Kerfuffle

Don’t worry too much about the banana feet, my daughter took to pointe very easily. If her feet are strong it shouldn’t be too much of a problem (other than the cost of replacing them!). The fitter should take into consideration the width of her foot plus toe length which all have to be assessed to work out the correct first pair. As she’s so young it will probably change a lot over time depending on how much she uses them. My daughter’s first pair was Aspirations Bloch as they had a relatively strong shank. Good luck !

Hi Bex doing associates should help, as well as taking advantage of other performance opportunities. Perhaps this time around she’ll enjoy the EYB experience more. Otherwise you can look out for workshops that pop up sometimes - Eg Nutcracker workshops. Vocational grades can be even slower than the number grades!

Thank you @Jan McNultyfor that. @rowan My daughter does RBS senior associates and took RAD intermediate but there isn’t anything that challenges her where we live as much as her present Russian school. They are by far the most connected with the industry and have really given her so much more in ballet. I know there are excellent teachers out there in all styles but this happens to be the best on offer where we live. She has done neo classical ballet as well as the classics and gets on very well with those which I would guess are somewhere between classical and contemporary.

Hi @rowan thank you for sharing your daughter’s journey and best of luck to her as she starts something new. I was out in London yesterday so had to preserve my phone battery. Taking in mind your advice on contemporary training where can you find this? My DD did lots of modern/jazz and always did well in these so I tend to think she’s got an an adequate experience in these. She looks very classical but can turn her hand to other genres such as tap too. Her Russian style school doesn’t offer contemporary except at intensives. I think she’s very quick at learning combinations so I hope that’s enough!

I don’t know how this works beyond 16 as we aren’t there yet but I feel that with my daughter she is getting good quality ballet lessons most days and this is what matters. If she was at boarding school I think the most important lesson would be the ballet one, which is where the technique is refined. Character pas de deux are great but they won’t be assessed in any US audition. I think this is enough for now but correct me if this is wrong anyone out there! She is approaching GCSE year and has always managed her school work - she agrees it’s very important. She says that having limited time helps her focus and she’s very organised as a result. Personally I wish that she could continue both at a high level but as it is here I feel like she’s going to have to put her academics on hold. If we were in Europe or USA it would be different - she could do both.

@rowanit’s so interesting to hear how your daughter made it to being a professional without attending upper or vocational school. How many hours was she doing weekly when she was 16+, were they one to one and with others? Did she do her A Levels during this time? I guess that her teachers were Russian and had a good idea that she was capable of being successful? Has she got a very classical physique - I have been told this makes a big difference in auditions? Sorry about the amount of questions I’m just really interested to know as it’s rare to hear this sort of journey.

The non Russian girls are put in a separate class at Bolshoi until they are considered good enough so I think there is a disparity in training. How did your daughter get around the lack of big name school for auditions? What style was she taught?

Do you mean the Russian schools in the U.K. or those abroad?

@BexMy daughter didn’t even know the names of steps until about RAD grade 3 because she didn’t need to! Maybe your DD could find an associate class or join her school’s performance group if there is one?

You are right, it is shades of grey and there are overlaps between different approaches . I think that sometimes parents of vocational students might think some of this is critical or patronising, making out they are naive for their choices. I believe we can learn from each other if we listen.

@NotadanceMaThank you, that is what I was referring to. @Kate_NA lot of parents posting will have information that they could back up with evidence but are protecting their source or identity - I think this is fair enough considering the ballet world is tiny. If you are going to read the posters then you need to bear this in mind. We ballet parents don’t want to expose our friends, their children or our own children to unnecessary gossip, they haven’t asked for it and deserve privacy. So if anything I write seems unsubstantiated it is because I am protecting people I know as much as possible. If we don’t discuss this then future parents of younger children can’t benefit from the collective experience - and we all know that those a bit further down the line can help hugely in this most complicated and demanding of industries!

