Career development plan - What to do a Ballet Career

by Lily
(England )

Career development plan - What to do a Ballet Career

Hi,
I need your advice. I'm 13 and I am taking dance GCSE at my school and do lots of ballet classes out side of school. ballet has always been a huge passion of mine and i was even put up for auditions for white hall royal ballet school a few years ago but for various different reasons i couldn't proceed with auditioning. I am starting pointe this summer and am a little late starting because i had to stop lessons for a year last year at the begging of secondary school because my family couldn't afford the classes at that point and few other reasons too. as i know many other girls do, i would give my arm and leg to be a professional ballet dancer, its been my dream since my first class at 3. I am looking ahead towards colleges and would love to attend the royal ballet upper school is Covent garden but I'm not sure ill be good enough. I'm on grade 5 at the moment and to give you an idea on my strengths i have really strong feet and ankles and flexibility is OK but i've only just got my splits (no quite middle) and my arms need some work but my teacher says i have good potential. my dad also suggested i try for the EYB for next summer. do you think this is a good idea. (BTW like you i'm not form a particularly well off or dancing family). i really hope you can give me some advice on what i should do to raise my chances of a career in the future. Thanks again and i hope to hear form you soon......

Lily xxx

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Reply by Odette
To: - Career development plan - What to do a Ballet Career

Hi Lily,
Thank you for your message, I'm really pleased you contacted me. I understand your passion for ballet and you would do anything to pursue a career! However, like you've noticed, not everything you can control to help you become a dancer. If it is difficult to afford extra classes or summer schools, there should be nearly always scholarships and funding you can apply for to help with the money. I wouldn't have been able to afford most of my training without scholarships. Any extra training and experience, like EYB, you can do is a good idea to give you opportunities to learn and improve. I also suggest summer schools around the UK like Royal Ballet, Elmhurst and English National Ballet to get you noticed by the schools.

I always believe your academics are also very important to focus on, since a ballet career can not always be directly certain. But by the age of 16, it is the time when you should be taking ballet more seriously and definitely training at a vocational dance school in order to become a professional (if not before). There are many dancers I know who have only joined a vocational school at 16, so this is really the stage which will 'make or break' your career as dancer... not to scare you though! You can only do your best now given the circumstances and I advise you to increase your training as much as possible. Take a look at the Royal Ballet's Junior Associate program which I did when I was younger and is a really good idea to take that step to more professional training.

I hope this advice helps for now, please do keep in touch and take a look around my site to get more of my advice!

Best wishes,
Odette