Birdy

Honestly, it’s refreshing to see what seems to be broader acceptance of taller dancers. The norm in the past was to exclude most of them, so I can’t feel too bad about one company being unavailable to shorter dancers.

Munich did indeed have 1.68m for women and 1.82m for men as minimums for their junior company audition. I prefer companies with a variety of heights and don’t understand the insistence on uniformity. There is a 7-8” difference in height between the shortest woman at Dutch National and the tallest. Obviously it is more difficult for a shorter man to partner a taller woman, but short women can also be difficult for tall men to partner—particularly for lifts as they have to bend too much. And as for foot size…my DD is 5’9” but her shoe size is only a 37, so there isn’t always a direct correspondence.

There are companies known for being shorter on average and others known for taking in taller dancers, and still others who are happy to have plenty of variety. There are always exceptions for extremely talented dancers. DD’s friends are auditioning now and I will say opportunities do seem fewer for the girls and the shortest and tallest ends of the spectrum.

I would guess 5’11 or so. My DD is 5’9” and Milda is noticeably taller.

As the parent of a tall (though not quite as tall) dancer, I’m always rooting for Milda Luckute. BTW, Het just means The in Dutch.

Thank you! DM sent.

My daughter is in those photos (not the first one, obviously). Thank you a million times for posting it!

School of American Ballet is the school affiliated with New York City Ballet and therefore has a very Balanchine focus.

That was a lovely post by Stella. Yes, Aleisha Walker was in the Studio Company at ABT when she won the Young Creation award at the 2023 Prix for choreographing Do You Care? on ABT student, Madison Brown. She was invited back this year to teach it to some of the dancers. The Young Creation choreography competition is only open to dancers and junior company members from Prix partner schools.

As an aside about American schools training more for competitions…Natalie Steele only started at ABT this fall, coming from a school known for doing well at YAGP. ABT doesn’t train students for competitions and generally doesn’t allow students to compete. An exception must have been made for her.

Some of the Wilis and peasants are second/graduate year students so it’s a great opportunity for them to participate.

It’s hard to write this without making a particular dancer known, but it isn’t about the dancer so much as it is about the process, because a beautiful dancer deserves the accolades. A big school not known for training kids for competitions sent someone to Prix de Lausanne, where the student has made the finals. The school is celebrating the accomplishment on social media. However, unit this fall the student trained at a local school known for having students, including this one, succeed at competitions. So the current school recruited a dancer from a competition and a few months later is claiming her as their own on the world stage. While I am very pleased for this dancer, I don’t know that it necessarily reflects the quality of training at the current school.

Unfortunately there is no set terminology for a junior company. The US is rife with post-graduate Trainee positions which are tuition based. When I think of Junior/Studio/Second companies, I think of the much smaller, non-tuition programs that often use dancers for corp roles or second cast roles with the main company and have their own performances. My DD was recently offered a contract (in Europe) that has a housing allowance, free shoes and a small monthly salary. I know of a large US company that does the same.

The production was filmed on two different nights, so that may also account for the movement of the moon.

At Dutch the current head of the school is also head of the junior company. He is staying at Dutch but is taking on a new role of Talent Development and will remain AD of the junior company. So not moving on as much as moving up. But they are looking for a new person to lead the school. He is a wonderful teacher and extremely supportive and engaged leader, so his shoes will be hard to fill.

Ernst Meisner is transitioning out of his role as head of Dutch National Ballet Academy. He will remain the AD for the junior company and also take on the new role of Talent Development. https://www.operaballet.nl/en/news/ernst-meisner-appointed-associate-director-talent-development

At my child’s school, the head of the school is also the AD for the second/junior company. He doesn’t teach class at the upper school on a regular basis, but he maintains a steady presence, and drops in on classes. He knows all of the students by name and they have regularly scheduled short meetings with him. They talk about their goals, where they want to audition, or just any concerns they have or struggles they’re having related to dance. He has a group chat set up where he notifies them about upcoming auditions. He even checked in with them when a company wanted to come to audition students during a particularly busy time—asking if it would work for the students or if he should try to schedule it at a different time. Yes, it is mostly teachers and administrators that handle to day-to-day work, but he sets the tone for the school and he makes sure to be particularly involved with helping guide the upper level students. The school is very international and of a very high standard, so it is possible.

