The_Red_Shoes

I bought some myself the other week - the supplier had translated the US sizing into UK sizes for ordering and I got my usual shoe size - but I think I might have been better with a half size larger. They're perhaps a smidgeon too snug.

Coincidentally I visited the Performances forum for the first time ever just the other day, as I had been at a performance of Akram Khan's Giselle at Sadler's Wells at the weekend and also took part in the associated repertoire workshop and I wondered if there was a thread about it. I was interested to notice that the forum was inhabited by an almost entirely different group of people. I don't get to see live performances often as I live in the rural north of England, not very conveniently placed for theatre visits. Although I am, I would say , pretty knowledgeable about ballet theory and history I wouldn't feel particularly confident in contributing to that forum where people seem very experienced and knowledgeable in a critical kind of way. I think too my relationship with performance might be a bit different - I suppose I'm looking at the details of the performance in order to learn from them as well as appreciating the whole as a cultural and aesthetic experience. After the Giselle workshop on Saturday we had the chance to watch the ENB in company class and at that time we were joined by a different group who were also going to watch the class (probably Friends of ENB). A similar thing to the two groups of forum participants here - one group who "do dance" and the other keen balletomanes who love to "view dance". I contribute to this forum as an adult ballet student (also formerly a parent of dancing children, including one daughter who attended vocational school - long ago and I now have a dancing grandchild). I studied ballet from childhood till about age 40, had a 25 year break and returned within the last few years. I also previously studied and performed Renaissance and Baroque Dance and Kathak (Indian Classical dance). I generally join in discussions about adult ballet students, examinations and practical stuff (tights, shoes, hair products...)

Actually, this is perfectly true, and I even overheard people on the RAD teacher training course talking (moaning actually!) about the huge emphasis put on Grade 3 in their course. When you have younger children who are learning right from the beginning, it may not be obvious, but the RAD grades are not based on age and the exam grades don't match up with school year groups. Children who start at 5, 6 and 7 will almost certainly be in the class that corresponds to the minimum age for taking that exam. However that very often gets out of synch as they go along and students don't always do one grade per year. Not to mention students who only start ballet at 9,10 or older. From Grade 3 onwards there is usually an age spread of several years within a class. Grade 3 is the level at which many late starters begin taking exams -so those 14 year olds may well have been dancing only for a year or two. Some adults learners start at Grade 3 too! I'd say that you don't need to worry terribly that your daughter will be so behind that she will never get anywhere (my own daughter entered vocational school at 11 having only done up to Grade 2) but you don't want her feeling unstimulated, getting bored and losing enthusiasm.

Can you act as an assistant to your teacher with the younger students? That would give you a chance to learn more about teaching as a process and to learn the syllabus.

Definitely initials R. A. D. But RADA and LAMDA both pronounced as if a word. I would say "an" before it because that's what sounds right: "an arr-ay-dee exam".

The venue for RAD exams is the Dancehouse Theatre. That's very close to Oxford Road station (5mins walk) or slightly longer walk from Manchester Piccadilly (about 15 mins). You don't need to worry about precise distance or timings. They only ask this question so that they can decide where to place you in the day's schedule.

I substitute words too, or make up silly little songs and jingles that fit the music and act as a prompt for the style or rhythm or dynamics. I had a song for the Inter second pointe enchainment and a jingle for the Allegro 2. The teacher in the RAD summer intensive this year had lots of good stylistic prompts: "Jimmy Choo" "Bond villainess" "samural sword". Does anyone know any of the traditional songs that there used to be for some variations? I can only remember something about "never follow Baranova or you'll end up in the back row of the Wilis" and was there one that maybe involved a supermarket in Weston-super-Mare? I can't even remember which dances they went with - though it would be a good quiz for dancers.

My hair has wispy bits and is also prone to over-dryness. I use a Schwarzkopf product called "got2b Oil-licious tame and shine styling oil". It's really good for the condition of my hair as well as smoothing down the bits.

May your specs be at least partially to blame? After all, spotting involves focusing the eyes very rapidly. My pirouettes definitely improved after I had eye surgery last year as now I can focus my eyes properly. Before that they were just generally facing towards my spot but not really on it, if you see what I mean.

Congratulations to everyone who has passed exams. I think that's a great result. However it's a disappointment, I know, when you thought you'd done better and especially so when it's such a near miss. But we can use the marks to decide on where to focus our attention while working on the next exam. And, as others have mentioned, an exam is just a snapshot, taken of your dancing during around 50 minutes of time on one particular day out of your whole dancing life. I think that ultimately what our own teachers think of our achievements is more significant. BTW are you working toward Grade 6 next or IF? It's so hard to judge what to expect, isn't it? I had exactly that same mark for Grade 6, and like you I'd had no previous experience of Free Movement and very little of Character. I'm working hard on picking up a couple of extra marks and paying a lot more attention to those sections in preparing for Grade 7. I also comfort myself with the thought that very few people of my age go around jumping and as for all that kneeling (or worse, getting up again with grace)...and Grade 7 is even worse on the kneeling front!

Absolutely! And you could get from where you are now to a teaching qualification within five years. There's still plenty of time for a whole career!

Thanks Sophie. It's a bad patch in a long term medical issue and we all have to help out. I had been wondering whether it was worth going on the waiting list for the Leeds August retreat. However I am already down for the October London retreat - I'm usually in there like a shot as soon as I get the email!

