Waltzingmatilda

basically we went through this last year. If you apply before the discount date and are then offered a place you get £25 off the course price. If not offered a place you have obviously not lost anything so worth applying before the closing date but nothing to worry about if you apply after the closing date. There are out-right yes you have a place emails or waiting place emails or no emails then there are residential places but last year DD said there were a few DC's who just came on day places. DD did twice and loved it!

thank you anondancer. really good to know!

thank you taximom and kcoom75. What lovely experiences your DD's had! Sounds fantastic! Thank you for the info. I am not worried at all now!

thank you pointetoes (love your name by the way)....... i am probably over-thinking the whole thing as she may not get through audition (if she does audition) but all the above re-assures re if she did go for it and get selected so thank you.

Thank you so much Hoglett and pups mum! Really useful information to put my mind at rest on both auditioning without knowing anyone else and the pointe issue!

My DD is considering auditioning for the senior audition age group for the first time but would not know anyone else auditioning. Has anyone had a DC who was in this situation and selected and if so how did they got on when rehearsals started? Were they ok or did most other DC know each other? Also, DD only does about 15mins pointe a week so would she still be considered for a pointe part as I am not sure if her feet would cope but I expect they could tell at casting if her feet looked strong enough or not for a pointe part wouldn't they? (obviously I realise she may not get that far)!

re phone cases - i ordered on ebay a photo phone case. I found a fab photo of my daughter and four of her friends in silly ballet face pose (but gorgeous tutu's) and had photo put onto the phone case!! Really popular. Lots of ooh's and admiration from her friends etc!!!!

Does anyone know if need character shoes or not for the junior s/s?. We have four hours travelling on train so want to cut down on luggage as much as poss?! will swap jazz shoes for foot thongs as above so that useful!

hello balletmum 13. DD went last year for first time when she was 11. Breakdown of classes was: Ballet , jazz , modern, street, contemporary , body conditioning, musical theatre . Think she was group C so this is only group C's breakdown so i am not sure of the other groups. They can bring tap shoes this year it says on the list so I think timetable will be different again this year but hopefully this will be a little bit of help to you. DD had 3 leotards but she only wore two which I think translates in DD's language to (I wore my favourite one all week)! They were just plain black but at the showing of work there were some lovely bright leotards worn as well as mainly black so whatever really! She took convertibles which I had never heard of before this forum but she found those really useful to flip the top off to get into jazz shoes etc.

hgib23 it is hard waiting isn't it?! DD applied first time last year and results came out 9th April. I know of a DD who got offered a place off the waiting list the day before the summer school so miracles do happen! They seem to reply to all applicants thank goodness so none of us should be left wondering. My DD went for the first time last year and loved it and she didn't know anyone. She is so hoping for a place this year so fingers crossed but I know demand for places is way above the places they have available as its become such a popular summer school so she could be one of the disappointed ones sadly. At least we will know soon and good luck to all waiting.

thank you mnemo. not sure i am brave enough to ring. i will think about it tonight. they may mark me down as 'crazed dance mum' that can't even wait for emails to come out. i shall ponder over our predicament tonight with a glass of wine and maybe if i don't check my emails all day tomorrow it will be there when i get in from work!!

Still nothing here about whether DD has junior place. just want to be put out of my misery.......!

ooh thank you all for replies. Hopefully junior email will go out soon and good luck to those above going on the senior course! We are in the same boat then Eowyn! Expecting a 'no' as so many are wanting places on this summer school now and there is a lot of competition for places - still - if a no at least its best to know and anything else is a bonus! Will keep an eye on this page as am starting to feel jittery with nerves!

Anyones DC applied for Junior summer course this year? DD went last year for first time knowing no-one and loved it! I know that its become much more difficult to get offered a place so we have fingers crossed for a place this year. .......I think we should hear soon as last year we were informed a couple of weeks after the closing date last year if I remember correctly but am just curious in case anyone else has a 'yes' and we not heard so could be a 'no'. A waiting list place would be difficult to cope with too from reading on this marvellous forum and I know plenty of people were sitting on the list last year. All very stressful isn't it.

made me chuckle sarahw and fantastic ideas midwifemel. i like the thought of dd crawling round parched from lack of water and she loves a bit of drama so could always do her last dying breath etc!

thank you all for more fantastic thoughts. I like the thought of villains, film characters and music and less props really appeals as the thought of lugging a table or chair onto the stage and then tripping over my feet and falling off the edge could give me nightmares.

thank you so so much for all above fantastic ideas and she can have props munchkin and maybe a prop or two might help with the acting.....I have seen all sorts at these festivals including beach towels, tables, boxes, chairs, mice?! yes mice, toto's, swords....i shall try not to go into meltdown and see this as another 'learning curve in strange dance world' and I will hopefully be able to pick idea, buy costume on ebay and that will be that - dance teacher and dd do the rest and I can watch and remember to breathe!

thank you huddsballetmum. Marvellous ideas!

ooh thankyou Fiz. what lovely ideas! I shall google LAMDA!

