PrettyPointes

AAAAAAAAAAAGH! It's too soon! Actually- in fairness- the senior ones are pretty late this year, which is good 

Hi Loulabelle,

I would love to buy both the Grade 6 DVD and maybe the Inter-Foundation DVD, can I PM you about it on Monday?

Hi all,

I was just wondering if anyone knows of a good dressmaker in London who has experience with ballet costumes? 

OR: Someone who rents out good quality ballet costumes?

I need a giselle-style(act 1) costume for a festival , one with a lot of movement in the skirt (i.e no stiff-netting)... anyone know of anything? I've been searching on the internet for hours and hours  , trying to find something suitable... but no luck! 

I would love something similar to Miko Fogarty's costume (sorry, I don't know how to add a link), though I don't think my budget-£150- would permit it  . 

Any help would be much appreciated! 

Thanks.

littleballerina, thank-you that is very interesting, I had assumed it was used as the last stage of the course and as convenient way for the teachers to learn the syllabus - I'd forgotten there was a separate course for each grade.

Hi all,

I was wondering if anyone knows anything about this? A friend mentioned she was going to go to this but I can't find any mention of it on the RAD website.

Apparently, they have classes in all grades (vocational and recreational) that are free because they are taught by teachers-in-training. 

Any insight would be much appreciated!

Thank-you for starting this thread Anjuli, it is very helpful! I'll be competing in a competition for the first time in October, and was just wondering if you know how heavy the makeup should be for a theatre that only holds about 500 people?

Hi Dramascientist,  I don't know if you've already fixed the problem/ bought new shoes, but just in case :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX-PNqJr9z4

I had a similar problem with my first pair of Freed's - although my feet are really not that flexible/arched, but they are strong- and when I brought them into the store to have them looked at (to see if there was a quick fix), the manager and my teacher said the make was probably too soft, which kind is your dd wearing?

The kind that I wear now have mostly been near-perfect (classics, wine glass maker xxx shank) but occasionally what happened to your DD happens, the breaking in method in the link above normally fixes it.

Hope this helps  .

If you´re in London there is this one too,

 

http://www.invitationtodance.org.uk/

Thank-you, Madhatter, this one looks very good, too  .

PrettyPointes, there's also Bristol Russian Ballet Summer School. They do Repertoire and Pas de Deux and had students from vocational schools attend for the last two years. Elena Glurdjidze from ENB was a guest teacher last year. The entry is by photo and application forms are on their website. There's also short videos from the last two Summer Schools on the website too (and on You Tube).

Thank-you Jaylou, I hadn't heard of Bristol Russian before but they're summer school looks perfect! I'm going to apply asap  .

PrettyPointes. I'm so impressed with your tenacity and dedication to ballet training when the odds seemed to be stacked against you. This will stand you in good stead whatever you end up doing in life. I think my DD is a fighter too. Regarding summer school, there are so many to choose from that I'm sure you could find one to suit your needs. Have a look at the Summer School threads for more info or to ask questions. Look forward to reading more of your posts and good luck to you.

Thankyou, BalletDad1064, that's very kind  

I will have another look at summer schools, I think it may be too late for this year but I will definitely apply for next year's courses   

Prettypointes - I would echo the advice to look at a summer school if at all possible.  Hours of weeks of lessons - just remember that quality counts more than quantity. I have no idea of your age or standard but it might be worth an email to amydoughty@welshballet.co.uk to see where you would fit for the Ballet Cymru summer school.  They are in the process of setting up a new web page at the moment so I cannot just point you to their webpage.  The classes are taught by dancers of the company at Riverfront in Newport Wales and are of a very high standard and a good price.  It includes pas de deux with male dancers of the company.  A search of the threads on the forum will give you feedback of peoples past experiences. 

2dancersmum, thank you very much for the information  , pas de deux classes would be great! There are no male students over the age of 9 at my studio!

I feel very disloyal saying this but whichever way you look at it, if you put a class of, say, 13 year old vaganova or bolshoi girls next to royal or elmhurst girls of the same age the difference would be startling. The foreign girls would be streets ahead. Not as happy perhaps, not as well rounded, but definitely technically better. By 16 they are no longer looking for potential, they are looking for girls that are at a stage where they need " honing ", training and polishing. Of course they will progress incredibly in the three years at upper school but they need to be ahead of potentially trainable. Our girls may be artistically beautiful but technicality is sadly what they seem to be interested in nowadays.

Slightly off topic, I was looking on some images of young chinese ballet students and their extensions were so high they completely distorted the line they were trying to achieve. One girl was in the most bizarre and ugly arabesque I have seen as her back leg was practiically touching the back of her head and she wasn't leaning her head back at all. But a girl like that will be admired by the ADs who will see her and she will be snapped up.

