Peony

there’s a second showing on Sunday here, none of the ROH broadcasts are on at the big multiplex which seems odd as they’re usually popular.

That’s what everywhere was doing in the summer- just linking the test and trace to your booking. I guess some people may book and not turn up which could cause confusion, or people could claim they never arrived to avoid isolation. You’d hope not, but apparently people were given ‘fake’ details

The STOMP campaign started in 2016 https://www.england.nhs.uk/learning-disabilities/improving-health/stomp/ the other issue is why Oliver was given a drug which he had had a previous reaction to. Hopefully that issue will also be addressed by the inquiry. Such a waste of a young life

It’s major problem with the app although it’s the same many manual check ins in cafes, museums etc. They don’t note down what time you’re in/out either. You would have thought it would be much more straightforward to build that into the app though.

Apart from household and support bubble contacts who automatically have to self isolate the decision as to whether you are at risk is made by test and trace or the app based on a risk assessment. So you don’t need to decide yourself. Generally if you’ve been socially distancing you should be low risk but the risk assessment takes into account multiple factors I believe. A positive test would be considered confidential health information so the teacher wouldn’t be able to give you details which could identify the person. This could potentially include identifying the affected class, so although it looks like the teacher only had contact with the contact they may not be able to give all the details of the interaction etc! Obviously the tracing system has had a lot of problems 😫 but it is a better way because it removes the need to interpret your risk and it’s confidential so avoids any slip ups and difficult situations.

you only need to isolate if you are contacted by test and trace or have symptoms or a positive test. If the child had no symptoms and hasn’t tested positive your teacher wouldn’t be required to isolate. If your teacher hasn’t tested positive and hasn’t got symptoms you wouldn’t be required to isolate. The test and trace is only triggered by a positive result and then those in close contact would be contacted. If you have the app with Bluetooth turned on it should tell you to isolate if you’d been within 2 metres of someone positive for more than 15 mins, however, you need to be careful if you leave your phone in a bag or pocket etc during the class, it may be right next to somebody else’s phone and you may not have been near them!

Are they meant to display their registration number if they are a registered charity? I’m not sure if it relates to gift aid, but the big charities have a reference number prominently displayed.

I think you make a very valid point Tulip. It also doesn’t just happen in the dance world, adults can be equally awful to kids with learning disabilities, autism, problem parents etc. The common denominator is probably that the kids are a little more vulnerable to start with. Sometimes we don’t think about our behaviour and have to make a conscious decision to change our reaction to things.

I think it was the pet peeve of my primary teacher because I hear her voice whenever I see it!

yes I could have misinterpreted what she has said in interviews. I think it’s a valid point to make that there are multiple dancers who have spoken about these issues themselves. Rojo has certainly been vocal about her support for diversity, support for eating disorders etc at ENB

The Scottish contract was 5 years into Rojo’s career I believe. obviously this thread is personal for some, I agree that just being on the edges of ballet competitions/ selections/ performances there is an element of the pushy parent which I’ve never encountered in everyday life. Not nice at all, poor kids if that is happening to them

they are two of the most talented, Rojo didn’t get a major contract for a while and Osipova left the Bolshoi as she said they type cast her to specific roles because of her body. I just think it shows the importance of body to some companies and schools, starting with selections. The Russians are obviously quite upfront about their criteria! I don’t have children who want to dance so looking at it from an outside perspective. I don’t see diversity in some schools or companies and suspect we must be passing over some really talented individuals. I suspect it may be a contributory reasons why certain races and nationalities are under and over represented. I’m certainly not saying that those who are there don’t deserve their place.

I am no expert either! I think it is fairly recently that the changes were made, so the young people who have learnt all this complex grammar probably haven’t emerged from the education system yet. To my mind making things too complex defeats the object as it becomes inaccessible to a lot of children. What we should be doing, as you say, is concentrating on functional skills to enable basic communication. Who knows; I may be proved wrong and we will see a generation with wonderful communication skills! I struggled enormously with Latin, I do think that was because I was taught instinctive rather than prescriptive grammar.

