Repertoire and Variations

[springflower]

When I read on many schools websites, sometimes they list variations as a class and other times reprtoire...sometimes they have both. I had assumed they were both learning pieces of ballets, but what is the difference? Thanks!

[Mel Johnson]

In practice , I suspect it is just the choice of noun, although I would expect a "repertoire" class to include entire ballets, ensemble and corps work included. "Variations" suggests more to me only the solos.

[Serendipity]

Sun King Dance Camp (adult dance camp) separates repertoire and variations. Repertoire/repertory is corps type choreography and variations is solo choreography, in their definition.

[Hamorah]

Yes that was how it was labelled when I was at the RBS - in repertoire we learnt only corps work and we also had a character repertoire class, which is not seen much nowadays I think, but was very important then when the big ballets replete with character work formed the basis of a company's repertoire. I honestly can't remember if we learnt solo variations in our pointe classes or if we had a separate variation class - well it was about 46 years ago! Yikes!!!