Kerfuffle

Unfortunately I think £230 a week is pretty  cheap for central London and Chelsea is a particularly nice location. You might find that you get something towards maintenance - I think that is separate. Ballet training is expensive everywhere but the plus side is the training is great and being at ENBS you are connected to the industry - they regularly see ENB performances and it’s all related to their academics. I would see where your DC gets in and then look at the finances rather than limiting her options.

Hi Lightfoot Halls are off the Kings Rd in Chelsea so are pretty pricey - the cheapest option is sharing a room at £235 but there are single rooms which go up to about £450 with some options inbetween. My DD’s room has a shower and a kitchen. The main problem is getting a room because by the time you find out you have a place at the school there aren’t many rooms to choose from because they are already booked for the following year. There seem to be other options but Lightfoot is great because it’s so close and feels very safe. There are large kitchens you can use as well. 

I would be also concerned that naturally petite dancers are given a hard time about their weight - if they are healthy in their mind and body that should be acceptable too. 

2 hours ago, SpideyDad said:

Thanks @Kerfuffle - I hope DD is enjoying it: if I remember correctly, the early weeks are intense!

Hi Spidey! DD is settling in fine. I’m amazed how quickly they adapt! It is intense, you’re right but all good so far ! 
 

@WhereToNow The halls are great, very clean and the people at reception are friendly and helpful. Chelsea is very safe and as Spidey says, it’s fascinating to see how the other half live - reality TV stars frequently spotted ! 🤣

1 hour ago, SpideyDad said:

Hi @WhereToNow,

There are a few ENBS parents on here: is there anything specific that you need to know?

Yes, ask SpideyDad! I am an ENBS parent but DD has just started.

9 hours ago, capybara said:

 

I do so agree with this. I don't think that I'm alone in having seen established artists in more than one Company treated by repetiteurs/teachers as if they were inexperienced students. Completely unacceptable and disrespectful at a personal level - the more so since, at worst, it can amount to artistic repression.

 

However, there are promising signs that a 'new generation' of coaches is more focused on helping dancers to evolve their own interpretations. Of course, the choreography needs to be delivered 'correctly' but why any Principal or Soloist should be expected to put up with (surely outdated) authoritarian approaches to developing a role is beyond my understanding.

 

I think it’s really the amount of information that a dancer has to hold in their minds when learning a role which means professionals are reminded of certain technical elements. I don’t think that it’s meant to be patronising. My son is training as a classical singer (opera) and in this area singers have one to one teachers throughout their careers as well as in rehearsal. It’s just part of the process and doesn’t need to be belittling. 

Opera singers reach their peak much later than dancers (in 40s) and I’d prefer to hear a really good mature singer than one who isn’t ready for the role. 

For those in the south west I recommend Bristol Russian Ballet School and their Youth Ballet at weekends, plus intensives at Easter and Summer. This was where my DD trained for 2 years. 

31 minutes ago, Balletchick said:

I am also struggling with this, although we have a little more time on our hands. DD is, on paper, a reasonable prospect. Good turnout. Very flexible. Nice feet. Good musicality. Skinny as a rake. But I don't know what she'll be like in 5 years time! She wants to dance. She's (at the moment) not sure about going away to school. I'd like to keep her home until 16 at least. We have a decent dance school and are close to intensives and associates schemes (geographically). My question is - are these as toxic? Is auditioning for RBS JAs, or Northern CAT likely to expose her to the same sort of toxicity? It would be mitigated by her being at home, and at her normal school, but I'd still rather have my eyes open. What about summer schools? If I send her away to RBS or Elmhurst for summer school, will she be exposed to harm? What about the programmes like Northern, Moorlands, etc?

I think follow your instincts and try out the associates/CAT schemes. You can always give them up if they don’t work for your child, much easier than removing them from boarding school. All these experiences will give your child a chance to see what works for her, who she clicks with. This is what we have found - my DD has just started upper school after being at a regular school. 

50 minutes ago, Beezie said:

From my US experiences, I have seen a culture where the norm is training through after-school studios.  Here are the pros and cons I see:

 

Pro:

-Constant eyes on your child

-Children maintain non-ballet friendships

-Children can integrate back into the non-ballet world more easily

 

Cons:

-Difficulty finding quality teaching.  It exists but takes more investigation.

