Ballet advice please, any experts?

[micah]

DD, age 6, has expressed an interest in "proper ballet". She has been doing ballet in school, but it's not enough for her.

Now I did ballet as a child, and by sheer accident ended up with an ex-royal ballet teacher. I think we did BBO exams- we had little theory booklets and had to recite them as part of the exam.

Because of this I haven't been happy with the couple of ballet schools we tried with older DD, or I've seen/heard about. Many these days seem to be "theatre schools" and do combined ballet/dance/tap. Or they're waft round in a little pink leotard in a church hall.

So I'm looking for a ballet class which teaches proper technique. Which syllabus should I be looking at? I can't find BBO, only IDTA/RAD/ISTD. Where to I start looking? I'm in a fairly big city, so how do I find the good places out of the hundreds?

Thanks!

[taxi4ballet]

Hi, you might like to look at balletcoforum, huge amount of useful information on there, plus loads of parents, teachers and pro dancers who will be able to help.

[micah]

Thanks, will take a look :)

[lecherrs]

I'm no expert, but I think things may have moved on from your day, and you can certainly find a teacher that teaches proper technique with RAD or ISTD. Certainly, my daughter's old ballet school was ISTD and they managed to get girls in to the Royal Ballet, Tring and Elmhurst (mixture of associate and full time places). My DD is at a different school now (still ISTD) and a number of past dancers have gone on to professional dance schools and joined professional dance companies.

Both dance schools teach the works - ballet, tap, modern, jazz....

They're still good dance schools though!

[micah]

Thanks!

I know many teach all different styles, and that's a good thing! The places near here though do "dance" classes, rather than specific ballet, you can't choose to do ballet only. Most are Saturday morning (babysitting ;) ), so you drop your child for a couple of hours and they do 30 mins tap, ballet, then modern. Leave them all morning and they do a bit of singing and acting too!

If we get down the line a bit and she wants to explore other styles, great. But I'd like to just start off by learning ballet properly first.

[chauffeurmummy]

I think the problem quite often is that a lot of the 'proper' dance schools don't have websites, they rely on recommendation and word of mouth. Which is all well and good unless you don't know who to ask!

The ISTD website lists their teachers so I just went through the list and emailed them all asking what they offered and when. I short listed and then my dd chose her favourite after several trial classes. If you search on ISTD ballet, but also search on ISTD Tap/Modern as a lot of teachers teach RAD ballet and ISTD tap/modern - but you won't know without asking.

I don't know anything about the other dance boards though I am afraid.

Although RAD may do the "find a teacher" thing themselves actually, so maybe the other boards do too.

Hope that helps!

[taxi4ballet]

The RAD website is helpful, and you can search for a teacher on there too.

[teacherwith2kids]

Another way of doing it is to look at the results of your local dance festivals.

This www.federationoffestivals.org.uk/festivals-a-z/ is a place to start, althiough it isn't by any means complete - only 1 of the 3 large festvals DD competes in yearly are in there. Or search [your city] [dance festival].

Look at the schools that are placed, specifically in the Classical or Ballet Groups sections but also who wins e.g. the ballet championship trophies and which school the come from.

It will, usually, narrow your search down to the 'serious' schools. I would also say that, round here, all the 'good' dance schools have their own studios, and don't work out of schools or other halls, and they all offer classes up to 18, including both graded ballet classes - up to at least Grade 6 - and vocational grades (e.g. Inter Foundation).

I am very lucky - where we live DD has a choice of 2 very serious dance schools, but I agree it can be difficult to find them initially as they don't advertise at all.

[teacherwith2kids]

Another list of possible dance festivals to explore, as many of in the above link are music festivals:
www.all-england-dance.org.uk/images/pdf/directory-of-nominated-festivals.pdf

However, again I would say that it is not complete.

[taxi4ballet]

Bear in mind though, that the number of 'festival' dance schools varies wildly by district. Where we live, I know of about 30 or so dance schools within about a 25-mile radius, and only two of them enter students for festivals.

Also, I wouldn't say that you should disregard dance schools in village halls and only consider 'proper' dance studios. Many of these village halls were originally designed and built with sprung floors, and it is the quality of the teaching which makes a good school (IMHO).

[teacherwith2kids]

Taxi, I understand that.

But I was thinking about the 'filters' I would apply to the 20+ dance schools locally to arrive at the few 'serious' ones (run by faculty members of the major exam boards), if I had no local network to rely on.

The 'festival' one is the strictest filter, and, locally, the one that weeds out immediately the 'theatre school' type places that the OP seeks to avoid. It may not work the same elsewhere.

