aballetlife

not sure if this is the right place to post but.. Miko Fogarty has just announced she will be joining Birmingham Royal Ballet next season as an artist. congratulations to her!

she could just have a narrow heel. try sewing some elastic onto the heel to keep the shoes on. my shoes always come off at the heel of I don't put elastic on but once I do they're fine. if the shoes are fit well on pointe then they should be fine

yeah, if your hands are behind your head if your doing the exercise incorrectly or using your arms to sit up instead of your abs then you will get neck strain from pulling yourself up using your head/ arms instead of engaging your abs. just get the teacher to make sure you've got the right technique, sit ups are actually pretty tricky to do right

my teacher told us that on a course an RAD person told her it doesn't matter if you make a mistake if you perform what you're doing well! and from the sounds of it your daughter did this by carrying on, well done to her! also it's a lower grade so they don't mark very harshly

same! it's such a pain having the rotation but being like parallel in centre!!!???? apart from just really working on using the correct muscles at barre so that you build and can then maintain strength, one exercise I've found really useful is 'clams'. so you lie on your side with your knees bent and the lift the top leg so your knee faces the ceiling then lower it slowly. just keep doing reps of this and you should really feel those muscles. you can tie a theraband around your knees to make it harder. but yeah unfortunately it's a gradual thing and I think the best thing is just to work the muscles through practice and barre work. good luck!!!!

if say generally yes older ones dance better to younger ones if given a similar amount of training. however the 16 y/olds with different years of lessons maybe not so much. i think starting later doesn't always make a difference as you just miss all the pre ballet and start with the 'proper stuff' in a way. you'd maybe notice more in a performance way? not sure if that really makes sense and its just my opinion????????

I did ISTD modern and I really liked it, I felt like it gave me a base for other dance styles such as contemporary as before vocational school i'd never had proper lessons but found it quite easy to pick up. I also just generally enjoyed it as a dance style. the ISTD jazz and modern are quite similar though as the Jazz branches off from the modern section if that makes sense? I feel like the Jazz is probably more old fashioned although they have been changing and updating to make it more jazzy I think. having said that if your dd already does Jazz and contemporary she probably wouldn't loose much from stopping it. maybe it's worth asking the teachers opinion?

I can't really help much but I do know there is the special consideration mark which you can apply for, a girl at my old dance school has bad arthritis which obviously affected her performance so she had a special consideration mark. I'm not sure under what circumstances it applies but it's worth looking into

you can take GCSEs dance at my old school and one other in the area as a regur subject. at another school it was a twilight option run by the teacher from my school. although I know dance can also be done within gcse PE ,if you didn't want to take the whole dance subject, as one of your chosen sports. also at my school, we had to take all exams in summer. in previous years there had been November and January entries for some subjects, not sure which ones, def maths, but for my year (would now be year 12) all exams were in summer so you couldn't resit. although our whole year was made to take english language in November as the exam board was taking out the speaking and listening aspect of the course so the work would only count for the November exam. it could then be resat in summer if you didn't get your target grade but with a higher percentage of the exam counting to the final grade. I think year 8 is too young to pick GCSEs as you pick them quite early on to give schools time for the time tabling etc. so this means pupils would only really have a year and a half of high school education before they pick what they want to study for the next three years! I know the GCSE and grading system is supposed to change though so if it's part of the new national course I guess we can't really do much!

the solo should be fine! I went to trouble making sure mine was a minute but I dont think I needed bother as I'm pretty sure in my audition at least one persons dance was 2 minutes!! so a few seconds will be no big deal plus they don't time it

hang in there everyone's DC's!!! I nearly took art but at the end of year 9 I started to worry about it as I knew how much work it involved particularly outside of school especially as I was always finishing off class work at home! I ended up taking GCSE dance instead which now I'm really glad of as the choreographic aspect (which I hated at the time) has really helped me as now I'm at vocational school and quite a lot of our course involves choreography aswell!

just checked Facebook, here's a link! https://m.facebook.com/bloch.dance/albums/800959653312322/

they're not on the website as far as I know, but if you go on @bloch_eu on Instagram there's photos there! there's 5 new styles and they're patterns rather than solid colours!