-Parents need to be more active in ballet training, including more driving to practices etc (I stress….lots more driving to get the same experiences.)

-Children more likely to self-select out.  (This might be a pro, depending on whether they would have left ballet anyway….and if they leave on better terms.)

-When you get into private after-school training, some teachers will keep you hooked because it is their revenue stream.  It is hard to get a true understanding of capabilities.  
-No sense of ‘being discovered.’  Admittedly, the way these ballet school are run allows young parents and students to initially feel like rock-stars.  (Debatably, this might be the beginning of the ‘grooming’ people discuss.)

 

I would also just add that after-school programs can be toxic too.  Parents need to always remain vigilant.  And sometimes you don’t fully understand if a situation is toxic until you have removed yourself and your child from that environment.  It supports a situation where you want to diversify your childrens’ experiences….perhaps different classes and associates affiliations.

I would say much of the same applies here to after school training. I think the major difference is that there seem to be far more high level options in USA if you have the money to pay for it so more teenagers are pursuing the dream. I met loads of such families at a YAGP summer intensive in Italy. They were generally very friendly crowd but I did hear some fairly shocking tales of what went on both at American schools and also in European schools they attended. Body shaming again and extremely blunt criticism of a friend’s child who clearly was very talented. Behind the scenes there were some pretty terrifying ADs of the top competition schools, I would not want to cross one of those ! 
 

Unfortunately toxic environments are fairly typical in after hours Ballet schools too. Often your child at 16 can be the only one with an ambition to go to upper school and that can be lonely. Also no one at school fully understands your commitment to training several hours every evening. It’s  been a huge effort balancing dance training with GCSEs and audition year, working so hard at both! 
 

Sending a child away at 16 probably is a safer option. I have just packed off my DD to a top school and it’s going very well so far. It’s a big deal leaving your child to fend for themselves but at least I have been able to prepare her for that. 

22 minutes ago, Kat09 said:

Exactly this - I was told by my daughters form teacher that “your daughter must hate to look at herself in the mirror everyday”  perhaps the worst day of my life!! For clarity this was not at Elmhurst or RBS

What a monstrous thing to say to a parent about a young dancer! It makes me wonder what kind of experience this teacher had had themselves to say such a hateful thing. 

These problems seem to be very common at lower school level, not just the ones mentioned. It’s very important to have some input from a teacher who truly believes in and nurtures your child @littledancer99

9 hours ago, Melody said:

I wonder how much this really is just at the school level and how much is because a certain body type is required by companies these days, with the sort of gymnastic choreography they're doing, and that schools have to produce the sorts of dancers that the companies want. Especially now that the dancers seem to be taller than they were, which makes some of the lifts (especially involving the man walking around the stage with the woman draped around him) more strenuous unless the dancers are thinner to compensate for the extra height. With companies getting more and more homogeneous, there isn't that much scope in the ballet world for a prospective dancer to look elsewhere without leaving ballet altogether. 

 

It's sad to think that dancers with feminine bodies like Margot Fonteyn and Lynn Seymour might very well not make it through school these days, if they were even accepted in the first place, because the body type is so important. Frederick Ashton did have a grouse about the shapeless dancers he came across later in his career (what he actually said was a bit more X-rated, but that was the general idea). Honestly, when you see a dancer in profile in her tutu, from the neck down it could very easily be a boy- no breasts, no hips. But that's the style Balanchine wanted from the start, hence his baby-ballerina choices very early in his career, and that's what we seem to be stuck with.

 

I don't know how things are in Russia nowadays, but I remember one documentary where a dancer was proudly saying at around midday that she'd had nothing to eat all day but just existed on black coffee, and it cut to a scene in the cafeteria where another dancer took what seemed to be several minutes to choke down one forkful of rice. This is giving youngsters a terrible example - being tall and thin, not eating, existing on black coffee and cigarettes, and having to deal with much more physically challenging choreography requiring all sorts of injury-risking extensions and acrobatics, is just dangerous.

