Pups_mum

Happy Christmas everyone - hope you are all having a lovely day. A good time is being had by all in our household and DD is very pleased with her new Degas leotard courtesy of Just Ballet. Though I keep warning her tht if she eats many more chocolates she won't fit in it....she really ought to leave them all for me!

Sounds like they are too small - I would take them back. My DD wears GMs and we were told that she should be able to "pinch" about half a cm of material behind her heel when en pointe. You can download a fitting guide from Gaynor Minden which explains it http://www.dancer.com/fitting_gm-comprehensive-guide-to-fitting.php I would caution against only wearing your GMs for auditions and shows though. When my DD first started wearing them she found them quite different to dance in compared to the other shoes she'd had, and of course they don't suit every dancer. I would suggest you get used to them before wearing them in situations where you want to be at your best and feel comfortable and relaxed. I've never done an audition myself, but I would imagine that wearing a pair of shoes that feel like old friends would be better than a new, unfamiliar feeling pair.

Happy Birthday and thanks to the admins, mods and anyone who contributes in anway fo this fabulous forum.

I agree with BankruptMum - go and watch, see what it involves and how you and your daughter feel about participating. Some people love it, others are not at all keen but the best way to find out is to go and see for yourself. Also, make sure you find out from your teacher exactly what is going to be required in terms of commitment, rehearsal times etc before you start. It's much easier to put limits on how much time/money you are prepared to invest in this sort of thing beforehand than it is to cut back or say no to things later on. Regarding the falling out with other mums, yes, I have seen this kind of thing happen, but it doesn't have to be that way. My DD has been doing festivals for nearly a decade now and neither she nor I have lost any friends over it, but we've made lots of new ones. Maybe I'm a bit harsh, but in all honesty, if someone was going to fall out with me over a festival placing then that probably wouldn't be a friendship that I'd think was worth keeping.

I think that's a very good point. I've often heard mums arguing about whether festivals, associate schemes, youth ballet companies etc are "better" than each other, but I think that's a pretty meaningless comparison as they are all totally different. It is really comparing apples with pears. I think that all these different experiences have something to offer, some more to particular children than others. As long as our children are doing things that are helping them develop as dancers, and people, and, most importantly to my mind, they are enjoying what they are doing then I think it's all good.

Depends what you're looking for, how you approach them and to a degree which/how many festivals you do. My DD has done festivals since she was 5 and has greatly enjoyed them, at least as much for the social and fun side as the actual dancing. I think that if you view festivals as a performance experience, where you may or may not get useful feedback and where your child is going to have fun with their friends, then yes, they are worth doing. However, the quality of dancing and adjudication can vary considerably and there are some schools/teachers/parents/children who take festivals extremely seriously (especially winning) and that can sometimes lead to unpleasant atmospheres. My DD has learned a lot of valuable lessons from doing festivals, though probably more "life lessons" than "dance lessons". She's learned things like how to be a good loser and a gracious victor, that there's a certain correlation between practice and performance, and that life isn't always fair! She's also made some good friends, learned how to deal with some not so nice people, had lots of fun with her friends and teachers and developed a lot of confidence on stage which has helped her both in dance and other spheres of her life. She's also learned a lot about commitment and team working through the duets, trios and troupes she's in. And she has tried a variety of dance genres that she might not have tried otherwise, discovered that she can actually sing pretty well and on occasion had really helpful feedback from adjudicators. Quite recently an adjudicator explained something to her that she'd been struggling with in classical greek and I could see that it was a real "lightbulb" moment for her as she suddenly realised what the problem had been. But there are down sides too. It costs a lot of money. And time. Sometimes the adjudication is either poor from the technical point of view, or harsh, which can be hard for less resilient children to deal with. You do come across "stage mums" screeching at their offspring backstage sometimes - but I guess you get that in any competetive pursuit.Probably not the best environment for a more sensitive child though. I'd always recommend going to watch a couple of different festivals before deciding if it's something that you want to get into. You also need to bear in mind what else you have available to you. We live in the back of beyond and performance opportunities are not that easy to come by, so festivals have been great at enabling my DD to get on the stage and perform. If we lived somewhere with easy access to youth ballet companies etc I might have been less keen for her to do festivals and preferred other opportunities. It's horses for courses. My personal view though is that if you see the festival as your servant and not your master,enjoy the positives and don't take it all too seriously then you can have a great time.

If it were my DD I would be making her go to the carol service too. If it were a dance show or exam or class very close to either it would be different, but I wouldn't put an "ordinary" dance class ahead of a "special" school event.

How about a little sewing basket? Dancers have to do a fair bit of sewing, and needles link in with the theme of Sleeping Beauty!

Our very own just ballet has some pretty ones in her shop! http://www.justballet.co.uk/shop/adult-1/

Good luck to everyone. My advice would be to smile and enjoy it. EYB are looking for children who love to dance and who are prepared to work hard and try new things - doesn't matter if they can't do everything in the audition perfectly. I wouldn't worry about the pointe work either. My DD has been 3 times and there's never been any pointe work in the audition. They do look at that at the casting as has already been mentioned, but there are always lots of lovely parts for girls not on pointe as well, so it's not really a big issue. I must confess that I'm a bit jealous of everyone auditioning. My DD (and I!) love EYB but sadly there isn't anywhere that is suitable for us this year

What a shame. I've used a lot of different internet forums on various topics over the years, and this one is without doubt the most civilised. I've hardly ever seen anyone being rude or disrespectful to another poster, whereas such behaviour is commonplace on many other forums. Yes, of course people disagree, but it's almost always healthy debate here rather than out and out argument. I'm not the most regular poster here, nor the most knowledgeable but I've never felt not welcome. I've always found people happy and willing to help and I've learned loads from reading other people's posts even when I've nothing to contribute. There's often not one absolute right answer to a question which is why it is good to get different people's opinions on things. A post that says something different to the majority is often thought provoking - nothing wrong with that. I hope jellybeans will reconsider as I think that the variety of people who post here is one of the forum's great strengths. And I'd like to add my thanks to all the mods and admin people. I remember how upset everyone was when we found we were losing the old ballet.co.uk and I think it's brilliant that people have stepped in to keep things going.

