Michelle_Richer

Hi LinMM This is the last info I got from City Academy: Waltz of the Swans, Odette's solo and Pas de Quatre (Cygnet Dance). If they have a male participant the schedule may change to Odette and Prince Siegfried 1st encounter scene, Odette's solo and coda with Corps de ballet. Don’t forget there will be a friend and family performance at the end. Odette solo has an easy and harder option, the harder one is a little bit simplified as I’m learning the full on version, but never the less will have to dance what City come up with on the day. I spoke to Tony last Tuesday at ENB, he is still unsure if he's going, but I will keep you posted on that. One class done already today, two more to go. Wednesday I’m doing a rep workshop on Le Corsaire with ENB at Oxford, I don’t know what scenes were dancing so I’m going in cold on that one. I hope we do Waltz of the Swans too, I did that with LAB, I didn’t get a choice there, I was at the front facing the audience, on right hand side, we were three columns of eight girls, needless to say I had no one to follow, that was awesome and I was also way outside my comfort zone. I know I could have done a lot better, but I wouldn’t swap that experience for the work.

Thank you Janet, its a really nice example.

Balleteacher Ref Post 1122 You don’t think I could let that post go without a comment do you? Whilst I don’t in principle disagree with what you are saying. I do believe in reality it’s an over simplification. How well a student dancer learns a combination is not just down to there ability to remember but also by the way it’s presented and made memorable by the teacher. A student dancer’s confidence is another aspect, perhaps that why some prefer to have someone to follow and of course as LinMM implied in post 1123“It can just be that one had a bad day”. If the class selection is a total miss match then a student dancer is not likely to enjoy it and is likely to leave. What we shouldn’t be doing is creating a culture where someone finds the odd combination difficult, making them feel inadequate thus destroying there confidence and forcing them to leave either by pressure from the teacher or peer pressure from other dancers. Those situations are quite different. It should also be remembered that the vast majority of adult classes do cater for a wide range of abilities and graded classes are not that common unless you’re in a big city like London. I would also make the point that where dancers only attend one or two classes a week, they get to know those teachers styles and combinations very well, as each teacher will have her favourites and the way she assembles them. That in itself will limit the range of a student ability to cope with unfamiliar steps and combinations created by other schools. As for me, if I’m not being challenged in some way, then I feel I’m definitely not working hard enough. That’s why I attend so many classes, both with and without a grading structure. If I do find something particularly difficult or challenging, I take it on board for homework and work it through until it becomes strength rather than a weakness, I certainly don’t give up and say I can’t do it, I had better go down a grade. I’m not one for living in a comfort zone either. However with ENB I do attend both Level 2 and Level 3, those are MY CHOICE, level 2 which is extremely easy, which underpins level 3 and level 3 is quite comfortable but occasionally I may get challenged by remembering to odd combination. Level 4(advanced) I will try the taster early next year as I intend to do another term in January of levels 2 and 3. When I move to 4 then I will carry on with level 3 to underpin it, that my strategy and it makes very logical sense to me. One of the nicest classes I went too was Northern Ballet’s Intermediate/Advanced class, however I only got to do two classes there before it was time to return back to ENB, with out a doubt it’s the teacher that makes the class and she was a really fantastic teacher, really easy to learn from. LinMM I note your comment in Post 1113 ref “Odette's white or black swan solo”, don’t forget you will be dancing “Odette’s (White) solo from Act 2”, as I ask Rejane to include it; it’s in both options now, with and without male dancer at the workshop. Even I wont attempt the Black Swan variation just yet. Need to get my turns sorted first. I'm interested, at what sort of level are travelling turns around the room are taught. I need these for Giselle's first variation, whilst I can now both spot and navigate the appropriate circumference with music set at half speed for Giselle, and go at full speed with music down the diagonal, I cannot do both (YET). As for LAB Spring Intensive, Tom only teaches for one standard which is different to that of City. I personally really like Toms style, I learn a lot from him, he is one of my best teachers. I know we are doing a corpe de ballet piece from Sleeping Beauty but not what scene, as Tom has not decided. The style is not unlike that we did at Chelsea Ballet with Pilates, general class (Barre and Centre) and pointe work for those that are experiences on point (No beginners), those that are not on point (majority) do the same class on demi. Only half of the schedule each day is spent on rep and rehearsal. During the last LAB SI show, all Swan Lake that we did, everyone was on demi, it was only a short enchainement in the middle of the show that was a mixture of en pointe and demi, dancing together. Fiz Are you still going to Lincoln, if so do you have a date?, as we need a minimum of four to get the Lincoln pointe class off the ground, otherwise I will chip in for two to make it happen. The Angles Theatre pointe class is another tiny one, its been cancelled a couple of times but its still going, we are purely concentrating on foot strengthening at this stage, although one girl has some experience en pointe.

