Ballet Help Desk

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Is your dancer hoping ballet will be their ticket into a top college? We sat down with Sandy Choe and Corinne Smith of Infinite Futures, a college advising company made up of former admissions officers and high school counselors, to have them walk us through what pre-professional dancers need to get into the most competitive colleges and universities.
Corinne spent years reading applications at five highly selective schools, and she says grades and course rigor come first. At many top schools, a dancer's supplement won't even get looked at unless the student clears the academic bar. And that win at a big ballet competition? Most admissions officers know very little about ballet and can't tell one ballet competition from another.
We also get into how full-time training fits with a college plan, how colleges view online high school and homeschooling, when to send a dance supplement, who should write recommendation letters, and why applying as a transfer student can work for dancers coming out of trainee programs and second companies. You can learn about everything Infinite Futures offers on their website.
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It's Summer Intensive Planning Time!
Submit Ballet Competition Reviews
Read Our Ballet School Summer & Year-Round Reviews
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License code: MGAW5PAHYEYDQZCI

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This week, it's just us! We're talking all things postgraduate ballet training. We spend some time going over our most recent iteration of the Ballet Help Desk Postgrad Directory, including some trends we've observed over the last few years. There are some new pieces of data we've added for this year and we discuss why we think it's important that this information be included. Finally, we talk about why dancers need to think much more strategically during their high school years if they have aspirations to dance professionally.
Links:
 
Pick Up a Year-Round Training Corrections Journal
Ballet Competition Reviews
Read Our Ballet School Summer & Year-Round Reviews
Instagram: @BalletHelpDesk
Facebook: BalletHelpDesk
TikTok: @BalletHelpDesk
Music from #Uppbeat:
https://uppbeat.io/t/ian-aisling/new-future
License code: MGAW5PAHYEYDQZCI

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There's one body type for ballet. We asked Peter LeBreton Merz, artistic director of Eglevsky Ballet and former director of Ballet West Academy, and Racheal Nye, director of Oklahoma City Ballet's Yvonne Chouteau School and Studio Company, whether that's true. In Part 2, they also answer your questions about competitions: are they the only way to earn summer intensive scholarships or get into top schools, does training for them give you the best training, and does it matter if your dancer never places? Then Peter and Racheal weigh in on when it makes sense to send a dancer to school in Europe, whether big donations lead to better treatment, and whether Vaganova is the only method that works. At the end, each of them addresses a myth we didn't ask about.
Links:
Online Workshop: Your Dancer's First "Away" Summer Intensive
Pick Up a Year-Round Training Corrections Journal
Submit Ballet Competition Reviews
Read Our Ballet School Summer & Year-Round Reviews
Instagram: @BalletHelpDesk
Facebook: BalletHelpDesk
TikTok: @BalletHelpDesk
Music from #Uppbeat:
https://uppbeat.io/t/ian-aisling/new-future
License code: MGAW5PAHYEYDQZCI

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Turn down School of American Ballet once and you'll never get back in. Most ballet parents have heard some version of that, along with plenty of other myths. So we collected your questions and took them to Peter LeBreton Merz, artistic director of Eglevsky Ballet and former director of Ballet West Academy, as well as Racheal Nye, director of Oklahoma City Ballet's Yvonne Chouteau School and Studio Company. We talk about whether blacklists exist, the pressure to send 10-year-olds away for the summer, get them on pointe early and move them up a level fast, and what Peter and Racheal look for in a 12-year-old. They also get into why nearly every boy is on scholarship, how much seniority counts in casting, and what a school should be able to show before it calls itself pre-professional.
Links:
Pick Up a Year-Round Training Corrections Journal
Submit Ballet Competition Reviews
Read Our Ballet School Summer & Year-Round Reviews
Instagram: @BalletHelpDesk
Facebook: BalletHelpDesk
TikTok: @BalletHelpDesk

Music from #Uppbeat:
https://uppbeat.io/t/ian-aisling/new-future
License code: MGAW5PAHYEYDQZCI

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Lily Peta and Emma Wheeler did everything the traditional ballet path asks of young dancers and still found themselves waiting for the right job to come along. Then, they stopped waiting. This past summer they launched Midsommardans, an outdoor ballet festival on Grinda, an island in the Stockholm archipelago.
Lily and Emma tell us how two dancers with no background in fundraising or production pulled it off, from convincing the archipelago foundation to take a chance on them to hand-building a sprung stage floor with their families. Along the way, making their own opportunity changed how they see the ballet job market. Be sure to listen to the end to hear the exciting news they have to share about the future of Midsommardans.
You can find Midsommardans on Instagram at @midsommar.dans.
Links:
Submit Ballet Competition Reviews
Pick Up a Year-Round Training Corrections Journal
Read Our Ballet School Summer & Year-Round Reviews
Instagram: @BalletHelpDesk
Facebook: BalletHelpDesk
TikTok: @BalletHelpDesk
Music from #Uppbeat:
https://uppbeat.io/t/ian-aisling/new-future
License code: MGAW5PAHYEYDQZCI