I bought a couple of pairs of gandolfi ballet slippers very cheap off ebay a few years ago when I wanted to experiment with dyeing shoes for a show. I'd never heard of them before - or since, until today!

This comment made me smile as my DD loves lyrical - it's definitely her favourite genre after ballet - and she gets annoyed when people don't seem to appreciate it as much as some other forms of dance. She had a little outburst on the subject at a festival recently when she declared "There's more to lyrical than having a slow song and a floaty dress you know!" I shall show her your post in the morning as I'm sure she'll be pleased to hear that an expert thinks it's difficult.

I'm not sure what it means in respect to ballet but (I think!) I understand what "lyrical" means when applied to modern dance and it might be similar. As I understand it, the key thing in lyrical modern is flow. The movements are supposed to flow together almost imperceptibly - no "gaps" between different movements such as you might get in other types of modern dances, even if they are slow. Maybe ballet danced in a similar style would be described as lyrical??

Best of luck to her Julie. She's obviously a hard working and very talented young lady. I'm sure she'll shine at the interview - another transferable skill from the performing arts.

Hi dancergirl24, As others have said, the main reason that schools don't often take new students in in year 11 is the disruption to academic work. I believe that they don't assess anyone out at this stage for the same reason. Obviously the main reason anyone wants to go to vocational school is the dance, but GCSEs are still very important and it would be really hard to achieve your full potential in your exams if you moved school half way through the course. The other thing to bear in mind is that everyone who wants a 6th form place has to reaudition - there's no guarantee that those who are already at the various vocational schools will get places in the 6th Form. So if you started at a school in year 11, you'd barely have got your case unpacked before you were having to start the audition process for 6th forms anyway. There are lots of good schools offering post 16 training. If you read the old threads that people have posted you'll get lots of different opinions. Different schools have different strengths and will suit different dancers so which ones you choose to audition for might be affected by whether you want a purely classical school or are also interested in other things, for instance contemporary or musical theatre. Sadly the other thing that affects many people is money. Getting accepted by one of the good schools is hard enough, but securing the funding can be even more difficult. For that reason many people choose to audition for quite a wide range of schools rather than focussing on their "ideal" place. My advice would be to read lots of the threads on here, look at the school websites etc and take advice from your teachers and your parents about what might be the best path for you to take. And don't forget about your GCSEs - my daughter is in year 10 too and I am frequently having to remind her that there is more to life than dancing! Good luck with everything.

I think we still have the dvd and maybe the syllabus book somewhere, though if we've still got the book it will have DD's scrawl all over it. If you are interested I will see if I can find them.

I think that at the age of 9, the most important thing is for her to be having fun and enjoying her dancing. If she wants to try out some different things then I think it's a good idea to let her, even if it means cutting back on a bit of the ballet.

It seems to be a subject (like many in ballet) that people have strong opinions on, but I always think that when numerous people hold numerous strong opinions on the same subject, it probably means that nobody has a monopoly on the truth. After all, if there was one 100% "right" way, surely we'd all be doing it? Isn't it more important to try to figure out what works best for each individual?

My DD uses the wider "invisible elastic" in the loop from the back of the heel as the other posters have described. This works very well and is also very unobstrusive - the ribbons more or less cover the elastic, and whilst it's not truly invisible, the elastic isn't very noticeable. If you do this you'll probably find there's no need for the elastic across your instep.

Any time you want to see pheasants, bedraggled or otherwise, you can come to my house Janet. We get overrun with the wretched things in the summer. Negotiating our lane without squashing them takes some doing at times!

We're National Trust members, so wherever we go we try to seek out NT properties. I like feling like I'm getting something for free even though I'm not really!We've been to some lovely places over the years. My all time favourite NT property is Cragside in Northumberland which really does have something for the whole family to enjoy, and the most beautiful grounds. Other than NT venues, I don't think I could ever get bored of the National Railway museum in York and I love visiting lighthouses.

Not specifically dance related David, but I have always been a shy person, but despite this I did a lot of drama when i was at school/university. People were always surprised that I, who wouldn't say boo to a goose, could get up on stage, but the secret for me was to realise that nobody was watching me, they were watching my character. I think what makes us nervous in these situations is thinking what others are thinking about us IYKWIM? If you can get it into your head that people aren't thinking about you at all, they are thinking about Basilio (or whoever) you may find that you can actually get into that character a lot more easily. Probably the people on here who know me in real life will be laughing and saying that I'm not shy - but I am really, I've just learned to deal with it, and doing drama was part of that. It's really great fun to "be" someone very much unlike yourself actually. just let yourself go and have fun.

People who don't indicate at roundabouts. Prawn cocktail crisps. People who drop litter. Almost all the tv programmes that my children like!

If it's anything like the university fees situation, you have to be resident in Scotland for (I think) 2 years prior to applying for university to get the reduction.Or so i've been told anyway.