The last two paragraphs sum this up beautifully. It’s easy to get critical of others and forget that it is an elite profession so very few prizes for very few people! I suppose the frustration as a parent is probably the worst if you have trusted a place to prepare a child for a career and then feel let down. @rowan your observations are very interesting to hear, looks like the problems that British dancers face are across the board, be it vocational or non vocational. How did your DD succeed, and did she go away to train at 16?

Hi @BalletBoysDadplease don’t feel like we are having a go at you, it’s clear that you are giving your son the very best you can and that is wonderful. The young boys in international ballet competitions can be pretty intimidating with their fantastic skills! It’s hard for even a vocational school to replicate that level of tricks when they are trying to do things safely so there will always be a bit of a mismatch. Does he have male teachers that inspire and challenge him? It’s important that he gets that sort of input as he gets older so that he can really use his developing physique to its maximum. My daughter was at a regular RAD school then switched to Russian a year ago. There are several boys there who can partner her very effectively and also are amazing soloist dancers, thanks to the teachers, (one of them is male). You might consider the hours that they do as fairly intense as it’s daily plus at weekends. They perform full professional repertoire. So it’s possible even outside WL etc to get that sort of training if you’re lucky enough to live near it! My DD does SA too. They are all older than your son - about to start their upper school training. Best of luck to your DS!

Well I’m no expert for a start having never had a DC auditioning for WL at year 6! There have been multiple discussions about this topic on this forum -“is it still about potential” being one of them. In my well loved book I had as a child “Life at the Royal Ballet School” written in the 80s it mentioned that a child could get into WL if even never having had a ballet lesson in their life! I guess that in theory it should be possible to get into vocational school doing your regular classes/associates at such a young age. Hothousing has to be a sudden increase in hours spent doing ballet, loads of private lessons in order to influence the outcome of the audition. It’s about keeping it all in perspective and in proportion to the child’s age. By 16 there will naturally be a huge difference between a pre-pro dancer and a recreational one but what I wonder is how much there should be at 10 when the body and mind is so young? I don’t know!

Maybe for much younger children the syllabus is a good idea as long as they don’t get stuck in the same grade for too long. However as @Kate_N writes professional/pre-professional classes are always free work. I think most other nations such as in USAtrain without set syllabus exams.

I absolutely agree with you about training the thinking dancer - it helps musically too because she really has to listen and interpret it as she goes along - it’s less about counts and more about rhythm and feeling the phrases. She is actually taught vaganova so would relate to what you’re saying. Being able to learn quickly is essential as a professional and also helps in auditions. Associate classes vary their exercises each time as well. I don’t think RAD was supposed to be teaching to the test it’s what it has become probably for practical reasons of different students moving into classes all the time.

I’m sorry I can’t agree with this - my DD and her friends are all advanced dancers doing free work and most are aspiring ballerinas. They learn all the same steps but also have the freedom to learn professional repertoire.

My daughter took all the RAD exams up to and including intermediate. She’s now doing syllabus free work and it’s so much more interesting for her as the exercises change with every lesson. Ideally the exercises should be varied until getting near to the exam when they can be taught in a relatively short amount of time - but I guess this is impractical from a teacher’s perspective? My daughter learned g5 in one term and managed to get 90 in an exam so it must be possible! (She was also doing classes in intermediate at the time I think). This was in a group class not one to one.

@DD Driver Thanks for your perspective, it’s good to hear your experience. I think that we need to listen to where you’re coming from too. Having private lessons I guess is necessary to polish a variation to professional standard, not exactly hothousing because anyone performing needs that. I think the hothousing people are referring to is for auditions at a very young age for WL etc which is quite different! If you have supportive teachers here it is also possible to enter YAGP/Prix de Lausanne it’s just not done as commonly - there’s nothing stopping British kids from doing the same if being trained still at home. There are many roads to Rome as it’s always being said here, and they all have their challenges. By the time a young person is thinking of upper schools it’s not unreasonable to expect that the competition is going to come globally and it’s our job as parents to research the best way of being prepared be it vocational or otherwise. Equally we can study abroad too.