This articulates much better the point I was trying to get across  .

Hi PrettyPointes that is a really interesting post. How are you approaching the lead up to auditions,are you confident that you are able to find the training that you need in the UK? My daughter did as many Summer Schools as she could last year to supplement her usual classes and came to an agreement with her headmaster to enable her to take more ballet classes in preparation for her auditions.I agree in the US they are much more flexible with the training available and many children do home or online schooling to enable them to train intensively. It is indeed very competitive at all the auditions but the schools are still looking at potential not perfection and they will want to train a dancer in their own style.Many children from the UK are successful in gaining a place at the school of their choice and this year in particular many from Whitelodge were successful in gaining a place at RBS  Upper School which surely must be a testament to the training they have received so far.

Hi Kat, 

I'm fairly late on the ballet scene so although I will be auditioning everywhere (and I mean everywhere, provided audition dates don't clash), on the off chance that I get in, I'm more likely to go down the teaching route as I think it would be very hard to receive training to be professional outside an US. I assist in teaching Baby, Pre-Primary and Primary ballet classes in exchange for my own classes, I've also recently started a home education GCSE course which means I can get a part-time job (that wasn't why I started the HE course, it's just a plus  ) to pay for private lesson in an attempt to catch up with my peers, and hopefully I'll be able to save enough over the next 2 and half months to pay for a few per week over the summer -I didn't apply to any summer schools this year as I didn't feel I was ready.

As to whether I have confidence in UK training: I have the utmost confidence in vocational schools (that's why so many international students apply to UK schools ) , outside of those however, unless you're going to five different schools and taking the same classes at each, I think it's very hard to get enough hours in; at the moment I'm only doing 6 hours/ week (it'll be 10 soon), which I don't feel is anywhere near enough and yet everyone else at my studio is absolutely astounded that I'm taking "that many" classes!

I hope your daughter does well in her auditions next year  .

This isn't really giving a true picture - you're right about the number of hours per day, although most of those are ballet, but you're incorrect saying that "hardly any of their lower school students make it into their upper school" - it's usually between half and two thirds of the year 11s who get into upper school and the same applies at other vocational schools I believe.

Between half and two thirds would mean that there would be 15-20 LS students in the Upper School- this may have been the case 10 years ago, but in recent years less than a quarter of the original Yr 7 students and less than half of the Yr 11 students make it into the upper school. Three years ago only two Upper School students who'd spent any time at the Lower School got a contract with The Royal Ballet and 2 years ago none did.

I think one main problem with ballet training in the UK -in comparison to other countries- is that there are no, or very few, in-between schools; it's either a full time vocational school, that's also your academic school, or a recreational school where you take as many classes as possible but it's never enough.  Whereas in other countries there are many schools that students go to after a full day at an academic school and receive just as good, or almost as good, training as they would at a full time vocational school AND they do more hours per day than British vocational lower schools do! Also, as far as I recall (I may be wrong) RBS lower school students in yrs 7- 9 only do a maximum of 3 hours per day, and given that those students study, as well as ballet; Tap; Modern; Irish; Jazz etc, it seems quite obvious as to why hardly any of their lower school students make it into their upper school when they look at them alongside foreign students whom, even if they started pointe at 12 started fouettes at 14 AT MOST whereas here most non vocationally enrolled students won't start them at all until 14/15 and won't start them en pointe until 15/16, which would be just a few months before Upper School auditions! 

I'm all for letting kids be kids, but at the same time we have to consider their futures; if at 8 they say "I want to be a ballerina", and there are no physical limitations, offer to let them take more than one class per week, if at 10 they're still saying the same thing, let them take more and so on and so forth. If you look at something like the show Dance Moms- I know most of it's not ballet and frankly I was offended by maddie's "ballerina" dance- they are dancing 6 hours a day 5 days a week and gaining performance experience at the weekends. And that is the norm in America for children who want to be dancers when they grow up, admittedly 6 hours per day for a 12 year old is excessive but at least they'll be prepared when they go looking for contracts/ places at a school. 

@2dancersmum ahh thank you so much, this is very helpful    

Please could someone who has firsthand experience tell me what actually happens at a ballet upper school audition?

I'm applying to schools in October for September 2015 but I've never been to a dance audition before  and I'd like to be prepared. Is there anything other than the obvious that I need to bring? Do they have a warm up before hand or do you need to get there really early to it yourself? If you don't manage to get a spot in the front row will you still be seen etc?