Interesting thread running, but I think its way off beam. Firstly mimi66 comment : . “If one is not yet able to 1) pick up the enchainement on the spot 2) reverse to the other side without much difficuly and 3) excecute the enchainement with reasonably technical accuracy and artisitry, then even the watered-down version is too difficult for us.” This is an extremely wrong and dangerous assumption to make. I have known girls at Pineapple leave during centre practice, which I believe is associated with difficulty remembering enchainemant. I personally know someone who stopped doing level 3 at ENB because they had trouble remembering enchainements. That I think is extremely sad. I must admit I too have trouble remembering some but I just persevere and refuse to give up. Ones dancing ability should not be compromise on memory, its really not that important, there are ways to work around this. In teaching Salsa we allow for this by repetition and building up combinations to create muscle memory, its extremely successful. But then the strategy is not throw away in memory term, its to utilise that combination or favourite parts of it on the dance floor during social dancing. So it does have a real life application. As for Video’s I use them all the time, firstly for reference in the form of a Classical Ballet Video Dictionary. I also have several formal training video’s including RAD. Never the less I have a whole host of repertoire video from various sources, again for reference and I do use those extensively. If I am to attend a repertoire workshop then I prep myself with familiarity of the scene being taught, not just from one video but from three or four, and if it exists then the Royal Ballet version. And of course I have danced it before the workshop. That now allows me to concentrate on tweaking the technique, and from the teacher weather my interpretation is correct, as sometimes I will inadvertently miss something. Similarly teachers also miss bits, not through deliberate simplification, but they just missed that bit of attention to detail or possible forgot. As they say two heads are better than one. Although the teacher may simplify it, my goal is to dance it to the full standard within my own capability, however like other artists I will create my own version with little differences to account for such things as limited leg extension, utilising the same type of step but on the opposite leg and of course not on full point etc, but I stress no necessarily simplified. I know there will always be bit that a teacher will leave out I guess under health and safety, but the only one I can recall is travelling turns around the room, which I'm currently working on from Giselle. Most teachers operate a dual standard system which Lin is aware of , particularly with City Academy, the more challenging one is for those that are able, and a simplified version for the relative newcomers. So I really don’t think its that essential for a pre-entry level, in any case I guess I would get excluded, but then I put in a lot more effort than most. I may not have had years of experience like many but I do generally a lot more regular ballet classes that concentrate on technique, last term is was at least 12 a week. As for repertoire work, I already have my own small studio with sprung floor, mirrors and barre etc., I hire the hall we use for our local ballet class each week too and when available (Mostly) I boro a studio after class at Pineapple. So I put a hell of a lot into my ballet and in particularly repertoire. I have probably gone on abit about repertoire as its close to my heart, but I also heavily promote it with fliers up in such places as Pineapple and Danceworks, ballet classes I attend and some ballet shop advert boards too and of course this forum. I'm there to make it happen and I make no apologies for that.

Wow Lin, How exiting a teacher with a tantrum.

