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The Royal Ballet School is a British classical ballet school founded in 1931 and affiliated with the Royal Ballet.
The Royal Ballet School is a school initiated and funded by the Royal Family. The school aims to provide outstanding dancers to the Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet and the world's top ballet companies.
The school is divided into three semesters: spring, summer and autumn. The school is an eight-year education, divided into five years of lower school and three years of upper school, spring enrollment, and autumn enrollment.
In addition to providing comprehensive ballet professional training, such as ballet basic training, character dance, contemporary dance, gymnastics, Irish dance, Morris dance, Scottish dance, etc., older children will also receive repertoire, solo dance, double dance, etc., as well as special upper body training for boys, in addition, the school also has a GCSE secondary school curriculum education included in the national education system.
In addition to courses such as double dance, solo dance, repertoire, contemporary dance, makeup, stage art, physical training for male dancers, students can also choose A-Level courses (the current choice is art, English, mathematics, French), as well as dance and arts management courses in the BTEC National Diploma, which last for 2 years and focus on the combination of practice and theory. Equivalent to 3 A-Levels and can continue to study at a UK university.
The final year is usually a ballet internship. Of course, the Royal Ballet School also has a ballet programme for amateur children aged 8 to 10 years old (The Outreach Programme).
The lower school only recruits a dozen new students in the UK every year, but thousands of people sign up every year. Entering this school allows you to receive instruction at the highest level, paving the way for future admission to the prestigious Royal Ballet or other prestigious dance companies. But even if you get into school, the competition continues, and it is more intense and cruel.
The lower grades are five years old, and not everyone can survive these 5 years: students have to be assessed once a semester, and at the end of the school year, they have to leave; the competition for promotion to the upper grades is particularly fierce; and the graduation exam is even more difficult. Only a quarter of these 25 freshmen may have survived graduation, and even fewer have been inducted into the Royal Ballet. Failures in the assessment may be due to failure to meet technical standards, or physical development that makes it unsuitable for ballet dancing.
Tuition here is no less than £30,000 a year (about $47,700), but students who are particularly gifted but from poor families receive government grants.
Each year, about half of the new students are admitted to the Upper School at Cavend Gardens, where they will meet students from other ballet schools in the UK and overseas. As many overseas students have achieved excellent results in some international competitions, more and more overseas students have joined the Royal Ballet Academy, which has also made the competition for promotion to the senior department more and more fierce.
Notable alumni
Wang Ji-won: Korean actress, former member of the National Ballet of Korea.
Sonoya Mizuno: Japanese-British actor, model and ballet dancer.
Cheung Tin Ai: Hong Kong fashion designer.
Wong Yan Man is a Hong Kong dancer and educator.
Mao Mei: A famous dancer and dance educator in Hong Kong, the founder of Mao Mei Ballet School.
Speaking of which, I have to mention RAD, the Royal Academy of Dance, referred to as RAD, has branches in more than 80 countries in the world, more than one million students in the world, and is the world's largest dance training institution.
Originally established to enhance classical ballet training in the UK, rad is highly regarded by Queen Elizabeth II, and after nearly a century of development, the Royal Dance Grade Examination Certificate is currently known as the most scientifically authoritative certificate in the world.
We will cover RAD exams and certificates in the next article.
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