Giving students, teachers, and parents an edge in dance education
Whether you’re just getting started thinking about auditions or have been planning since November, guest Juliette Clarke of BalletScoop wants to help you make this your best summer intensive audition season yet! Negative thoughts, preparation tips, and the big decision – it’s all covered in these ten tips.
Summers away from home can be stressful. In a second installment on surviving summer intensives, Alison offers advice for dealing with complications like dance divas and messy roommates, and how to handle yourself professionally and with grace when receiving placement in a class level.
Away from home for her second summer, Alison is attending two ballet intensives, one in Connecticut, the other in New York City. As she shares some of the things she’s learned about summer intensives along the way, including how to prepare, handle fears, make friends, and practice respect, she is living the summer dance experience.
Blossoming dancer and dance photographer, Kristen Newsom, shares a picturesque photo – an arabesque on the New England coast – and her dual passions for dance and photography, as she looks forward to another summer at Burklyn Ballet and a new semester at Sam Houston State University.
Teen writer and ballet hopeful, Alison, shares ten ways students can help pay for their training expenses. Having learned through early dance experiences and a very special teacher that where there’s a will there’s a way, she now creatively thinks of ways to contribute in her own family. You’ll be inspired by her story and get new ideas to fund your dreams and goals!
A gateway to learning and preparing for your summer dance experience. Over 20 links to audition, planning, and preparation lists, tips, and advice. Teacher workshops too! Plus, share your favorite intensives and ask questions about summer study.
Expecting a certain outcome puts your mind in a place and time other than the audition and you’ll need to have your head in the present tense to do well. Clear your mind and dance because you love dancing, not because of the pot of gold that may or may not be at the end of this rainbow.
Deb describes her own productive and exhilarating summer adventures as a participant in American Ballet Theater’s National Training Curriculum program in wonderful detail. “The Training is organized as week-long intensives; candidates are asked to obtain certification in Primary Level through Level 3 of the curriculum before being allowed to continue certification in Levels 4 and 5, and then 6, 7, and Partnering (taught as two separate intensives).”
Instead of actual snapshots I’m sharing some of the thoughts and impressions I picked up along the yellow brick road. I hope you’ll use, think about, or act upon these little nuggets from the Dance Teacher Summit. I had a great time collecting them for you.
The line-up of dance artists, master teachers, and presenters. Every single one has contributed so much to the dance world and to dance training. Legends and long-time educators like Frank Hatchett, David Howard, Bill Evans, Finis Jhung, Zena Rommett, Denise Wall and my former professor at Slippery Rock University, Thom Cobb. Plus luminaries like Sean Curran, Mandy Moore, Travis Wall, Mike Minery, and Andy Blankenbuehler.
7. Watch dance online. Peek into the professional dance world with DancePulp on Hulu. Each eight to ten-minute video offers a behind-the-scenes look at the lives of dancers and choreographers. Christopher Wheeldon, Andrea Schermoly, Lourdes Lopez, and don’t miss William Wingfield talk about So You Think You Can Dance and combining the concert and commercial career.
Most dancers (especially American dancers) are trained in ambiguous combinations of techniques that generally come from whatever their teachers learned from their teachers. The fabulous thing about this program is that there is no ambiguity. There are answers for everything, no shades of gray, and very little room for interpretation. Since some of the greatest dancers in history passed through Cecchetti’s own hands, he was obviously doing something right.