This gals bounced back, I'm rebooking Scottish Ballet for the 9th December, but things are going to be very tight that week with performances and end of term get-togethers.

I know this is slightly off topic, but something happened in my class tonight which I think is significant for teachers. We did a small enchainement which started with a couple of balonné composé's the movement wasn’t named only demonstrated, I’m not sure what though me, perhaps the action of the back leg which appear to just perform a step. I should have recognised it as I must have done at least a 100 of them during rehearsal for our show at the Angles Theatre, but there it was a sliding action, we also used it in an enchainement during the LAB Summer Intensive which included a hop. But for what ever reason, I did not recognise it. Although I was able to perform the enchainement by copying our teacher, it took a lot more brain processing to remember all the body movements than a minor variation of a balonné composé. I have also come across this with teachers of Salsa, where mostly body movement are taught by demonstration, admittedly in Salsa many movement are not names as its constantly evolving. However my own background in Salsa is largely Cuban, and at least that style does support a lot of named moves, using those names makes it an awful lot easier to process and remember a combination. So whatever the dance type, teachers please name the movements as you demonstrate them. To be fair we had a swap of teacher tonight, sometimes she dances with us, but I think that was because it was only a small class of 8 tonight against normally twice that size. When I ask her at the end of the class what the name of the movement was and she told me, I felt such a clot.

Hi mimi66 That's interesting about your pirouette, if I do a woopsee, I really don't mind if people laugh, I will probably laugh with them, the class be told off I would find embarrassing. The reaction to falls between teacher I find is quite different, I really do hate someone saying "now be careful", I can almost sense the "dear" on the end, almost as if they are implying you should not be doing that at your age. This is when expletives come into my mind but I just smile nicely. One of my favourite classes has the attitude, you fall over, you get strait back up again and carry on, that fits well with my mind set, and it all part of learning.

The situation was fairly strait forward, that class has a real mix of abilities, it has an ex professional dancer in it and another ballet teacher that teaches tots and Extended barre for adults, plus some nice adult dancers. A number of girls that has DD's at the school were encouraged to join our class, first week I think we had 5, they were treat quite separately for most of the movement and were given quite easy options, our teacher was absent the next week and we had a relief teacher in, things were really easy for everyone that week and I don't think the nubies were treat separately, anyway we always made sure they had someone to follow. Following week our teacher came back, full of bounce, by this time we were down to only three nubies, but we seem to do a lot of work on the diagonal that week in groups of two. Although our teacher always does an easier option for those that want it. I think this girl felt exposed and out of her depth, our teacher can be quite challenging at times. I am please to say the young lady is still with us, but we have had another two week break from our regular teacher. Our dancing teacher did to an Extended barre session for us the first week, which is extremely aerobic, but good fun, everyone sweated bucket including our teacher. The second week is this week which was a disaster as I did make Scottish Ballet (see previous posts)

For corner to corner working, the teacher decides the number for each group mostly two or four, but very occasionally 6 (3 front + 3 back). Everyone's position in that formation is self organised, When going from the opposite corner I think there is a tendency to preserve that formation, but nothing cast in stone, if I started behind I would tend to be behind at the next side, but I would not positively check I was still behind the person I started with. Personally I really don't think its important. My positioning in the travelling / waiting group is a question of how memorable I find the Enchainement, if its difficult then I'm inclined to hang back and try to learn more of it as other groups go through, and then take one of the back positions in later formation. If its very memorable like a short sequence that is repeated two or three times then I will favour a front position in one of the early formation. If we are doing travelling turns, then I may will be front in the first group. I guess at the end of the day its down to personal comfort. If we are doing centre work where we are travelling in all if not most direction, then its very much dependant upon the size of class and available space. In any case the teacher makes the decision as to if the class is to be broken up or not, if it is, then its usually broken in half and less frequently into three. Those in each group tend to be where they were standing. Slightly off topic, but groupings for performance is often done by size.