Sadly, due to a family emergency, I've had to withdraw from the Chelsea Ballet summer school. And since I didn't book a place on the Leeds August Ballet Retreat that's no more dancing for me until the new school term. Pity, as I was feeling in great form by the end of the RAD summer course (it was challenging but excellent stuff) and I was just raring to continue. I also met two other members of this forum at intensives this summer, which was a lovely surprise.

I just wanted to say hello, welcome and good luck, Never Too Old, from another Not Too Old dancer. I didn't dance for 25 years and came back just a couple of years ago. I passed Grade 6 earlier this year. I'm working on Grade 7 now. Fingers crossed for you!

The RAD don't set a number of weekly classes for each grade, only a total number of recommended hours for the whole exam preparation. So fewer classes a week might mean working on that syllabus for several years, especially at vocational level. Lots of students manage the higher grades in a year with only one weekly class. In my school the available classes change from year to year depending on numbers and constrained by the hours in the day. When I started here a couple of years ago there were no Grade 4, 5 or Intermediate Foundation classes, but there was an Intermediate class and an Advanced class. That intermediate class had previously been Grade 6 and before that Intermediate Foundation - the same students and timetable slot, as they progressed. Last year the Intermediate students passed the exam and then mainly went on to vocational training or uni and that slot in the timetable was given over to an adult beginner class. There is currently a full set of lower grades with the biggest cohort of Grade 5 and Intermediate Foundation students ever, but I am the only student in the school working on exams at a higher level than that (in a private lesson, currently Grade 7). I assume that in a couple of years there will be an Inter class again as those students move through. The Advanced class is ongoing but is currently a non-syllabus class consisting of CAT students who need extra ballet and older teens/adults who are recreational dancers at an advanced level.

You can find the results date for each exam session in a document called Dates in the Examinations section of the RAD website - that is, you could on the old version of the website. The new look website seems to be lacking half the information that was on the old site, or at least I can't find it.

My teacher always phones or texts me as soon as she gets the result, although I believe she only does this for adults and the oldest classes (small groups). She doesn't inform the younger classes immediately. This latest exam I got the actual mark and mark breakdown immediately and didn't need to wait for the printout with the certificate - possibly the results are communicated in more detail now with the RAD's new system.

I believe they always use that studio. Piano is just inside the door, so left front. The examiner sits in front of the long wall with windows so the space is wider than it is deep. When I took my exam there the barre we used was the one on the left hand wall when facing front. It's a really nice studio and has a good floor, nicely sprung and neither too sticky nor too slippy.

I think there are a fair few adult students around who are taking RAD exams. I'm 66 and have recently taken Intermediate and Grade 6 and am now working on Grade 7.

I don't recall the Tatry group rehearsing, but they did perform in Coppelia with us for Chelsea Ballet's 25th anniversary gala performance. They lent us some wonderful genuine Polish costumes. I remember wearing a beautiful skirt with hundreds of tiny pleats.

That's more like what the RAD calls the "Russian" Mazurka step. It comes into the Grade 8 mazurka and boys use it in some classical work too (Advanced Foundation pirouette exercise if I recall correctly). The "Polish" Mazurka step (appears in Grade 5 and Grade 6 character) has the second hop forward (the "shunt") in arabesque. There don't seem to be any published guidelines for character technique. However the book does contain the BMN, which shows it as a small introductory hop with front foot at glisse height, a step forward into arabesque at 45degrees coordinated with arm and head , shunt holding position. The step forward is on the first beat of the bar. My teacher says it must be turned out, smooth and elegant, not jumpy, with arabesque well held.

"Hop, step, shunt" - or as my teacher says "Hop, step, squeeeeze" (as you must really hold that arabesque line as you shunt).

Well, I have booked onto the Chelsea Ballet summer school - I'm going to do the afternoon ballet class and the rep class each day. I will just have to book my train early to get the cheapest fare and impose myself on one or the other of my offspring. I was amazed that Louise not only remembered me from my Chelsea Ballet days but my (then dancing) children too. It must be around 35 years since my son was a rather fidgetty doll in Coppelia! (Off topic grandparently boast: his youngest aged 3 has just started ballet, after waiting impatiently for several months on a waiting list. At the end of her first lesson she had a tantrum and had to have her fingers prised off the studio door - "NOOO! I. JUST. WANT. TO. DAAAAANCE!!!!" She speaks for us all.)

Oh thanks for finding all these, Sophie. Hmm, I'm very tempted by the York Ballet Seminar but given that I'm doing the RAD summer course I don't think it would be feasible. I'd like to do Chelsea Ballet summer school but not sure I can justify hopping to and from London every week or two (as it is I'm already doing the London Ballet Retreat shortly before the RAD). Doing something in August would be good to spread the summer activity out a bit. (Goes away to count the pennies/look for cheap train tickets.)

That's the tricky one, isn't it, because when going full out for the best expressive performance it's easy to overlook the technical aspects. I suppose we just have to get the required technical details so ingrained and automatic that they stay there even when we are not directly concentrating on them. My highest technique mark is (unsurprisingly) for the Barre section as that's where I can directly focus on placement and control. However Space, Dynamics and Coordination are all part of the technique marks and they do relate directly to dance quality.