Lily_883

Hi everyone, I'm probably going to be spending October in London for work and am very keen to try a ballet class or two while I'm there. I just wondered if anyone has any classes they can recommend? It would need to be drop-in, evening/weekend, and easily accessible from the City. The options online are overwhelming, but the adult classes at the Central School of Ballet look like they might suit. Has anyone tried these? I passed my RAD Intermediate exam earlier this year, so would be looking for something around that level. Ideally somewhere where my non-ballerina body and terrible pirouettes won't stick out like a sore thumb! Any suggestions gratefully received!

How strange to see such well known stars rehearsing in my local studio! i'll be thinking of them next time I'm in class. Thank you for sharing.

According to Instagram, there's a feature on "behind the scenes" at the Bolshoi ballet in tomorrow's Times Magazine.

I saw this in Edinburgh and thoroughly enjoyed the performance. I attended an Insights event beforehand so had a good idea of what to expect (i.e. no tutus!). At the Insight, the (excellent) presenter explained that David Dawson took inspiration from the idea of swans as goddesses and that he wanted the dancers to feel empowered (much to the delight of my inner feminist ). She made it clear that the Tchaikovsky score was pretty much the only aspect of the production which has stayed true to the traditional Swan Lake, but also said that she was proud of the company for pushing boundaries and challenging audiences' expectations of classical ballet. All in all, it was a great event. As for the performance, the thing that struck me most was the big, expansive movements in the choreography - it was lovely to see this from all of the dancers on stage, not just principals and soloists. There was a moment in the third act when the swans were doing a beautiful port de bras (which Luke Jennings has described as "impressive and strange, like discovering the Bulgarian synchronised swimming team practising in your local pool") that I absolutely loved. I didn't particularly notice the greyness of the set/lighting/costumes etc, but perhaps that's because I was sat in the front stalls so had lots of detail to focus on. The costumes were created by the dancewear designer Yumiko. They looked absolutely beautiful up close at the Insight, but lots of details were lost on stage, even from a couple of rows back. I understand the dancers were asked to rehearse in leotards and shorts only in preparation for the skimpy costumes. Overall, I love the traditional Swan Lake and didn't recognise much of it in this production, but I think there's room for both. Seeing Constance Devernay promoted to principal at the end of the performance was also a great end to the evening.

Thank you! The app is called Flashcards+ by Chegg.

I'm sitting my Intermediate exam in a few weeks (as an adult). On the one hand, I find this section of the exam intimidating because I'm so used to learning by watching my teacher demonstrate, not by having the steps called out. On the other hand, I find this is the only section of the exam where I can let go and enjoy dancing because I don't have any predetermined worries about a particular step going wrong etc. I'm *almost* looking forward to it! On a practical level, I used a free flash cards app to help me learn the individual steps. It had a French language setting which helped to distinguish dessus and dessous!

Tabbycool, have you ever tried body tights like these ones? I find that normal ballet tights dig in at the waist no matter how large I go, but body tights fit a lot better and give a much smoother line.

Perhaps only appropriate if the dance school offers adult and/or non-syllabus classes, but I like to see a few student testimonials and descriptions of class levels. Helps to calm my fears that I'll be the only one turning up or completely out of my depth at a new school!

In my (adult) class, we've spent a lot of time walking through the action as drdance has described, which helped build our confidence before we started jumping, and got us used to the feeling of switching the legs as you turn (rather than swinging them around). We do three steps as preparation and my teacher always tells us to do big step + big step + small step pushing into the ground so our weight is over our leg before we start to jump. Hope that helps!

For a sewing free solution, I sometimes use one of those clear racer back converter clips (Primark sells them), which makes the straps feel tighter. Appreciate that's probably not much use for auditions, though!

This is the main reason I pay attention to ROH casting. I live too far away to attend RB performances except on very rare occasions, but I'm a loyal fan on social media and certainly root for my favourites, even if I've never seen them perform in person (thanks to the cinema and World Ballet Day broadcasts, I've seen most of them perform live ). When it comes to local performances, I'm very fortunate that my hometown hosts a variety of dance companies throughout the year, although I'll admit that I book entirely based on my availability and pay little to no attention to casting!

I saw this last night. I'll admit I wasn't really expecting to enjoy the performance since I'm normally all about the classics when it comes to ballet - swans, fairies and princesses are usually more my thing. As it turns out, I really, really enjoyed it. I thought Kairos, in particular, was excellent. My only experience of Wayne McGregor so far has been watching the occasional youtube video, so I wasn't really sure what to expect, but I thought the choreography was stunning. Sleek technique and an energetic performance from the dancers, set to a beautiful recomposition of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons. Might just have piqued my interest in a new genre!

Personally, I love to watch the Royal Ballet daily class videos on youtube when I'm stretching - great inspiration! As for documentaries, I've seen a few good ones recently. If subtitles aren't a problem, Ballerina might be worth a look. It features some well known Russian dancers, and is available on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXSqObTHvEs. Ballet Boys is also worth watching (again, it's subtitled) and is available quite cheap on Amazon Instant Video. TuTu Much is another good one, although I'm not sure how widely available that one is (I picked up a secondhand copy on ebay). Hope that helps!

Today's episode of Book of the Week on Radio 4 might be of interest to some people on here. It narrates an interview with Nathalie Harrison about her role as a first artist with the Royal Ballet: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b061d0fp