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Going Back to ballet continued...


Fiz

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Fiz: I know you will.

 

I assume from what you have said, that you know what you have to do in the show.

Are you dancing in a single scene, multiple scenes and multiple rolls, please tell me all about it. I really envy you, I know I’m not ready for it yet but I cant wait. I hope I can persuade Nicky may dance teacher to put on a ballet performance at our local theatre next year. She did put on one for tap this year and two of our ballet girls took part, they have tried to recruit me for tap but it’s just not my thing.

 

Manage to do a full workout this morning as its ballet for me tonight at Lincoln after a 40 mile drive.

 

PS Thank you for your comments on the other threads too

 

Michelle x

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I sympathise, Michelle, I could not tap if my life depended on it! I have had two lessons. My lovely St Albans ballet teacher, Mrs Marjorie Stanniforth, who taught my Mum's best friend to dance, thought I would be good at tap because I was at ballet. I was a disaster! I had one lesson as an adult and have sworn off tap for life :D

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Hi Fiz: Drive to Lincoln tonight was awful, thick fog for half the journey there and for most of the journey back. Two of the girls from last week were missing, but we had some new faces, there were 6 of us all together, all but one in there early twenties, Kat our teacher is only 28, nice enough but only focuses on the positives, I seldom get the feedback when its crap and to me that devalues the compliments. With my other teacher Nicky, you really do have to earn the compliment, so then they mean something.

 

I’ve planted the seed for a Christmas get together for the class, spoken to Kat and one of the organisers, should be putting it to everyone after our half term break, I think it should be a flyer.

 

OK about the tap, I guess I will only join out tap class, is if it’s a route to a performance which can include ballet. I have been to a performance which has been a fusion of several dance types including ballet and tap.

 

You still haven’t told me about your show, are you keeping it under wraps to increase the suspense I wonder?

 

Michelle x

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We don't get much feed back either whereas we had plenty from our previous teacher. She is only focussing on the vocational students, although she did tell me I did not need coaching for pirouettes, which I had never done in class before ( I had at home). We are doing a Spanish dance (no tutus for the older dancers :( ) and I do not know if there will be any more. It is not until February.

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Fiz: AWWW no Tutu’s so what costumes will you ware?

 

As for pirouettes, Nicky my local teacher has already said she will not teach those, however I am sure she will give me guidance once the class has left. My other teacher Kat has started us on pirouette prep this week, so I expect when we get back after half term she will follow it through with simple pirouette exercises. I have tried at home with varying degrees of success, but I know I’m not doing them properly. Until my back is fully recovered my balance is a bit crap, I couldn’t even stand on one leg during the cool down last night without wobbling, something I’ve done tons of times before in all sorts of classes. I even go for two to three minutes on my wobble board with out any problem, so I just put it down to a little additional core stiffness.

 

I thought I was home and dry Sunday night at my dance class, we were doing Bachata at the end of the sequence was a dip for the ladies. Before we went into it Debs one of my teacher say I didn’t have to do it. I was dancing with a really stocky guy (lot of counter balance), I was well loosened up by then, he looked at me and I said “go for it”, I went into the best part of a 180 degree swooping low back bend dip, far exceeded what the other ladies did. Debs said, that therapy seems to have fixed your back. I’m OK if I keep it mobile, but I’m extremely stiff first thing in the morning, but it clearing and no more tabs since my ticking off.

 

Michelle x

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Fiz: You’re right its not the same, have you not got any influence with the choreographers/ designers of the show?, I’m sure you can put a good case forward, are there others in the same position, how do they feel?, after all you are paying for your ballet training, so you should get some say in it.

 

Had a bit of fun this afternoon:

After chatting to one of my other dance teachers about my Ballet Aerobic training plan, she suggested the possibility of adding a weight lifting bar to my pumping grand plié in second position. If you pump at the bottom end of a grand plié you can really feel it working the leg muscles. She also teaches Zumba and various other fitness classes, she did ballet when she was younger and her mum was a professional ballerina.

Anyway I went to Argos and bought a spinnaker bar, the sales receipt said caution weight 20kg, when it arrived at the dispatch desk the assist said “be careful it heavy”, Another guy in a suit possibly the manager said “I can see its not for you”, I said “Oh yes it is” and picked it up. I was expecting 20kg, it wasn’t it was considerably lighter, the guy in the suit said “I can see you know how to handle that”, so I said “yes its for my ballet”, he was speechless. I gave him a big fat smile and walked off with it in one hand. I really love teasing macho guys like that. The bar was only 6.3kg. Not going to use it yet until my back is fully recovered.

Edited by Michelle_Richer
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I don't want to rock the boat, Michelle :( It took a lot of searching the net to find this school. I don't understand as all three of us have decent legs and waist for our ages but there you are. :o

(Edited for spelling)

Edited by Fiz
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Fiz: That really is a shame, it must be gorgeous to perform on stage in a really nice tutu, and a real disappointment when its less. I wish I had nice legs and waist as I’m a bit plumper than I want to be, which you can see from my photo on the doggie thread, however it will come off, I have completely changed me eating habits against the guidelines of a couple of ballet books, and as you know I’m not short of exercise, I have set a weight loss objective of 2 stone and a stretch objective of 3. My only worry is previously when I went a bit mad with fitness training, the weight loss made my face look a bit gaunt..

 

Morning workout this morning was a bit tougher than usual, think it was because I woke up with a stiff back. Been out tonight at one of my dance classes, its week 6 and they are still struggling for numbers, I don’t know what there breakeven numbers are but I think it must be below it, I know they were testing the water with an 8 week run. I know they said they would try some local advertising and a free Salsa party, but I don’t hold out a lot of hope. It needs heavy promotion where the dancers and potential dancer are, that’s what we do for another group I belong to do.

