIYAMA Mio - Japan Contemporary Dance Prize: BROWN Mackenzie - USA Best Young Talent Prize: SHUGART Julia - USA Best Swiss Candidate: SASAKI Sumina - Japan Audience Favourite: BROWN Mackenzie - USA Web Audience Favourite: CHOI Jihyun - South Korea

It's great that we're getting so much more coverage this year, even if it's difficult to catch it all! We're also discussing the PDL over on the "Doing Dance" forum.

Is anyone else having problems with the live feed on FB? It keeps crashing for me.

Laban has an MA in Choreography but I have no personal experience of it. https://www.trinitylaban.ac.uk/study/dance/postgraduate-programmes/ma-mfa-choreography

I don't know, but it might be because private schools finish school for the summer earleir than state schools and the school wants to run the summer school right after they break up for the summer for practical and staffing reasons. It's defintely a shame that this impacts those attending state schools though.

Very good points, Bluebird22, and particularly interesting to note the differences in teacher training between the 2 exam boards you are qualified with and I have often wondered how much training qualified Teachers have actually had in aspects such as how to control and motivate a class. As I mentioned previously, I do not hold a (dance) teaching qualification with any exam board, however, in addition to graduating from a vocational ballet school, I also have a degree in dance which included teaching practice, lesson planning, anatomy and physiology all at what I consider to be quite a high level. Although most of the teaching practice we did was contemporary based, much of the skills we were taught could be applied to teaching any genre of dance provided we had the required technical knowledge. You are right, and I have also looked into doing this but came across some obstacles. 1) It is difficult to find a school to work with you when you have not come up through the school. One exam board said I order the syllabus and enter myself for the exams (suggesting private lessons with an examiner to "check" me before entering and I probably would have taken this route had I not been offered a job that left me little time to persue the teaching qualification. 2) It is expensive to gain the qualifications. It is worth it if you're setting up a school and you're going to be teaching full time, but for people with portfolio careers who are also performing or doing other work, the cost can be prohibitive. 3) Correct me if I'm wrong on this, but most of the exam boards require you to keep entering students for exams in order to stay registered. Some teachers are not even interested in entering students for exams in the first place, and again, with a portfolio career you don't necessarily have a teaching schedule that would allow for this. 4) What about teachers of contemporary dance? To the best of my knowledge, none of the exam boards provide for this.

You can dress correctly without looking too studenty though. If you look at dancers taking company class, you'll see a lot of tatty accessories, ripped warm up leggings, leg warmers on just one leg etc. You don't want to do any of that, but you should also not wear school uniform. Also, if you're taking company class, you'll find a lot of the dancers start off the barre work wearing lots of layers then gradually peel them off as the class progresses. If you're auditioning, you need t make sure that yu're fully warmed up before the class starts so you can be in just your leotard and tights/ unitard right from the beginning.

I would argue that some qualified dance teachers can damage children too! I've taught dance for over 15 years, and am unqualified *gasp*. Much of my work has been with youth companies, both selective and non-selective, and I've worked with students who were studying at local dance schools, or had in the past. I have seen many many students with extremely poor technique, and I don't mean the kind of things that need to be worked in over time, but things that could be corrected immediately. It was quite apparent that the focus of the syllabus classes at some schools was to memorise the exercises rather than work on technique. Several students from different schools reported doing the whole of the barre on only one side! Additionally, we have seen reports on this forum of presumably qualified teachers treating students in ways which are clearly pshycologically damaging. While I certainly agree that there are unqualified teachers out there who really shouldn't be teaching, I don't think it is as clear cut as that.

If it says "no make-up" on the info sheet, I'd go with no make-up! I'm also the kind of person who, if unsuccessful at the audition, would tie myself in knots wondering if I would have been accepted if I had worn no make-up as requested.

At our school, children are placed according to their school year, regardless of whether they've done ballet before. My 6 year old DD went straight into G1. If she had started ballet next year, she would have gone staight into G2, in spite of a G1 class being available.

I think your first step would be to meet wth the teacher and see if a compromise can be reached regarding attire. It really should be possible to find attire that is both modest and allows the teacher to see your technique. Good luck! I hope it works out!

In previous years it was.

RBS have stated in the past that they simply don't have time in their schedule to prepare students for competitions. Also, not all final year upper school students are eligible to enter the PDL as they're too old. It seems that most other schools around the world have their students graduate at least a year earlier, in fact the three year upper school courses are relatively new also in the UK. It used to be two years, coinciding with regular 6th form courses. It's a topic for another thread but I do wonder whether the 3 year course would not be better condensed into 2 years, with more rigorous training happening earlier on in years 10 and 11. It's interesting that most of the 3 year courses (as far as I'm aware) use the third year to provide lots of performance practice, but now we have lots of graduate courses which students are enrolling on to get yet another year of training before entering a company. Good point about other schools entering students in spite of being partner schools themselves. I'm curious about how Vaganova in particular select who will compete. Princesse Grace Academy is different to many of the other schools in that it now only has a 4 year training programme and a number of their PDL entries were themselves recruited into the school from other competitions.

