Ballet Help Desk

You’re all probably quite familiar with the recent dust-up surrounding ballet competitions and the Cloud & Victory post on Instagram. Afterward, a number of people approached us and asked us to put out some sort of statement. We didn’t think a statement would have much of an impact, though.

Plus, we’re just two people, and our kids only did ballet competitions for a year or two. Jenny’s daughter, Abbey, had a less-than-ideal experience because the competition managed to lose her scores, but my son, Sam, had a fantastic one. That held true at all three competitions he did: YAGP, California Dance Classics, and World Ballet Competition.

However, he was 11 and 12 when he competed, and he’s a boy, which is always a different experience.

In addition to the requests for a statement, several other folks reached out and asked us to consider something we’ve actually been mulling for a few years. Well, that something is now live!

Introducing the latest addition to our reviews platform: Ballet Competition Reviews!

Anyone who has spent a weekend at a ballet competition knows the conversation that happens afterward, usually in a parking lot or a hotel hallway. Was the floor slippery? Did the judges look like they were watching? Were the master classes any good? Those answers have mostly been passed along by word of mouth, which works well if you happen to know the right family and not at all if you don’t.

The review form asks for a lot of detail. It starts with a menu where you choose the competition you participated in, going back as far as 2022. For now, we’re only accepting reviews of competitions that are purely ballet, rather than multi-genre ones.

Once you choose the event and year, we move into how the event was structured and whether there was a pre-selection process, then through the practical questions: the venue, the seating, the stage floor and whether a full jumping pass fit on it, the warm-up space, the dressing rooms, and whether the schedule ran on time. There is also an entire section on master classes, including who taught them, how crowded the room was, how engaged the teachers were, and how corrections were given.

We also tackle judging, asking whether there was a clear rubric, if the judges seemed to be paying attention, how long scores took to arrive, and if the feedback helped the dancer and teacher. The review then covers awards, scholarships, and offers, whether the cost matched expectations, and if the time and money were worth it, with an overall grade from A to F.

Finally, we ask about two things that rarely get written down: coded language in corrections and critiques, and whether anyone from the competition or a school encouraged families to enter more regionals. Both come up constantly in conversation and almost never in a review.

As with all of our reviews, these are completely anonymous, and we review each one before publishing it.

Competition reviews live alongside the ballet training program reviews at Reviews.BalletHelpDesk.com, where about 2,500 reviews of ballet training programs already help families make decisions.

Fill out a review, and we’ll publish it once there are enough reviews of that competition to ensure anonymity. Also, if you find anything on our reviews form that isn’t clear or that you think would warrant some edits, please don’t hesitate to reach out!