Dance Dilema

[jennifer1972]

I was wondering if I could pick the brains of some of you who have DCs on MT diplomas/degrees. My DD is a strong dancer doing 17 hours a week after school in the dance conservatory here in Spain, dancing flamenco, Spanish dance, ballet and contemporary. I have no idea of the grade equivalent but my question is that what is expected of them in the dance part of an MT diploma/degree audition? Would she be better off coming out of the conservatory and expanding her dancing range with tap and modern or do they value other forms of dance? In the dance audition would they be expected to use pointes? I think I am right in thinking they have to perform a modern or contemporary solo but how is the rest of the audition?
Congratulations to everyone who has received offers for this September. I have been following the thread with interest and have felt for you all, the amount of stress you have all been going through!!!

[Pearl]

Hi, my dd has just been through the audition process and at all the colleges she auditioned at they did a ballet class and a jazz class. No pointe work is required in the ballet. The jazz tended to be a mixture of technical work and a routine and the routine was usually quite commercial and up beat. So my advise would be to get some jazz/modern dance lessons.

[jennifer1972]

Thanks for that Pearl. Also one more thing, when you apply for one of these courses, do you specify whether you want the pre-voc, degree etc or does everyone do the same audition and on the basis of that make an offer of the course to which they feel you are best suited? Does that make sense?

[Pearl]

On the application forms it asks which course you are applying for, you can tick as many as you want, but the audition process is the same for all the courses x

[ajbew]

For the ones my DS applied for he could specify degree or diploma, but I think they will then sometimes offer foundation if they think you are not quite ready. Even though he applied for degrees though, at Urdang they offer diploma first and then do a recall for the degree course. He applied to Arts Ed, Mountview, Bird, Urdang, LSC and Laine (although Laine don't do a degree so he applied for diploma there). Each audition did a ballet class and jazz class, but only Laine wanted a solo. They did all want at least one monologue (some two) and at least one song (again some asked for two). Laine said in the audition info that you didn't need a monologue as they did an acting class as part of the audition, but even there they asked if anyone had one prepared and had them perform them.

Hope all this helps.

Also, most of the above are direct application, but Urdang and Bird need a direct application as well as a UCAS one.

[carriecrafts]

Hi jennifer1972,

Just want to echo what Pearl said, jazz/modern is so important for MT auditions.
Some auditions ask for a modern/contemporary solo while others offer an opportunity to freestyle as part of the jazz audition class, so having a repertoire of jazz routines to draw on is a massive help.

I haven't heard of any schools having tap or pointe in the audition, just ballet and jazz.

I know that Urdang, Bird, Laine and Performers all make offers for diploma or pre-voc/foundation from the same auditions, depending where they think you are best suited. For Urdang and Bird, who also offer a degree, the auditions are the same too but you have to have applied via ucas as well as direct to the school.

I don't know about any of the other schools such as Arts Ed, Mountview and GSA.
x

[carriecrafts]

haha, must have been typing slowly and missed ajbew's post! sorry for repeat info

[jennifer1972]

Thanks everyone, that's really helpful!!