Wow you are getting organised, personally I do not know of a rule for right and left, as you say some are a little reluctant to be at the front. I know groups of two can be difficult, as at one of my classes we had a young lady who had been the previous week where we had larger groups, when it came to groups of two, after class in the changing room she was talking of leaving, fortunately we were able to talk her out of it, and someone spoke to the teacher too.

Yes Lin I agree with what you are saying but I have a couple of places that have audience seating in the studio/classroom. As I also mentioned if the performance is on stage, then that's where the dress rehearsal takes place as many of the dynamics change.

Yes Balleteacher you are confused; if you are doing a dress rehearsal, YOU ARE GOING TO PERFORM, sometimes in a classroom setting where it supports audience seating which tends to be for a friends and family audience and sometimes on stage where the school is in a Theatre building, as was my class tonight. Hope that clarifies the situation. PS I guess I use class and studio in the same context.

I think I would go a little further an say you have a responsibility to the other dancers, some of which may be your friends too. That is almost the only thing that would stop me going to class, other than an injury that would be worsened by the activity. That should come under any dancers etiquette, ballet or not. I assume the pink Tutu's were practice tutu's of some kind, and sure one doesn't usually wear them in class unless its a dress rehearsal or possibly the day before. Anyway I would never want to risk a good tutu any more than I really had too, both for getting damaged or dirty, especially a professional one.

Well I hope you are good at Pirouettes if your doing the Black Swan, but it will have to be a tutu though. Anyway must go it will be my pointe class soon, if they haven't cancelled it again this week.

Don't forget you are doing "Swan Lake" with City, are you coming in white this time, I think I did white when we did Sleeping Beauty with Franziska. Sorry a bit off topic

No, I have actually started doing Salsa in ballet slippers, its fantastic I can really feel the floor, the sensation is unbelievable against traditional ballroom dance shoes. I'm going to try some ballet shoes with small heels as I want to retain the flexibility. I just wish I had the time to choreograph a ballet piece for a repetitive salsa rhythm. I'm choc a block with reps at the moment, just so much to learn.

Hi mim66 Point noted and it does make sense, thank you. However at Salsa last Friday I did do Pique turns across the room, but only when the dance floor was clear, as I sometime use that for a bit of practice.

Yes we got the same letter, I have just checked it. I think that why I queried it Mimi66; Believe me its never my intention to undermine teachers, its sometime difficult to control my enthusiasm, that's the real point I was making as I get so engrossed in ballet. Couple of my classes too have ex professional dances and we have a couple of dancer teachers too. I tend to do across the room in pairs with one of them. As for the jewellery / watch thing, I regard that as unimportant both from experience that I have already mentioned and it has become the norm. I like your idea of regarding a class as a stage, I wonder how many dancers you could get to turn up in a tutu, as dancing in a tutu is quite different.

As we are talking of etiquette, no one has mentioned dress. I remember my second class, before I joined they had a whole section on etiquette including dress for there classes. It sounded very professional. Eg no Jewry, hair in a bun, a strict uniform of black leo, black chiffon tie round skirt, pink tights and pink ballet slippers. I agonised over that one as my first class was very relaxed everyone wore leggings and long tops, with ballet slippers, one lady gave me a pair of her old ballet slippers to get me started. When I got to that new class, I was the only one wearing the appropriate ballet wear. Then I was told they could not enforce it as very few would come. I have always since warn a leo and chiffon skirt, but I am amongst the minority of dancers that do. PS its not often you see a teacher in a leo, not a good example to set.

I really don't agree with the argument over jewellery, if those were the rules then I would abide by them, but as I am a very active social dancer and have taught that type dance for many years which always involves dancing with partners, where the potential is much much higher. Seldom does anyone experience any problems, only very occasionally does anyone receive a minor scratch or something caught in their hair, it is so very very rear.

