Sadly our ballet teacher is getting a little confused after the pandemic and has only started putting students in for exams again recently. (She is quite elderly, but a great teacher and dedicates her life to the children she teaches). We had a query about the music for the exam dance and she wasn’t sure of the answers. So she suggested that we contacted the ISTD. We emailed, but they declined to answer and told us to to ask our teacher. Is there anyone here who can answer the questions below related to the exam music? Our daughter is the only person taking grade 3 this session and she made up her own dance with her teacher’s help. After we phoned, the ISTD suggested emailing, so here is the email we sent, minus their response. Many thanks in advance.
Our daughter is preparing for her Grade 3 Cecchetti ballet exam and I have a couple of questions on the syllabus. I spoke to your colleague this afternoon who suggested I email this address.
The questions relate to the dance element of the syllabus:
“Teacher’s choice of a classical or demi-charactere solo, not to exceed 45 seconds. Piano music must be used.”
First, with regard to the 45 second limit, the solo that our daughter has prepared with her teacher has 45 seconds of dancing, but there are around 6 seconds of introduction in the music before she starts to dance. We just wanted to clarify that this is within the rules?
Second, we just wanted to confirm the definition of “piano music”. The piece that our daughter has selected with her teacher is a piano concerto and the recorded music is therefore piano and orchestra. Is this OK?
