Peony

I can totally understand why boarding isn’t for some families. To replicate the amount of hours that would happen at a vocational school plus travel time plus going to a ‘normal’ academic school who will generally expect homework in the next day, afterschool sessions in later years etc must be incredibly difficult! I guess it depends on where you live etc but I would have thought for some parents it would not be manageable in terms of cost and time commitment. Everything does ramp up considerably after year 9! I know some parents have managed it on here, and imagine it’s more achievable if parent/ relative is a ballet teacher!

I’m not sure why dancers would suppress knowledge of training at Tring, (it’s certainly mentioned by some high profile dancers) but would be happy to mention elmhurst, central, ENB etc. If they were you’d think the school would have a more high profile list of leavers destinations to put this right. It’s a common thing for academic schools to list top exam achievers and destinations. The other thing is that schools and teaching staff can change enormously

It’s difficult to compare I think as the cohort at Tring differ from elmhurst and RBS. It’s a ‘dance’ course rather than ballet and there are far fewer MDS places. Would the school give you leavers destinations for

the upper and lower school if you asked? Or sometimes it’s interesting to look at companies who do usually give you a biography for their dancers including lower and upper school. I’m not sure that are that many from Tring, definitely more from RBS, Elmhurst, ENB and Central. That may be a reflection of cohort rather than standard of training though. I think you need to try and get the figures and work out how many go on to ballet companies/ RBS etc. 

Are you in the UK? Children in UK vocational schools all continue with normal academic schooling until sixteen so he wouldn’t be reducing any options (and will probably have a much better idea of future aspirations at that stage). I’m not sure if the same is true of all countries though?

Perhaps young people just haven’t seen the negative health effects of smoking and the effect on skin/ teeth etc and the  real struggle that it is to give up. There are not many of their parents or even grandparents generation who are still smoking and they’re just not around smokers to see the wrinkles, yellow teeth, breathlessness etc for themselves

I don’t consider you to be ‘micro managing’ her, at the end of the day smoking is likely to affect her training and more than likely will permanently damage her lungs if she continues. If she was living independently and funding herself I suppose you couldn’t do much about it but I wouldn’t be funding it either.

I remember walking past the Opera House a few years ago when the Bolshoi were in town and practically all the male dancers were outside having a smoke! Unfortunately I think it’s a popular way of keeping weight down. Do you think you could get her onto vapes or patches instead?

Don’t you need a pass at intermediate to take the DDE course?

this may be a geographical thing but none of our local schools teach dance anymore, I’ve known people go into primary teaching with a dance degree though

12 hours ago, alison said:

I really wanted to like this, but I'm getting persistent buffering (oops, I lost my home keys and accidentally moved one key to the right when typing that 😳 ) every time I try and watch it, regardless of time of day.  Am I the only one getting this?

 

From what I can see with the stop-start, this does indeed appear to be more an apprenticeship with additional coaching - so an additional stage between training and a full professional career - than a starting-at-the-bottom-of-the-company.  I hadn't quite registered that.

How annoying, I watched it yesterday without any issues. I really enjoy watching the insights series, and this one didn’t disappoint. They are all very talented young dancers, I hope they all stay on into the company. particularly loved marianna 

You can still view previous prices if you google. The triple bill in 2018/9 (concerto, Raymond’s, enigma variations), the top price OS were £75 and £71. Comparing my own tickets one set are a few pounds cheaper and one set a few pounds more expensive. 
Perhaps this triple bill is shorter but that’s probably countered by general price increases over 2 years. I do think it’s fair to say that there has not been a premium applied for social distancing. The alternative is presumably to increase prices and provide more singles and  invest in a better booking system to allow dynamic booking

On 14/05/2021 at 08:40, bangorballetboy said:

because you’re helping a loved one through an incredibly difficult time?

I’m not a friend of ROH but I am a member of the National Trust, English Heritage, HHA and a few local places. I have kept the memberships running despite facilities being shut primarily because I support their work and would like those places to still exist and be viable post covid. ROH has taken a hit financially, providing lots of singles would reduce their capacity even further. I was personally pleasantly surprised that the cost of 2 seats was not much more than a single in normal times. The cost of social distancing and the empty seats has not been passed on to customers at the ROH. In normal times I think charging large premiums for singles is unfair but these aren’t usual times. 

just be this season affected. 

How old are you and what level of ballet are you at?

3 hours ago, rowan said:

So, does this mean that a ballet school that offers a degree like Central School of Ballet will be faced with the double whammy of losing funding and also losing London weighting? I have to say, I would have thought that was a specialist institution and would be on the list. Perhaps the list isn’t fully complete.

I think it’s done on the awarding institution. Central says theirs is university of Kent, so I don’t think they would get London weighting. I don’t know how they decide who their awarding university is and whether they can change. Or whether that university has agreed funding and would take the hit rather than the course? (Which isn’t without issue as they may presumably remove the accreditation of it’s not profitable to provide? )

5 hours ago, Jewel said:

LIPA isn't on the published  list I saw.  Is there an updated version somewhere?

