Birdy

I’m from the US, so I’m not familiar with a “top up degree.” The bachelor’s degree is basically for becoming a classical ballet teacher.

Sorry, it is an Associate’s Degree program. They run the final two years of Dutch National Ballet Academy through the Amsterdam University of the Arts. It isn’t super academic—mostly just class time spent on things like anatomy and dance history the first year. I believe second year is just dance and choreography. Students have the option of adding a third year to get a bachelor’s degree or they can return to the school after they stop dancing professionally and do the third year.

Dutch National Ballet teaches in English. They don’t offer housing, so that can be a bit of an issue. At 16 students are generally accepted into the highest level of the regular school, then audition for the AD two year program in the spring. Usually if they take international students at 16 they are confident they’ll successfully transition to the AD program. The school starts the process for the residency permit, which can be issued for up to five years, but is usually valid throughout the term of study.

Good luck to her in Amsterdam @BarbaraH. It’s a wonderful, welcoming school.

My daughter said some of the dancers currently at PdL have posted Instagram videos of them dancing, often at home during Covid lockdowns, not looking super impressive. They have done it to show how far they’ve come since then. I think it’s a lovely thing to do, honestly.

When my DD attended RBS upper school in the summer, she just decided to take the risk of only applying to programs overseas (I am also in the US). You may want to consider the same course of action if RBS is the dream. That way if she doesn’t get accepted, she may still be accepted to a program in Europe that also has a later notification date for results. Getting out of the US was the best experience for her and she now attends school full-time overseas.

When my daughter applied two years ago she took all the photos in pointe shoes, and standing foot was flat in position 3. I wasn’t sure if that was correct, but she was accepted, so I guess it was fine.

The arts are extremely neglected in the US as well. As a kid I had art once a week and music once a week in primary school. Now, even though I live in a state that mandates arts eduction in schools, there is little to none. Any art classes my kids got in primary school came from a parent supported teacher who came in four times per year to do an art activity with the kids. At 11 years old the kids got either cello or violin once per week and at 12 they got either saxophone, trombone, trumpet or flute once per week. By middle school there was orchestra as an elective. Art class was dropped as an elective at the middle school in 2018, but it remains at the high school. And the state I live in ranks as the fifth largest economy in the world. I can’t ever remember a time when dance was part of the curriculum. I’m guessing it never has been.

I think the Prix model is much better than YAGP at selecting dancers who will have future success. Observing classes gives schools and companies a better idea of a dancer’s overall ability not just to execute steps but also to pick up combinations quickly and apply corrections. Then finalists have an opportunity to show their skills and artistry on stage. They also don’t find out the variation they will perform all that far in advance. YAGP, on the other hand, has some dancers who have been working on the same variation for years. It doesn’t really indicate the overall ability of the dancer.

Most of the bigger company affiliated schools in the United States don’t allow students to compete either. Occasionally there seems to be a boy from ABT, but that’s about it. Parents tend to question why their children can’t compete but the school then recruits from the very same competitions. As someone else has suggested, I think it would be fair to allow students to compete if they are in their final year of school. It would be a great way to be seen by a lot of companies at once.

My daughter did the upper school summer program at RBS and flew from the west coast of the US for an in-person audition. No sign of Christopher Powney. (Ironically he is often in our home state doing a summer program for students here while the upper school program is being held in London). She also auditioned for another school in Europe where the head of the school was present and the audition was much more involved and personal. The difference was night and day. Her current school requires submission of a video to be invited to audition, which seems like a better system. It makes for smaller audition classes and doesn’t waste the time and money of students who are unlikely to have a chance. RBS will happily allow kids to fly in to audition at 17 even if there is no place available for a second year student at Covent Garden. I’m sure he respects the judgement of the adjudicators at the auditions, but at the highest levels where there are so many amazing dancers, everything is so subjective. I’d rather send my daughter somewhere where I know she has what the head of the school is looking for.

I found it quite surprising that Christopher Powney doesn’t usually attend auditions, especially when kids are flying in from other countries to attend.

Another thing to keep in mind is that she will likely change styles/brands frequently in the first year or two of wearing pointe shoes. Her first pair just have to be the right shoes for her that day. As she gains experience and strength, what she needs in a shoe will change. Often the first pair isn’t the pair that makes her arch look amazing or fit the heel perfectly. The first pair is more about support and ease of getting over the box. It can be a frustrating and expensive journey as their feet and needs change, but eventually they settle into a preferred brand and size.

