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What The Heck Is A Summer Intensive?
It’s time for the Ballet Help Desk Summer Intensive Boot Camp! Before we jump into all of the great content we’ll be publishing, let’s take a step back and talk about just exactly what a summer intensive is! You’ve probably heard people throw around the term “SI.” I know when I first heard this, I…
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Potential, Facility, Body Type: What Does It All Mean?
Your daughter has the potential to be a good ballet dancer. Your son has great facility. Your dancer has the perfect ballet body. In every interview we’ve done, whether it’s with ballet teachers, competition judges or whomever, those words get thrown around. And NO ONE ever tells us what they refer to. Plus, we have…
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Ballet Competition Directors Weigh In
And, we’re in the home stretch in our series covering ballet competitions! We’ve talked with studio directors, conservatories and judges to hear their thoughts on all things competition related. But, we saved the best for last – competition directors! We were fortunate enough to speak with directors of the World Ballet Competition, ADC|IBC and Youth…
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An Open Letter About Boys In Ballet
We have some exciting news! Today, we are launching two podcast episodes dedicated to addressing the issues that affect young boys in ballet. The first is an interview with Peter Stark, sometimes referred to as the Pied Piper of boys ballet training. As the President and Director of the Rock School For Dance, Peter discussed…
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Competition Judges Pull Back The Curtain
I just spent over an hour reading comments from a few old Facebook posts about ballet competitions and whether or not they’re “rigged.” Are they? We asked three YAGP judges for their thoughts on a variety of issues related to competitions and we learned some interesting stuff, including whether or not they think they’re rigged.…
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Why Are Big Conservatories Competing?
Did you ever attend a ballet competition and see schools like The Rock School For Dance Education or the University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA) there? You’re probably thinking, “Why would they bring kids to something like this when these kids are already at fantastic training programs?” We talked to Ilya Kozadayev,…
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So, Your Dancer Wants To Compete! What To Expect
When my son was ten, he came home from his first summer dance intensive and announced, “I want to get more serious about ballet and I want to do the Youth America Grand Prix.” What?! So, like any parent who knew nothing about dance, I went and looked up ballet competitions online. The first result…
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Ballet Competitions? Are They Worth It?
**This post has been updated to include a sneak peek at what we have planned for our series on ballet competitions that will be launching in mid-September! If it’s the beginning of the school year, it’s also the beginning of ballet competition season! That means it’s time for everyone’s anxiety closet to open. Every year,…
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Oh The Pressure!
How many of you have picked up your dancer from class only to find them in tears? Yep, every single one of us. Ballet is hard. Kids who are attracted to ballet are a different breed. Not only do they have an artistic slant to their brain, they are also laser focused technicians. And, this…
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Why We All Need To Support The Arts
When I was a kid growing up in the Washington D.C. suburbs, my parents dragged my sister and me to pretty much any live performance at the Kennedy Center or Wolf Trap. This usually involved getting dressed up (something we hated), driving a long distance (my sister got car sick) and sitting through yet another…