Russia requires girls to be extremely thin , they have a chart according to height, I know girls who have had to lose an alarming amount of weight before going there. In Europe schools in Austria, Germany and Switzerland have also been in the news for body shaming/abuse and some closed down the problems are so serious. I don’t know about USA. Would be interesting to hear of any accounts people might have. 

20 minutes ago, LinMM said:

If we are going to accept more realistic body shapes and weight for women then this is bound to have a knock on affect for male dancers. We need more variety there too …at least some taller and stronger men within a company which I think is starting to happen. 

I have heard that the Russian schools are also concerned about the men ruining their lines by bulking up their arms too much with muscle. The men definitely need to have the strength developed too to allow for a broader range of female physiques. 

Are the schools actually behind the companies in regards to aesthetics? Is this particular to lower schools only? At company level there must also be a requirement for bodies that can perform contemporary repertoire convincingly - much of which is more grounded and less ethereal? 
Something that I can never seem to find is where the lower school kids end up studying afterwards - this is surely part of being accountable too ? 

There is a lot to be said for a wider education until 16. Maybe we need an overhaul with more CAT schemes, associates etc. 7 million could be redirected towards those instead! 

On 06/09/2023 at 20:50, littledancer99 said:

Thank you 

what hours wise is expected to be on par? 

I think I know several of the dancers mentioned here, one is possibly my DD. I would say that in our experience the hours don’t have to be quite as much as vocational schools. The most important thing to try and replicate is a daily class even if it is in the evenings - my daughter did about 8-10 hours a week. The tricky thing is to find it at a high enough level. My DD was lucky we had great  local school which was Russian and they really challenged her for the past two years that she was with them ( she was RAD before that). She learned to perform variations confidently and this really developed her artistry. I think that other styles of ballet can also do this as long as the lessons are varied enough. I think having the right physique and facility are very important - there’s no guarantee unfortunately that the 11 year old going into a vocational school will come out right for ballet   at 16, it’s a lot of guesswork. Training  at home until 16 is easier in the sense that you avoid that problem. The downside is that it’s  hard work juggling all this ballet with regular education. So it’s swings and roundabouts! 

Which one or do you prefer not to say ? (Which is ok I understand). 

Are the kids at either WL or Elmhurst shamed for their weight? Do they have weight charts like in Russia? Or is it more the manner of the teachers and the extremely high amounts of assessing out at WL in particular? I wonder if it’s only lower schools. 

I think it’s good to add in other dance disciplines too - such as modern, jazz or tap. They can help with performance and musicality. Learning to dance in a group is very useful, rather than just focusing on solo work. 

I agree. The situation in Russia is very unpredictable.  If things got more serious, even with the support of the nicest teachers back home your child could be stuck there unable to get help. If you are Russian then visiting is fine but as  a British National it would be totally different.

It’s certainly not a safe place right now. Fortunately there are plenty of excellent schools offering fantastic training opportunities throughout Europe and the rest of the world. 

9 hours ago, Peanut68 said:

A couple of indirect things on this thread that I’m curious about….wondering if there was support from the UK vocational school to enter YAGP… did the school select & enter pupil & assist with coaching & financing? 
Secondly, can Russian institutions currently send teachers to overseas intensives etc? Am I naive in imagining there would be travel   restrictions on that & on actively recruiting for students etc considering world events…?

The schools can and do recruit those who still want to go out there, in fact some of them need the money from the foreign students. The foreign office has serious warnings about going out to Russia and the ability for the consulate to bring British nationals back in the event of emergency. 

23 hours ago, FionaE said:

Answer = yes.  
 

A British girl from Bristol Russian Ballet School was offered a place at the Vaganova Academy after participating in a summer school in Spain.  Some of the teachers were from VA

 

I should add … she did have a scholarship for this summer school which she won at a competition in Italy where Zenaida Yanowsky was on the jury. 

Hi Fiona she got her scholarship to the Alicante summer course earlier on in the year not at the festival in Italy. If you want to be considered for Vaganova they will watch you during the intensive, which is similar to the set up in many USA summer courses. 

I am telling the truth. I’m now leaving this forum as this isn’t somewhere where we parents of dancers can speak honestly.