hours of dancing per week

[dancer656]

I take from a pre professional school and I will be 14 in a few weeks. I dance 4 days a weeks 3 hours of ballet, an hour and a half of pointe which my teachers are adding more pointe classes soon, an hour of jazz and tap, 1 hour of lyrical, variations, hiphop, and conditiong. Is that enough to train for a career in dance?

[FlowerCityBalletDancer]

i take ballet 7 days a week for over a hour and a half. my ballet teacher almost went pro. he told me that almost pro ballet dancers don't do anything but ballet. but it depends on what kind of dacer u want to be if you ask me.

[dancer656]

A ballet dancer. Our teachers feel that we need to take as many different classes so that we can be versatile as a dancer. But definatley ballet.

 

 

[Victoria Leigh]

I really think that you could lose the tap, lyrical, and hip hop and put more time into ballet.

 

Flower City, 7 days a week is not a good thing. The body needs a day to recover and rest. Six days a week of classes is fine, seven is not fine. Do you have any pointe classes? Also, please note the edits to your post above. I removed the quote of the previous post, which is unncecessary, and fixed the case on the words at the beginning of your sentences, and fixed your use of "u" instead of you.

[Mel Johnson]

"Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work, and on the seventh day shalt thou vedge out."

[Gilly]

I really think that you could lose the tap, lyrical, and hip hop and put more time into ballet.

 

 

Personally, I dont do tap or hip hop or lyrical (my ballet school doesnt offer it), but not every ballet dancer striving to be a ballerina will make it there. And many dancers who dont become ballerinas still want to dance, perhaps in other forms, such as modern or jazz or dance in musical theatre productions. Correct me if I am wrong, but if dancers only do ballet right up until its time to get hired and they dont, then what happens? Are you supposed to get an office job in a cubicle? Wouldnt it be wiser to put more of an empasis on ballet, but still learn other forms of dance that perhaps may save you from being jobless and danceless at the end of the day?

[balletrx]

I kinda agree. Also aren't there now more 'modern' ballets out there that need dancers who are able to dance in a less classical style. I could be wrong, but shouldn't a dancers have a little bit of other training? I don't know if hip hop is exactly necessary, but something like lyrical could be useful. Although, that could just be my opinion and I'm not as experienced as Ms. Leigh.

[Victoria Leigh]

You might notice that I did not say lose the jazz or modern. Only the tap, lyrical and hip hop. Yes, many dancers will not do classical ballet and will find that jazz and modern training can be helpful in getting work in shows or other types of dance companies. Yes, training other than ballet is very good, however, ballet is still the basis and the one that trains the body to be an instrument. So, it is critical no matter where you are going with your dancing. Tap and hip hop are not critical to anything unless your goal is Broadway or the Rockettes, and tap might be useful there. Lyrical is not even a recognized dance form. It's a conglomeration of ballet/modern/jazz/whatever, and was created for competitions, the regional types, not the major ballet competitions like YAGP, Prix de Lausanne, and the International Ballet Competitions.

[diamond_cutie07]

^I couldn't agree more. Jazz and Modern are great assets to a growing dancer. I used to take tap but I replaced it with pilates and I'm noticing much more improvement.