To have the best chance of success at a ballet career, training really does have to be started young. A school cannot take an unlimited number of students, thus they do need to select and they obviously select the best they can find at that time. Of course, lots of things change between te ages of 11 and 16, and the most promising student might not develop as initially expected. Likewise, a student who was not so outstanding at 11 might blossom with training. At Upper School level, the field broadens with applicants from all over the world. All those incredible competition winners have also come from schools where the majority are not receiving offers from top institutions. They are the one or two oustanding ones from any one year.

RBS is one of the partner schools which offers a scholarship as a prize, but winners get to choose which school they go to. Upper School students are not eligible to compete for scholarships, only aprenticeships. I think the RBS have stated in the past that they don't allow students to enter competitions because of timetable constraints, which does make sense. Not only historically but also this year they gave a scholarship to at least one competiton winner who was under 16 and maybe even under 15. Interesting that they are making this statement now, and I believe said something similar before this academic year even started. (i.e in the same year that tey were still recuiting fomr such competitions)

Generally speaking, American and German companies favour taller dancers, or at least accept them. Of course, I'm sure there are exceptions.

It wouldn't help British applicants because it would not be wise to try to enter US before completing GCSEs. Additionally, training tends to be slower paced in the UK so it is less likely that a 14 year old would be ready. Actually, none of the 14 year olds who entered last year made it to the final although maybe some were picked up by schools anyway. I know that one had already received an offer from a previous competition. I can't remember how many from each category were represented in the final last year but it does vary from year to year. Sometimes it's pretty equal but other times one group has more in the final. I remember one year that almost half the finalists were from the younger girls group, while only 3 senior boys were represented.

I think this illustrates exactly why there are not more UK applicants. Shale Wagman was only 17 years old when he won the PDL last year, and was in the older age category where dancers were competing for a place in a company. The UK upper school courses, obviously designed around the UK education system, train students from 16-19 years of age. Half of the 17 year olds training in the UK are still in their first year of upper school and would only have been there for a month or so at the time initial applications have to be submitted. They are not ready to enter companies at that point. It's not that they don't have the talent or potential, they're just not ready yet because of the way their training has been paced. To enter in the younger category (15-16 years) British applicants MUST be in year 11 at the time of their application so they would complete their GCSEs before starting upper school. I imagine that a high percentage of students at an appropriate level to enter the PDL are already in full time vocational training at schools which don't have the hours available in the timetable to allocate to competition preparation on top of GCSEs and US applications/ auditions. That leaves year 11 students not already in vocational school. One young lady did it successfully a couple of years ago, but I wonder how many students there are out there who are both at the required standard in spite of not being trained full time, AND have access to the training provision to prepare for the competition. I suspect not many.

Which are the 5 schools? RBS, Elmhurst, Tring and Hammond are the 4 that attract MDS funding, but which is the 5th school you have in mind?

I'm not worrying :-), but just to be clear, she hasn't done the trial class yet. The trial class will be just to see if she likes it or not before we commit to paying for an entire year's worth of lessons, it is not to determine which level she is at. They are offering grade 1 or nothing, but from what others have said, this is appropriate for her age, so OK! :-)

Yes, yes thanks for all the replies everyone. :-) I was just feeling a bit lost as I'm from the UK originally and know a bit about how things work over there (never studied or taught syllabus work though) and it's so different here in Italy. Here, you get to do a trial lesson or two, then if you want to sign up you commit and pay for a whole year of classes. In the UK I think you pay month by month or term by term, and there is more flexibility on which grade you start with (i.e. it doesn't strictly correspond to the year you're in at school.)

Thanks for the replies :-) The teacher hasn't seen her yet as I've only spoken to the principal, who told me they are grouped according to her year at school, so I don't know if the teacher is happy to have her in class or not! I have done a bit of teaching myself but never syllabus work. It looks as if this level is reasonable for her age then. Interesting you mentioned the 13 year old who started in grade 5 at 13, Cara, as by the looks of it. that's what would happen here too if a 13 year old beginner came along. I started at 14 myself but never did syllabus work.

My DD is 6 and has done dance classes after school for a year but the teaching was not good and she is basically a beginner. We have been recommended a dance school which teaches RAD (I was not looking specifically for RAD or any syllabus for that matter) but it seems as if they group the children by age rather than experience/ level which means my DD would be in grade 1. Does this sound OK? Can she go straight into grade 1 without doing primary, and is grade 1 the usual level for a 6 year old?