 

I’m surprised there was no comments to my post #153, do I take it that we are the only Adult ballet dancers under part time training, or is it that the majority of adults like ourselves do not know of this site?

 

Or do other sites exist, I know of critical dance which I am a member of, but its international and not specifically for ballet.

 

Michelle x

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Thank you Just Ballet:

 

I have some enquiries out via email, if I don’t get any responses by next week I will try phoning but I’m not sure if they are affected by half term breaks.

 

I’m also of the opinion, that if such things don’t exist, to create it, or at least conduct a feasibility study to determine the critical mass of dancers required to make it viable.

 

But there is an awful lot of ground work to be done first to establish the dancers requirements and choices, unfortunately I’m basing things on my own dance workshop experience which would be difficult to draw parallels, and the basis of my experience is a venue accomodating around 500 dancers of mixed abilities with at least two choices of class for each of the four possible grades, any dancer can mix and match grades, its entirely up to the individual to choose.

That’s a big venue with lots of separate rooms and teachers at an appropriate level, my last workshop was the International Cuban Salsa Congress held at a castle in Wales, the builder was run by Warner Leisure.

 

 

Not quite sure how ballet would match up, I guess there would be a need for multiple grades, not sure of the number but I guess at least three.

 

Choices of venue comes down to costing and availability of the venue, if the venue is not a specialist ballet school then there will be hire of equipment ( Audio systems, portable ballet Barre’s and mirrors plus the cost of the initial setup). Down side, floors may not be strung.

 

Specialist venues, all this is likely to be available in one hit, I know this is available from RAD, but it’s expensive at £40 to £50 an hour for each room. I guess discounting is available dependant upon the number of room / days required, Downside accomodation will need to be arranged outside of dance school as part of package.

 

I think the first stage is a wish list of requirements, it may be if the demand is big enough, then we may even get someone like RAD to host it, I’m just thinking out loud at the moment. What do you think?

 

PS will try Chelsea Ballet, Any details I get I will post, not sure if we need to set up a new thread?

Edited by Michelle_Richer
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Mary did raise the question of changing the skirts last night and I put in a plea for tutus but it was firmly rejected by someone who had been there for eight years. Well, I am thinner than her :rolleyes: (meow! I did work for it, though :) ). I was not pleased and nor, I think, was Mary.

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Mary did raise the question of changing the skirts last night and I put in a plea for tutus but it was firmly rejected by someone who had been there for eight years. Well, I am thinner than her :rolleyes: (meow! I did work for it, though :) ). I was not pleased and nor, I think, was Mary.

 

Could you suggest a mixture of romantic and classical tutus, in the same colour? That might work?

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Something about the set of the person in question's mouth tell me she is stubborn and not easy to persuade, Spanner :(

 

You have nothing to lose by asking the teacher. Even if the class votes no, you're just back where you are now. :-)

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Re Chelsea Ballet

I have had two replies this afternoon from them (Louise Hudson), I’m really impressed by that. They are still trying to confirm a venue for August 2013, accommodation you have to arrange yourself. She is going to contact me as soon as the venue is confirmed and I will post the details on the forum.

Edited by Michelle_Richer
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I have found another Adult Summer School but again the 2013 info has not been finalised as yet its:

 

The Place ,17 Duke's Road ,London WC1H 9PY http://www.theplace.org.uk

 

I have had a telephone conversation with them today, what they did say was, it was likely that they will be running 3 one week summer schools in August, each weeks tuition being provided by a separate ballet company. The cost is dependant upon the number of classes you take during the week. The basic cost is £60 per class per week, each class lasts for one and a half hours between 10am and 7.30pm with the usual breaks

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Oh I wish I lived in London!

 

I have an enquirey running in Scotland with the RCS, will that do. I tried Scottish Ballet, but they only have weekly classes and no summer schools.

 

PS I may even consider looking at the US.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Found another local adult ballet class in my area Sleaford (20 miles away), waiting for email reply, that should give me three classes a week, possibly four.

 

Popping into an EB class at the Royal Opera House on wednesday as a drop in dancer, to see what they are up to.

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Isn’t it true when you live in a place, you take it for granted and basically don’t explore its potential as its on your door step. I used to live in the town of Boston, but never climbed Boston stump (St Batolph’s Church), only climbed it after we moved away.

I live near the town of Spalding, but I never have attended its famous flower parade.

 

For all the facilities and entertainment of a city, I still prefer the countryside, I live in the centre of a lovely little village but don’t have any close neighbours, I have 400ft of river frontage over looking a private park, a church opposite and those neighbours definitely can’t complain. Across the road at an angle we have a lovely pub called the mermaid, it has fabulous meals which I now cannot eat as I am dieting for ballet Grrrr. The property has twice been featured in the county magazine “Lincolnshire life”.

I just love the tranquillity of being in the garden in summer, its enormously therapeutic, the only downside is, this time of year, the leaf fall seems to last forever. I cleared 20 bags of leaves two weeks ago, there is a similar quantity back on the ground again, hopefully by the end of this month most of it will have fallen.

 

I will leave when they carry me out in a box, for me this really is home and where my roots and memories are.

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Fabulus Ballet session tonight, only three students including me, all newbies, a young man of about 20 and a girl of about 22. and we acually started pirouettes tis week as a follow on from last sessions prep for pirouette, which we also repeated this week for the newbies. A really good night.

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