Please could anyone give me suggestions for DD age 13 solo character dance as we don't seem to be getting very far. She will be doing the dance for festival solo. We are supposed to come up with a 'character' and a story line?!. I am stalling with her dance teacher at the moment saying 'the right character hasn't quite come to mind yet' - rather than 'I have no idea whatsoever'! We see a lot of 'Alice', 'Dorothy', Disney Princess type characters at festivals so am hoping for something other than those - can anyone help this poor dance mum whose imagination seems to have departed poor overloaded brain.......

katymac - i shall make sure we have some adhesive in man cave for the inevitable falling off of the suede things. They are rather ugly I feel and a very odd colour and nice pink blend i stitching would be lovely (if someone else did it of course). Marvellous advice though. Thank you.

Petalviolet - shanks and horses makes perfect sense to me or possibly car parts. I am sure one of the 'galloping' movements DD does may possibly kill the shank although I think her dance teacher is trying to work on the art of 'walking' at the moment so galloping/trotting type movements may be a few years beyond us yet. I shall have a look at ballet belts although it may possibly be a step too far in my developing repertoire having only just discovered the world of the pointe shoe and convertibles and the whole death of the pointe shoe still to go through............

Thank you so much 2dancersmum. So useful. I am going to print your post so i can use it for future reference to help spot which part of the pointe shoes have died. Oh my goodness. The life cycle of pointe shoes is more complicated than how many layers would we like in tutu? DD's first made to order tutu that her grandmas are getting for her birthday and christmas which I thought would be rather a simple task. I now have to psyche myself up to google 'tutu's' and all that entails. Still at least I know now what 'box' is as I have just researched that - ha. My knowledge is astounding me. I will tackle 'shank' next (sounds like a cut of meat) and then proceed to tutu layers and give myself a gold star smug in my ever increasing immergence into baffling world of dance.

ooh what marvellous tips taxi4ballet. i had forgotten with the shock of the£70 about the bizarre toe sponge thingies - I have just gone to dig out my DD's dance bag to make sure she still has them and they were in the pointe shoes still - I suspect they have been there since the first lesson in Sept - oh dear. I feel a lecture coming on when DD returns from school re prolonging the life of the shoe/ribbons/spongey toe things etc. The first ribbons I put on only lasted two weeks as although they looked marvellous (all holey and invisible? apparently) they fell off after the 20 mins. An amazing tutorial by Kathryn Morgan on sewing them on which resulted in me learning how to use the 'pause' button on you tube (an IT lesson as well)! so after a few mishaps with the needle and an hour and a half later (seriously 1 1/2!) and switching to my 'solid' pink ribbons and adding the elastic I got in the dance shop just because the lady in the shop said 'you can never have too much pink elastic' - triumph - they stay on and look reasonably normal!! you make me laugh petalviolet as I only discovered 'convertibles' over the summer holidays as I had spotted some poor unfortunate souls with holes in their feet and was feeling very sorry for them until it was pointed out to me that they were meant to be like that.............maybe there are lots of other mysterious dancey helping 'thing's that we still have to discover I feel!

ooh thank you flora and sara and yes i did have to retire to bed with a glass of prosecco to ponder the £££'s implication of pointe shoes departing to pointe shoe heaven..... It took me two months to get over the shock of coming out of dance shop £70 lighter with pointe shoes, 2 x types of ribbons as i didn't know which ones to get, weird suede type patches to sew on in 'cross stitch?' (at which point I nearly passed out as my sewing skills have only evolved as far as 'running' stitch), and a 'bloch' how to prepare? the shoes - I went quite pale and later that evening when I was placing shoes in the fridge? -yes the fridge? I poured another glass of wine at the thought of the task of 'sewing the ribbons'. Decided to google 'how to sew ribbons on pointe shoes and oh dear - is it possible to have preparing the pointe shoe migraine symptoms.............AS for the 'cross stitch' I sent my husband out to the man cave with instructions to find industrial strenght glue but not to get any on the shoe or he may as well move to said man cave.