Vocational school auditions - how are they going?

[Hecouldshine]

As the doing dance section of ballet.co.uk was full of reports of Elmhurst etc first auditions, I wondered if new posters might want to chat on here about where they have got to in the process? It looks like we can't retrieve the archived information as yet.

Good luck for all those auditions anyway

[belljul]

Thanks for posting this. It's so great to share the journey with others. My son is in the middle of the process for Elmhurst right now. Final audition in March. Seems a looooong time to wait. He is auditioning for year 7. What about you?

[Hecouldshine]

I'm so glad you have found this site belljul. My ds is a Hammond associate. He never wanted to try for a fulltime vocational school. Don't think he would get a place anyway as he is pigeon toed and so has turnout problems

Good luck to your ds for those auditions. You have advised me quite a few times on doing dance about courses suitable for boys - including the Ballet West ones which I think your 2 have done! Still hoping we can get the timing right to make one of those!

amum aka Cathy

[belljul]

Oh Hi Cathy/amum. Thanks for getting us started over here. Yes I remember chatting about ballet west. Your smiley made me laugh! Yes there is no changing certain physical aspects about our dancing children and you just have to accept that is who they are. Tough though when they want something badly.How old is your son? I hope more from ballet.co come and chat about their audition experiences. It really is a help.

[elfies mum]

Hi I'm fairly new to all of this! DD has been offered place at Tring Park but no MDS so not looking like a reality

[2dancersmum]

A huge well done for being offerd a place at Tring in the first place. That in itself is an achievement. I hope you do manage to secure the funding. I have no experience myself of the MDS scheme but others on here and the balletcoforum might be able to offer advice on where to go from here. Good luck.

[Garden Girl]

Hi Elfies Mum, congratulations on your DD getting a place at Tring Park, albeit without the scholarship. My DD was in the same boat a couple of years ago and it was a bittersweet reminder of how difficult it is to succeed in this ballet world. I cannot give advice on obtaining funding because we didn't manage to. However I can advise about the other 'out of school' programs that Tring has that may be useful to you if you live fairly local. My DD auditioned for TPA (Tring Park Associates) which, although not an associates scheme as such, does offer good quality classes in ballet, tap, jazz, musical theatre, drama and singing on evenings and Saturdays. Their 'associate' type scheme is the Classical Ballet Academy and this is very good quality teaching held on 6 Sundays per term, by audition only. So worth checking those out on their website under the Outreach section. Good luck to you and your DD.

[Overspent]

I sympathise elfiesmum, my DD was in the same situation a couple of years ago when she was offered a place on Tring's Theatre Arts course but with no funding. We would literally have had to have sold our house to fund the place so had to turn it down.

DD is now at an outstanding academic school and doing fantastically well at the same time as keeping up her singing and dancing. She is also an Associate in London and is determined to audition for Upper Schools in a couple of years. Not getting a place - or funded place - at 11 is NOT the end of the dream!

[elfies mum]

Thank you for your very encouraging posts. Unfortunately we live in the North of England so outreach at Tring not possible - DD is associate with Northern Ballet and has just been offered a place at RBS summer school so that offsets the disappointment of possible not being able to go to Tring - is going to try for Easter course there though - still plenty of time for her to achieve what she wants to