So many of them seem to have no concept of their own safety let alone anybody elses! I’m surprised you have escaped them for a few months, they’ve been out in force here!

starting a sentence with ‘and’ 😫🤣 I’m not sure when the increased emphasis on grammar was introduced into the curriculum but it is now certainly far in excess of anything I learnt at school. Primary school level; fronted adverbials, appositives, noun sentences. Thank goodness for google! It does make English an incredibly boring subject at school which is a great shame, I don’t think we have got the balance right yet.

I’m not sure myself that there is that much diversity. A few of our principals have spoken out to say that they were berated, told they had to work harder and be better to overcome their body shape e.g. rojo- too large, osipova- legs too short and muscular (I know they trained abroad but I don’t think it’s much different in the UK). The thing is, as an audience member do their bodies stand out as being hugely different on stage? So we really are talking about some imperceptible differences which are more a matter of ‘fashion’.

I do think it’s important to keep in mind that healthy BMI is much lower for teens than it is for adults though. If you look at the WHO charts she’s probably not vastly under the lower limit, whereas for an adult the lower limit would be 18.5. It’s not so much her weight they will have worried about but nutritional deficits like iron deficiency anaemia which can cause palpitations and chest pain. Such a shame she has become aware of her size, do the school have a dietitian involved who could reassure her?

I agree with what you’ve said. this is deeply disturbing to me, what justification can there be for this? They spend most the day in leotard and tights anyway! I did boycott one of the uk companies a few years ago (until they changed AD) because what I saw made me so uncomfortable. It’s a fine line, we shouldn’t be criticising individuals but we do need to hold these schools and companies to account. 16 year olds living away from home and burning high numbers of calories each day must be at a significant risk of becoming undernourished through lack of money, time, illness, cooking knowledge etc. I think most of us accept that by nature of their age and what they do ballet dancers are going to be slender. However, it makes me uncomfortable to suggest that the extremes are genetically ‘natural’. As children grow and bodies change there may be periods when they look really slim and that’s normal. If they’re not getting sufficient nutrition growth will slow down or stop. Rather than constant weighing etc there are other ways to assess whether the kids are healthy or not. I just don’t think that all schools and companies put sufficient resource into this and in some cases I just don’t think they see it as being a bad thing. it’s difficult to discuss selection criteria for vocational schools in a detached way, as it has an inference to those that have got a place. I’m not sure we have got it quite right but some things like passion, motivation, dedication are pretty hard to assess. Perhaps what we should be doing is expanding the numbers but accepting that a large proportion will not be successful at continuing training or getting into companies

I’m finding this quite a problem, especially outside of core business hours, To the extent that I’m constantly worried about going out because there will be no loo! I’d be happy to pay but there just are no facilities open. Maybe some enterprising people could find a solution and boost their income

Some shops in London and at home have someone at the door asking for masks and antibac rub of hands. Mostly the more expensive ones but a couple of our supermarkets too. Pretty much everyone has been wearing them all the way through in our town though.

No travel restrictions in tier 2 so that at least is straightforward! You definitely can’t travel to wales from somewhere with a high infection rate which may affect some?

It’s confusing with ballet isn’t it as I would have said education but it seems to come under sport/group activities/ gyms etc in guidance. Perhaps it depends on whether the provider is a registered educational establishment (providing academics as well) like elmhurst or RBS or purely a ballet school?

The postcode checker is helpful (although I wasn’t checking it as a ‘very high risk’ postcode) https://www.gov.uk/find-coronavirus-local-restrictions

The proportions and musculature etc will differ, but I think most people doing 30,40 or more hours of ballet a week would be fairly slender!

Some audience members etc do highly favour that aesthetic. Maybe not in so many words (although there are many comments on social media which are quite open in doing so). Personally I don’t, and it makes me quite uncomfortable to watch extremely slender dancers. Many people will say it’s their natural body type but I don’t agree that a BMI below 14 or 15 for somebody exercising intensely every day is healthy for anyone. It doesn’t mean they have an eating disorder but I sincerely doubt they are taking enough nutrients to remain in peak health. Surely they can’t be menstruating normally which is a red flag if linked purely to low body weight. Nobody wants to body shame those with a small frame but there does have to be some point at which concerns are raised, I think BMI of 15 is the trigger point for hospital treatment in anorexics.