this is slightly irrelevant and more light hearted topic, so feel free to move this or whatever but... have you seen the new Bloch booties (coming soon)? they look amazing!! just thought I'd share as all my dance friends and I just had a mini obsess over them!

when I did EYB some people received balloons or a teddy bear. or I know some people who received jewellery, which can be expensive but has that sentimental value

no I've been to a few different places, although the last shop I went to imo was the best. once I went to a shop in London and they told me I had wide feet so gave me wider shoes which didn't work at all and I could tell I was sinking down into the shoe even with quite thick toe pads. Yeah I've heard that if your shoes fit properly you shouldn't need a drawstring, and I don't actually tighten the drawstring or anything, it just where the knot part it is it cuts in, only my foot with a higher arch? :/ my feet are just generally a nightmare though!!!

hi, sorry to be a pain, but I won't be able to get to a fitter until after Easter at the earliest so I hope you don't mind me asking you, but I'm worried with a longer vamp the drawstring would cut into my foot too much? as it already does but not too badly, also I found it much harder to dance in my gaynors with a longer vamp.

great I'll have a look, thankyou all

hi, its the shank that dies, it doesn't break but just doesn't support my feet so I go over too much etc. i discovered I don't really need to break in my shoes just the Demi pointe slightly and wearing them round but I don't touch the shank, because of the 3/4 shank it bends just at the right part without me having to do anything! I think next time I might try the hard shank as I usually use medium although have tried super hard before. I'll also try invest in some glue! do you know what brand is best? yeah I do really like these at the moment but if I quite want to try Russian pointes but it's a bit of a trip for a fitting! thankyou for the help.

hiii! so I have grishko 2007 pointe shoes medium shank and they're now dead after 5 hours worth of pointe work. I really doubt my parents are going to be impressed if I have to get new pointe shoes that often (I previously had gaynors so lasted a lot longer), so I was wondering if anyone had any advice? would using like shellac or glue of some sort help? or a hard shank, as I tried super hard before and they died in the same length of time as the box went soft instead of the shank? so yeah sorry this is soo long but I was wondering. if anyone's picked up some tips? ☺️

I find when learning vaganova the biggest difference is the use of the back and port de bras. I feel like the upper body is used much more especially the back, ie usually when doing tendus devant there's an upper back cambre and vice versa

just watched the live stream, saw you ds do his contemporary variation CeliB!

I've done coppelia twice! i love the ballet and music, and i agree with pups_mum some of the costumes are gorgeous!

hiiiiii the EYB audition is a class. there is two groups, one for ages 8-11 and the other 12-18 (i think!) as the class is mixed ages it is set at a general difficulty level, probably around inter foundation for the senior group. i don't know about the younger age group, sorry. in the class you do everything you would as normal so plies, tendus, adage, allegro etc. its just all in the centre. the children have numbers and are in lines in numerical order and the lines are swapped after each exercise so everyone is seen, its very organised! for allegros and such they're split into groups of around 5-10 from what i can remember. and no, no-one is asked to leave. although Miss Lewis who watches the audition will call out the numbers of some children and ask them to do another usually more advanced enchainment, this is to finalise who will get the scholarships. at the end everyone is asked to sit down and the numbers are called out of those children who got in. however many children who dont get in on the day are offered reserve places as people often have to drop out. the class itself is a great experience and one of the most important aspects is to perform - its an audition for a performing opportunity so the technique isnt as highly concentrated on (obviously it needs to be at a good level but if you smile enough they might not look at your feet;) ) sorry this is such a long answer, so i hope its useful in someway!!

these have probably all been said but just in case; ballet west and Hammond have a mix of ballet/contemporary/jazz and both offer degree courses, also Royal Conservatoire. there's also London Studio Centre, kate simmonds, LIPA, performers, Elliott Clarke, Bodyworks, Rambert, but im not sure which offer degrees or other forms of education. (musical theater wise there's Urdang, Italia Conti, Millenium, Laine, Bird, just in case!)