Plenty of top schools don’t have their students send audition videos to Prix, so I wouldn’t use it to judge the quality of training or dancers in any particular country.

If your daughter is interested in Balanchine summer programs in the US, she may want to look at Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle. Last year their 5-week summer program didn’t start until July 11th, so it may work with UK school schedules.

It’s not super in-depth, or really a counseling book, but Megan Fairchild from New York City Ballet, has written a book called The Ballerina Mindset. She discusses ways she has coped with the demands of being a ballet dancer, from perfectionism to harsh teachers. It’s an easy read, but may be helpful for your daughter.

Dutch National Ballet Academy has many students from outside the EU. Dancers from some countries only need a residency permit, which is a pretty straightforward process that the school starts on behalf of the student (since the school is the sponsor), but dancers from some countries also require a visa, which seems to be taking quite long to process. UK students just need the residency permit and they also pay a higher tuition since the UK is no longer part of the EU. It’s still what I consider to be an affordable sum, but there are no dorms and arranging housing in Amsterdam is not always easy or cheap.

My DD uses shellac inside the box of her pointe shoes. She supplements with Jet Glue here and there, but shellac is available by the quart and much more affordable. It’s easy to find in the US (made by Zinzer), but I’m not sure about the UK. DD has recently moved to Europe and ordered two different types of shellac to see if they are similar to what she’s used to.

My DD’s doctor said hip pain is often the last growth pain that kids experience. The first being heel pain and the second being knee pain. It’s often from the femur growing quickly and the muscles needing time to catch up.

I’m not sure it’s fair to characterize Julian MacKay as a rover. He only left Russia when the Covid pandemic started and his dad was dying. Unfortunately all the cancelled flights made him miss his dad’s final days. It doesn’t sound as though he left San Francisco Ballet by choice, so he may well have hoped to settle in there for a while.

In the US ballet boarding schools are a very rare thing, but we do have about every other option for training, depending where one lives. It seems to me that the most intense “hothousing” of students occurs before the age of 14, which seems absurd to me. I understand that the pressure in the UK must be far different if your child is seeking a place at vocational school. In the US it just boggles my mind. Being the “best” dancer at 14 is meaningless. It has almost no bearing on what the dancer will look like at 18, and in my opinion causes more harm than good. Ballet is a marathon, not a sprint. So many teens quit due to injury, burn out, or just reassessing what makes them happy. I tried very hard to emphasize to my daughter that her path was her own. She had great teachers at school that did their best to create a nurturing environment. We live in an area with a lot of Russian schools that do well at YAGP and send kids to Prix, so it wasn’t always easy to see other kids being recognized nationally and internationally or having their skills publicly validated, but my DD knew that wasn’t what she wanted or needed. She has so far managed to survive ballet with her confidence and sanity intact and will be moving to study at a prominent school in Europe this fall, without a CV full of awards. I don’t know how schools look at so many talented kids and pick the ones they want. I don’t know why some schools don’t give a second round audition invite to the same kid that is accepted immediately after first round at another school. They’re all looking for some undefinable thing that appeals to them specifically, I suppose.

Sometimes I am thankful that vocational schools have not really caught on in the United States. Ballet is extremely difficult both physically and mentally, but at least when class was over my daughter came home to a house and family filled with non-ballet people. On weekends she spent time with “normal” kids. I imagine vocational school is tougher psychologically because you spend so much more time inside the ballet bubble. This is not meant as a judgement of anyone who sends their kids to vocational ballet school. I just empathize with how hard it must be.

My daughter is 177cm and a size 36-37, so super small feet for her height. She is thrilled because it doesn’t make her too much taller on pointe. No one has ever commented negatively on the size of her feet.

And many good schools don’t participate in YAGP at all.

The way I’ve always heard it told is that more classically trained dancers have an easier time transitioning to Balanchine than Balanchine trained dancers do transitioning to more classical styles. The head of the Colburn School in Los Angeles was a dancer at NYCB and the kids learn a lot of Balanchine repertoire. For Vaganova, Marat Daukayev in Los Angeles is very well regarded. Maria Kochetkova trains with him when she’s in Los Angeles. In Orange County, Southland Ballet is super tied in with YAGP, but we know a lot of students who have left because the parent environment isn’t the best. Dmitri Kulev has produced a fair amount of successful dancers. ABT also has an affiliate school in Orange County. These are all schools with quality training and none of the crazy Dance Moms competition stuff going on.