Horsellian

You say you use elastics already, but where are your elastics placed? My daughter's heels 'disappear' when she goes up en pointe in every shoe she's ever tried. No way we could just use ribbons, so we sew invisible elastic right at the back of the shoe in a loose loop.

Finally managed to get a photo small enough to upload. It's not great, sorry.

Ballet Boost uses Rambert School in St. Margarets as it's London venue.

Yes, there is an exam session the week after the intensive.

Timetable and class length depends on the centre and the level. I think London has more classes per term than the other centres, and junior classes are shorter than mids, which are shorter than seniors.

Ballet Boost definitely don't require the perfect ballet body, or flat turnout - my daughter doesn't have flat turnout, and her BB class has varying shapes and sizes. Totally worth auditioning.

Ballet boost depends on centre and level - Seniors in London is more like £300 a term.

7 hours ago, PrancingMum said:

Is this comment also levelled at EYB and NYB?

 I can't comment on NYB, but EYB has lots of kids who've done it multiple times.

However, since EYB's a lot less selective and works in so many venues each year (so probably 600+ places available a year?), that is less of a issue.

Not sure if this is useful, but my DD started grade 5 and IF at the same time, when she was just turned 11. She took grade 5 (age 11), IF the next term (12), did grade 6 two terms later (12) and intermediate the term after (13). 

I know a most girls in our dance school start IF and grade 4 together, but DD was 10 when she started grade 4, so wasn't invited yet.

I would guess that your DD would be able to get through grades 4 and 5 quite quickly, as I think inter is a lot harder than either of those.

My DD has fairly narrow feet, and wears Bloch soft shoes in "B" width.  I think many of the styles have an even narrower "A" width which you'd be able to order online.

This tip only works if you have reasonably long hair yourself, but I demonstrated doing my own bun for DD, which helped her see how to manage having to do it by feel and what to do with each hand.

It still took a fair bit of practise for her to get the hang though.

39 minutes ago, Pas de Quatre said:

You can still order any book at your local library. 

Certainly cheaper than buying but assumes they've got a copy, which my county doesn't seem to. I can't remember how much an interlibrary loan would cost, or how long that would take.

15 minutes ago, Tony Ballet Dad said:

can a person be self-employed AND employed at the same time… for example if they get a longer contract later down the line?

Yes, you can be both employed and self-employed at the same time, my DH is, and has been for many years.

I do DDs with blanket stitch rows back and forth as per this YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRF3Fjb8Edc

(There are 2 further videos in the series, I would presume they'll autoplay after it nowadays).  I find you can get away with doing it with a straight needle this way, but a curved one is easier.

My DD (also just turned 12) is going, and doesn't know anyone, as far as she knows. Usually we find at these sorts of events that she does actually recognise someone from a different summer school or EYB or her associates, and they sometimes take ages trying to work out where they'd met before!

In case it's useful info - my DD does BBA London and is yr 7 and IF. She's in Mid 3B currently (don't have groups for next year as not assessed yet), which probably corresponds to Upper Mids in Hull?

32 minutes ago, Kate_N said:

But yes, it's really hard to keep up top-level training outside large cities. I've found that myself, and just have to live with losing certain skills or experience with kinds of steps etc. But I never had full-time training to an extremely high level - just adequate at Advanced syllabus level. And there's a limit to how many studios will let a middle-aged woman dance with 15 or 16 year olds! 

 

I guess our (fairly small) studio must be unusual in that respect, which I don't think I really realised.  We have a lot of adult classes: one beginners, three non-beginners mixed ability, an advanced adult class, PBT, pointe work, and floor barre.  There are also over 18s in most of the vocational grades.

When we have a show, the cast ranges in age from 3 to 70+!

18 minutes ago, RachH said:

Does anyone know of an online course running that week? 6th- 9th.

Ballet Boost have half days on the 6th, 7th and 8th:

https://www.balletboost.com/online-easter-course/

8 hours ago, Peony said:

Taking dividends instead of earnings is a way of reducing your tax bill though. If they’re not declaring it as earnings for paye, then it’s fair it doesn’t count towards earnings for the furlough scheme either!

But many people are a Ltd company instead of being self-employed. The main reason for paying a directors minimum salary and dividends is often that earnings fluctuate, so they can't be sure at the start of the financial year what they'll earn. You pay corporation and dividend tax on that money, which is a pretty similar level to PAYE income tax and NI.

My DDs first audition result that wasn't a rejection was a reserve list, then eventually an offer of place. She worked so hard that she ended up with a prize at the end! No-one would ever have known she came in off the reserves.

She's just had an audition success, after several rejections (last rejection was from a final round audition too) which was a lovely surprise.

She knows the drill with auditions well though as her dad is a musician and has had a lot of rejections in the last couple of years, but also a fairly recent success too!

My DD is super excited as she has just been offered a place for London 3B.  We submitted her video right at the last minute, as she didn't want to send it because she was *certain* it wasn't good enough.

18 hours ago, Pups_mum said:

It seems a bit extreme to be effectively ruling out face to face lectures for a year already.

I think the difference for Cambridge is that the main teaching is done in one-to-one or small group tutorials, which are lower risk and they seem to expect these to resume in the autumn. Doing the large-scale lectures online will not make such a big difference to their students - particularly humanities/language students.  It also means all their planning effort can go into making other parts of the courses workable.

Late to the party but I agree that Katz satin split soles are narrow, and come in small sizes.  My then-9-yr-old DD wore some last year for EYB.

Our ballet school have recently moved over to ruched leotards for exam uniform for grades 4+; they're RAD approved ones with the logo.

My DD did Cinderella in Hollywood in Oxford last year too. She was 9 but is tiny, so was in the group of the smallest girls with mostly 8 year olds, which in Oxford was a group of 8 girls.  I'm guessing your DD could well be in that group unless she's very tall.  They get to be "Shirley Temples", in the first act, and had a dance to "Tea for Two" in the second act, and had a couple of small extra bits towards the end during the clock chiming 12 etc. IIRC.  I thought it was a great production, and I really enjoyed the music, which is mostly Shostakovich.

DD had a fantastic time - so much so that she's doing EYB again this year in Aylesbury (and was actually not particularly disappointed about not getting into LCB this week, because she knew that she couldn't do both and is so looking forward to EYB).

I would assume we won't know until next week, as they said "by the 5th December".  It took 8 days for the results of the 10-yr-olds recall auditions, so I dont't imagine this would be quicker.