Hi Tulip The BRB link was to jewellery and they were BRB teachers, that's all, its unimportant as to if its open class or rep. Well you got it in one, I don't mince words but at the same time please don't think I say "YOU GOT THAT WRONG MISS", that would be very wrong and rude. And yes they are not lightly taken but its amazing how their technique changes, but I haven't been eaten yet. These are usually in the form of queries, but sometimes my choice of words could be better, as I did get a response from one of my teacher with the first class with her "Are you criticising my technique", and that was a real woops. After a while especially the smaller classes you develop a repartee and a lot of that can be pure body language, just a cheeky smile, or a perplexed look. In some instances you can get away with "do you really mean like that", it depends on your relationship with the teacher, mine tend to be quite close.

Hi Lin Yes there will be other opportunities to visit Scottish ballet, but that has to be when my Monday classes are on break and Scottish is still running. I have had a really nice email from Scottish when I told them what had happened.

Interesting; BRB was my first workshop with one of their insight days. I was wearing a watch, necklace and ear rings, I ask the teacher if I should remove them before the class started. She said "No we only ask that of the little ones". I must confess I never remove jewellery for class, only for performances, then special rules apply, for instance even nail varnish is removed unless its completely unobtrusive, make-up itself takes on another dimension too. Whilst I cant say I have seen the really bad behaviour illustrated in some of the postings, I am guilty of some minor indiscretions like joining or going after the last group going across the room when I have already been, but only if the music is has not finished. I have also been guilty of answering a dancers question when the teachers hesitation has seemed too long, and needless to say, I got told off for it. One thing I really struggle with, is giving correction to teachers, often an inappropriate term will be used, or a poorly executed movement, or something missing in repertoire. My enthusiasm is inclined to get the better of me, especially as attention to detail has been drill into me by my local teacher Nicky, she is a stickler for detail and a lot of that has rubbed off on me. But I am getting better, I just use the evil eye, and that conveys the message, especially if they know me. One message that appears to be coming across, correct me if I am wrong, is the need for an authoritarian teacher, for me that would be a disaster. Firstly I don't go to class to much about, I go to learn and build on my existing knowledge. I work WITH the teacher and not fore them, but then that's me. One observation I have made just recently, attending my Body Balance class, our teacher there refers to her class at TEAM, that I feel adds a level of importance to the class member, I really like that, its almost as if you are part of TEAM GB and it gives a strong identity to the group, not something I have seen in ballet classes. I have even found it difficult in trying to get ballet classes to do something special for Christmas.

Hi Mimi66 The point you have picket up is totally out of context. Please note I qualified this with “that I particularly like”. That definitely does not imply “one would only ever do that enchainement the same way, tempo, dynamics, mood, regardless the music, and worst, only in that particular sequence of the moves”, however what it does mean I may boro parts of it for my own choreography, I'm always looking for material, then its likely that the music and tempo will be significantly different. I tend to start with the music first, basically does it move me, I already have quite a list of music already waiting to be worked on. My last piece came by chance, it was something I heard in the Covent Garden square outside the ROH, played by a Chinese guy, it move me to tears, it was just so beautiful. I just had to choreograph it, it was called “Lovers Tears” As for “I go to all my ballet classes to learn ballet, not to play a ballerina that I am not. And I really enjoy that.”, well I do both as I'm am now actively selecting classes that perform, both my Monday classes do, one is a friends and family, the other is a public paying audience, Tuesday is ENB and that does not but that provides me with a good grounding against most, however I also cover Northern Ballet on timeshare on a Tuesday and they do have a friends and family performance, I will do that up to the dress rehearsal as I have another performance on the same date. My Wednesday class also has a public paying audience where their show runs all week. Thursday’s after Christmas I'm joining the LAB company of dancers, my conformation has already gone in, which of course has it own performance. Maggie helps me because I ask her too, I am extremely proactive with my teachers. When I first meet them I make it clear that I really do want feedback, as some teachers are reluctant to give it, especially if they think a dancer is only there for recreation. That certainly was the message from my local teacher.