 

I guess I think of places like Trinity more as music conservatoires.  Guildhall is on it, but again I think that's more to do with the music side than the drama.  The one well known drama school that is on it is Central.

 

The specialist institutions currently are:

 

University of the Arts, London
Conservatoire for Dance & Drama
Cortauld Institute of Art
Cranfield University
Guildhall School of Music & Drama
Harper Adams University
Institute of Cancer Research
London School of Tropical Medicine
National Film & TV School
Royal Academy of Music
Central School of Speech & Drama
Royal College of Art
Royal College of Music
Royal Northern College of Music

Royal Vetinerary College
Trinity Laban

it’s in the 3rd document on the consultation link in Kate’s original post. There are definitively more than you have linked to. It also lists university of London as ‘specialist’ which I presume would cover all the individual colleges. I’m no expert but they all day ‘specialist’ next to them so I presume all in that category.

trinity Laban lists dance and musical theatre on their website, and CDD covers Rambert. I think some ballet places offer a Trinity diploma, probably those with aspiring dancers would know more.

On 11/05/2021 at 19:54, Jewel said:

The list of specialist institutions is very small and doesn’t include ballet or musical theatre schools (though remember this is degree institutions not MDS or DaDa institutions. Several music conservatories are on it alongside places such as London School of Tropical Medicine and some art/design collleges. 

there are some on the list including Trinity Laban, conservatoire of dance and drama and LIPA

I think some of the online supermarkets do it too. A pound though, not a dollar, which seems very odd!

On 09/05/2021 at 12:16, bangorballetboy said:

 

I think you can buy 4 seats in a box!

It only allowed me to select 2 in the only free box aswell. There were definitely no groups bigger than 2 available for all the combinations I tried (which was quite a few!)

I know it’s not very environmentally friendly but I do love having the printed tickets arrive through the post! I always print anyway as my phone is old and the battery not great

Last time when we had group of 6 indoors you were still meant to social distance, I’ve presumed it will be the same but who knows!

Found it in the 3rd document, specialist providers are all the royal colleges, university of the arts, Trinity, arts colleges etc. Only odd one not on there is RADA which is under ‘other’. So They may be spared? Although London funding is going completely for all courses which would affect most of the above 

2 hours ago, rowan said:

 One thing I was curious about: “10 million increase in funding to specialist providers”. What does that mean? What’s a specialist provider? Does it mean that, say, a music course at a university might have its funding cut, but one at a conservatoire such as the Royal College of Music wouldn’t? Have I missed somewhere where it explains?

I also picked that up but didn’t read closely enough to know if I had just missed the list. I would presume it’s specialist drama, dance, music as I can’t see any STEM institutions fitting the criteria. 
I still am not clear why humanities, media studies, archeology are eligible for additional funding above say, a classics course? Are they expensive to provide?  Subsidising courses allows employers to pay lower wages and make more profit, I’m not sure it benefits the workers but don’t think that will change with the current gov

2 hours ago, RuthE said:

Having now drafted the letter, I’ve acknowledged that any “chessboard” pattern would need to have designated areas to accommodate people whose groups include young children or a disabled person. Other than that, I’m sure families can survive sitting with one seat empty between members for an hour and a half at a time.

 

(As one of my friends said - she’s been with her husband virtually 24 hours a day for over a year, so is quite sure she won’t miss him unduly while sitting a metre apart while watching a show.)

I think the problem is that the seat numbers are a random allocation and they don’t allow under 14s to sit without a parent (very sensibly!). When I booked earlier I got seats nowhere near each other- different rows and different sides. I tried several times, different performance days and areas and the same thing happened. Luckily one of mine is old enough to sit alone. 

They only appeared to have pairs as well, no 3s or 4s. So I ended up booking 2x2 so in the same boat of paying for an extra!

I booked this morning and it seemed to me that they only had pairs of tickets? No 3s or 4s appeared at all. So not only did I have to pay for 2 hangers on (kids!) but also for an imaginary friend! To be fair the prices seemed lower and the total was about what I’d expect to pay for the 3 tickets, if not less. I’m just over the moon to be going at all really (fingers crossed this time!)

21 hours ago, alison said:

Didn't we find that singles started appearing later last time, once there was a clearer idea of which seats were selling, or am I imagining it?

There was definitely a significant second release during general booking last time. My ticket numbers weren’t allocated until some time after booking (amphitheatre), I presume that was so that they could manually book and maximise seat availability. 

Single tickets only isn’t equitable as it precludes families. To maintain 1.5 or 2 metres between single seats would presumably reduce the capacity to what, a quarter? Ideally they’d have a dynamic booking system like they have at cinemas. I haven’t seen inside the socially distanced ROH, do they not allocate many single tickets? I had tickets for Christmas but then London went into tier 4 and our hopes were dashed!