How much ballet per week?

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josielee
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How much ballet per week?

Post by josielee »

Hi! My dd is looking to audition late this year or early next year for colleges, probably Performers, Urdang, Laines and Bird although she will only be 15 at this point as she is a summer birthday. Anyway, my question is how much ballet should she be doing a week? At present she does two hours of ballet which I think include body conditioning and then a pointe class on top. She is in intermediate foundation and always scored highly in exams but recently she did a two day ballet course and felt everybody else was a lot more advanced than her. In fairness, a lot of these girls/boys were looking to audition for full time ballet schools soon but the experience has really dented her confidence.
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Pearl
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Re: How much ballet per week?

Post by Pearl »

Hi Josielee, my dd is 15 and has just auditioned for those colleges. She does 3 hours of ballet a week. Ballet is the core of all dance and the colleges will be looking for a good basic technique but these girls auditioning for musical theatre courses are not ballet dancers . None of the ballet classes at the auditions have been particularly challenging. I'm sure your dd will be fine :D
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Hecouldshine
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Re: How much ballet per week?

Post by Hecouldshine »

When it comes down to it, she needs to know the steps they are given for the auditions and have a good technique. My feeling is she should have done Intermediate or at least know the syllabus well, to have the enough knowledge of the steps. Hopefully others on here may have better knowledge, alternatively you could post on the balletco forum - the doing dance section.

All of those places do summer courses so it might be worth looking at those. I hope she isn't too discouraged Josielee. Good Luck :D
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josielee
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Re: How much ballet per week?

Post by josielee »

Thanks for your replies. DD is going to take a few private lessons after Easter so hopefully this will help her confidence :) It is so hard to gage sometimes where your child is ability wise and where they need to be. You obviously compare against people they dance with all the time but they will be auditioning with talented people from all over the place which I think will be an eye opener. She has done a couple of Summer schools and Easter courses and felt she was in her comfort zone then. Anyway, I think she is quite realistic and feels that she will try auditioning at 15 and use it as good experience to maybe try again if she is not successful the first time \:D/
cluelessmum
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Re: How much ballet per week?

Post by cluelessmum »

Hi - I don't know if this will help at all...my dd - reached the same level as yours....and then due to scheduling issues had to stop with ballet. She has a strong enough foundation that many people asked if she was a ballerina during the audition process (not even close) but she has decent technique. She did fine and every where she has auditioned has made an offer for diploma or degree. She said that they are looking for good basics and that anyone with as much ballet as your dd should do well in that section of auditions. She felt that at some schools the jazz section of the audition was of a higher standard as more musical theater choreography is based on jazz.
2dancersmum
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Re: How much ballet per week?

Post by 2dancersmum »

Aiming for full time ballet schools students would be aiming to have a good working knowledge of advanced one syllabus (at least) so it is not surprising your DD had her confidence dented. I don't think the number of hours of ballet each week really matters that much as long as she is getting good tuition and her technique is sound. I agree with Hecouldshine in that I think your DD should ideally have good knowledge of intermediate so that she can feel more confident in auditions as she knows the vocabulary. How close is she to the inter-foundation exam? Supplementing her weekly classes by doing the odd workshop is probably a good idea too as these will be non-syllabus classes and therefore more similar in nature to the auditions.
josielee
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Re: How much ballet per week?

Post by josielee »

Thank you for your replies. My DD will be taking some private lessons starting in the next couple of weeks so I hope that as her technique improves so does her confidence. I'm unsure as to when she is taking her next exam as her teacher is fairly new to the school so a little bit up in the air at the moment. She is often complimented on her artistry whatever that means, you can tell I'm pretty clueless :? but she would be the first to admit she s a lot stronger at Jazz. I'm all for her waiting until she is 17/18 to audition as by then she will hopefully be at the standard required plus that's also two more years of singing experience but DD would like to audition earlier just to see how she gets on :)
woody
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Re: How much ballet per week?

Post by woody »

Friends of dd who have auditioned for MT/all-round colleges this year for sept intake aged 16 have said that the ballet required is good technique at Intermediate, and I suspect that for those auditioning at 17/18 they would expect a higher level.

For classical ballet schools at 16 then it's likely that those offered a place would be studying / passed Adv 2 level, although for boys they look at potential more than current standard.

Hope this helps.
josielee
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Re: How much ballet per week?

Post by josielee »

Thanks Woody :)
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