Yes, Stella became AD of the school starting with the 22-23 school year, so It’s going to be interesting to see what happens over the next couple of years. I think the school also has some dorms now, so they can bring in more students from outside New York.

I have no issue with the big company-affiliated schools recruiting students from YAGP. I do question the training at schools that fill their second companies with dancers from competitions or dancers they recruited for the school who then spend less than a year at the school before being taken into the second company. It shows either a lack of quality training at the upper levels or else a disconnect between the person who auditions students for the upper level of the school and the person who chooses second company members. This is especially disconcerting at schools that offer no company audition support, which describes many schools in the U.S. It also describes many post-graduate paid trainee programs here.

That describes nearly every company-affiliated school. RBS, ENB, John Cranko, DNB, ABT, Houston Ballet, Joffrey Ballet…the list goes on. However, they mainly recruit for summer programs and possibly full-time training. The company I am thinking of (in the US, but which I won’t name) stocks most of their second company with competition winners.

I know people who spend insane amounts of money on summer programs, but we avoided the competition crowd. Summer breaks here are absurdly long (my DD’s old school ended late May and didn’t restart until early September) so students definitely try to pack in the training. We spent a lot of money in tuition for a good ballet school, but the longest summer program my DD attended was 3 weeks, despite the pressure from teachers to do more. Other than that she just did drop-in classes here and there. I often think my DD was lucky that we didn’t have unlimited funds to throw at ballet because she didn’t get injured or burned out. So many kids end up quitting by 18. Honestly I don’t see the point in all of that insanity. Maybe people feel like it helps them quantify the unknown—like winning means you’re on the right track. Maybe some people just like to compete in the same way people compete at sports. And I’m sure some of it is for the glory of it. It can’t possibly be for the scholarships because the money spent to get to that level far outweighs the benefit of one year of tuition. Most of these kids end up at a school they could have gotten into by simply auditioning in the normal way and the rest decide to go to university. Getting into the second company/junior company/studio company is the best way to transition to a main company in the US (and likely in Europe). One of the big companies here is known for recruiting heavily from YAGP and Prix, usually to the detriment of their own students, in my opinion. My DD decided to train in Europe because that is where she wants to work. I don’t know that training in Europe is a benefit in getting work in the US or if it is just a bragging right.

The US has a huge variety of ballet training choices. Most of the bigger, company-affiliated schools don’t allow their students to participate in YAGP (but often recruit from there). There are also a lot of schools that go the opposite direction and focus heavily on competitions. I don’t know that the competition-heavy schools actually get more students into companies or if we just hear about those students more because of their media presence. I certainly don’t think competitions are necessary, but are just another possible path. As for video prescreening for company auditions, a lot of companies use the International Audition Pre-Selection Guidelines. (https://iapguidelines.squarespace.com/the-guidelines). Nothing fancy; no costumes, stage performances or expensive filming. I used to wonder if maybe I was making a mistake by not having my kid go the competition route, but she and many of her friends are doing great without it. I think the best piece of advice we heard was to try to find the place that was the best fit for her. One school may not show any interest while another jumps at the chance to have your kid. Same with companies. It’s all subjective so if you find a company-affiliated school or junior company that really likes you, you have a better chance of success than going to a potentially more prestigious place that barely acknowledges you.

I was thinking the same thing.

I think it’s the first year Dutch is doing a public audition since the pandemic. It may seem harsh to tell most of the kids they can’t even do the final audition, but I think in the long run it’s for the best as then those students can really focus on outside auditions and not be in limbo for as long. It does seem a bit odd to have the kids they are seriously interested in do the final audition. I don’t know what more they can possibly learn about the kids from an audition that they haven’t learned from seeing the kids in class, in school performances and in professional performances with the company. Still, it’s an enviable position to be in. It seems crazy that your DD’s school doesn’t tell them anything until March. Grand Audition and the YAGP job fair are in early February. The kids could get an offer before even hearing from their own school affiliated company.

This year even students from Dutch National Ballet Academy are going through the public audition process, so I can’t imagine students from other schools are being given private auditions. Very few of the students from the program have made it through to the final round in January. Students most definitely will not be asked to start immediately, so at least that won’t be on the table.