I feel for you both, it’s really tough. I was a boarder in my teens at an academic (non vocational) school and that was hard even then, without having the pressure of striving to be a dancer, with only other dancers around! It sounds claustrophobic. It’s so easy to get sucked into the cult of ballet, especially once your child looks like they have potential. We’ve been lucky and my daughter (who is 15) has only just started being properly and intensely trained in the past year. She has exceptionally supportive teachers who challenge and encourage her so she’s flourishing. The next step really scares me though, I dread to think where it might take us! Whatever your son decides he’s lucky to have you understanding his situation, and supporting him. It can be a difficult addiction to give up.

That does excellent, keeping options open while showing a proper understanding in adolescent development. I think they need more of those also offering a classical programme nationwide. Nothing like that exists here either, but I’ve heard the one in Leeds is really good. Your comments about really understanding what you’re committing yourself to at 11 also resonates with a mother of a DD, it’s an extreme lifestyle that involves a lot of sacrifice and dedication. Kids need to develop their sense of identity in a loving environment, be able to accept rejection/failure with support around them. They need privacy to lick their wounds sometimes too! I know boarding school wouldn’t have worked for my DD at 11, it’s too intense and too much of a bubble.

It makes sense that proper vocational training needs to take place later, once you know the instrument you are dealing with. This goes the same for singing - you can’t mature a body before it’s ready, so young singers have to wait sometimes until they are ready, and in a similar way have to deal with voices breaking then settling. This pre-pubescent hothousing in ballet really needs to be put on hold. Hormones make a huge contribution towards becoming a dancer, boys develop the fire power for their jumps and girls can gain flexibility and bone strength through their menstrusp cycles. It also enhances their brains, and it’s at this point that they can dance with real feeling and start to understand better romantic ideas and relationships. And ages 11-14 are particularly difficult for most children in terms of emotions, body image and general changes brought about by early puberty. Of course up until that age it’s great to develop a sound classical technique, and the foundations for pointe work in the case of girls but it doesn’t have to be this crazy arms race. None of this makes parents’ decisions any easier when it comes to training choices though , and unless living in an area like London where there are lots of pre-vocational opportunities but in my opinion Europe/USA have got a better system where children stay at home for longer. We need serious investment into CAT schemes around the country or something similar, perhaps greater hours offered by Associates.

Looking at fairly recent photos of upper school students there doesn’t seem to be a very strong type they go for which makes it all the more confusing for prospective students/parents. I would guess that they are looking for the very best technically and this comes in varying physiques and often find what they are looking for at the major ballet competitions. WL/associates is more predictable maybe. From an ancient book written in the 70s “Life at the Royal Ballet School” they are very clear that the upper school takes young people from the commonwealth countries and there is no guarantee that the WLers will progress there. I suppose that parents have to decide at 11, given the evidence, what is right for their child and if they think the uncertainties are worth it. It seems to me that the older students in Vaganova and POB retain the same look throughout which is interesting but obviously they have rigorous examination processes too which must lead to assessing out. I would say that is perhaps the difference between those schools and the British ones.

So I guess the way around this to enter competitions where these kids are winning then be spotted 😏?

There is so much to learn and so many variables - not only amongst dancers but approaches to acquiring the skills. Do you wait until a single pirouette is perfect before progressing to multiples and fouettés or should these things be learned early and polished later? Different schools around the world have their own approach and the young dancer accepted in one school might not respond well to another school’s teaching. A lot of 11 year olds are at an odd stage of development - I think choosing at this age is favouring the smaller compact gymnast style dancer who hasn’t entered puberty yet. Not so good if you’re either developing or a bit gangly! It’s only at about 15 that you really know what kind of body someone might have, let alone their own preferences for classical, more contemporary or just wanting a more typical teenage life of hanging out with friends !