Again, locally, the quality teachers are, mainly, attached to the quality dance schools who have their own studios. There are, of course, be a few sprinkled amongst the other 20+ who don't - but for someone like the OP, sifting out 'the ones with best teachers' from 'the rest' is very tricky, and some crude filters that arrive at serious dance schools, even if they inadvertantly rule out some perfecty possible options along the way, may be helpful.

Of course, if there was a 'quality of ballet teaching' measure that was universal, easily accessible and understandable to the non-dancing parent, then that could be used directly. In its absence, then some [admittedly crude] 'proxy' measures may be helpful.

[KatyMac]

I found a great dance teacher through the yellow pages/internet. I had no idea about qualifications apart from wanting ISTD as DD/DH did medals in another discipline in ISTD.

I wanted a teacher who listened to what I wanted - a trial lesson to see if it was possible to teach DD (she was much older, than your DD)

I lucked out - my teacher has never done a festival, only done one show & never had a child at an associate scheme but was an ex-performer & has been amazing for my DDwho starts at vocational school on Monday

It might be worth contacting the closest associate scheme to see what schools send pupils there (although they might not tell you) - I think Balletco might be your best bet tbh

[teacherwith2kids]

I accidentally found a great teacher following a chance encounter at the playground with a local mum!

[teacherwith2kids]

A Yellow Pages search for dance schools in my town gives 51 results.

Using 7 years of 'reluctant ballet mum' knowledge, I can filter that down to 2 serious, 2 others that teach technique reasonably well but are significantly less serious, and a long tail of 'the rest' (the 51 don't include the theatre school 'chain franchises' that also teach some dance). But I couldn't have done that when DD started - I can absolutely see how tricky it is for the OP with no 'insider knowledge' to draw upon.

[KatyMac]

I have about 4 within 45 miles

Blimey, that's different

[Picturesinthefirelight]

Some if the more serious ballet schools in
My area don't do festivals at all.
Their students tend to do things like Associate classes & stuff instead.

Dd used to go to a RAD school before going to Vocational school.

[teacherwith2kids]

Katy, Before that Yellow Pages search, I would have been able to name about 8-10. The fact that there were 51 surprised me a lot!

[taxi4ballet]

The successful festival schools can tend to actively encourage total commitment to festivals, but this means they also actively discourage any other commitments, such as associate programmes and youth ballet companies etc, since they can clash with rehearsals and festival dates.

Rather than regarding festival successes as a measure of the relative calibre of local schools, I personally would be more inclined to look at the number of students from the school accepted by the major vocational schools for full-time training and for associate programmes.

Of course, others would run a mile from such a school, and would much rather go to one that is fun and doesn't take things so seriously.

You pays your money and takes your choice I suppose!

[teacherwith2kids]

taxi,

Locally, the two measures - festival success and vocational school entry, associates etc - would result in a shortlist of the same schools - but I do understand that that wouldn't always be the case in every area.

[Whyjustwhyagain]

The British Ballet Organization (BBO) has list of accredited schools on their website -listed from home page as "find a teacher"

[taxi4ballet]

That's right, it depends on where you live. The nearest RAD school to us doing festivals is 20 miles away.

Travel 40 miles up the road and there are far more festival schools (mainly in towns were the festivals are held!) than there are round here.

[dancestomyowntune]

Our dance school is a very good one with upwards of 200 students ranging from eighteen months to nineteen. We have great successes at festivals, several junior associates, offer IDTA and RAD training in ballet, ISTD in modern, tap, jazz and Greek. Close to us there are (off the top of my head), at least five other 'serious' schools, and then others that have good festival results but are smaller/not as focused/don't offer as much. We have a good crop of students each year getting places at all the dance colleges and schools. Our own studios, and a show every fifteen months. Dd1 has been there nine years and dances every day. How did we find it? Word of mouth. Ask your dds friends mums.

[micah]

I've just done a quick yell search for "ballet schools" my area, and got 104 results!!

I have asked everyone I know, including a couple of dance teachers (dd's "baby dance" and the school dance teacher), but as they don't teach in dance schools they can't help. None of her friends do ballet, or if they do it's "stage school" classes.

Thanks for all the input, I've never heard of festivals, so I'll do some research there.

[Picturesinthefirelight]

Do you mind saying what area you are in?

[aloysiusa]

Interesting thread
Are the festivals the same as the comp schools?

We tried ballet lessons there, and I found they didn't take the ballet and exams as seriously as they were so focussed on the competition work.

Good tip about asking associate classes which schools most pupils come from . You never know, they might tell you

[taxi4ballet]

Round here there are a number of comp schools, and they tend to do disco freestyle, street, acro, latin & ballroom etc. Some of them offer ballet classes, but maybe as a sideline rather than the main focus.