Does anyone have a child who has gone to Performing Arts college post 16 ?

[mskitty]

Thank you all. Some good advice. We are based in Leeds and from what I can gather we have a few decent options up here. She can sing a little and I am thinking about lessons for her to help strengthen this area. She's not done acting on her own but does do drama as part of her MT class. She is mainly focused on dance. Her dream is to dance on a cruise ship and she knows that to do that she has to have all three.

[School teacher]

Go to move it, they even give free lectures on how to dance on cruise ships by p and o. I sat through it last year with my daughter. Move it is beginning of March in London.

[Cherrypie]

I would say competitions might help with auditions - I think you need that experience of dancing in front of an audience on a more regular basis than say an annual show. There are a few places in Leeds that do extra dance such as Phoenix and the northern ballet. I would say if her dream is to dance she does need to be able to do the splits - however if she’s more into mt she might get away with it if she’s strong in the other stuff. Just stretching and limbering at home every day would help x

[mskitty]

Originally Posted by School teacher

Go to move it, they even give free lectures on how to dance on cruise ships by p and o. I sat through it last year with my daughter. Move it is beginning of March in London.

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Thank you. Will have to look at it for next year as this year she has rehearsals for a production of Oliver that she is involved in. We have a few years to get things in place for her.

[disney_l81]

My daughter is almost 16 and has her heart set on a career in the arts. My daughters stronger in singing and acting than dancing, though she can dance. She has singing lessons weekly, and attends a drama stage school since she was 6 years old (they help with audition techniques and do help the older ones if they want to go on to uni) , she sits Lamda exams in musical theatre, which will give her ucas points when she comes to going to uni. For her gcses she has done btec in performing arts and drama, and plans to take both performing arts and drama for a levels too.

[holidaysaver75]

Originally Posted by mskitty

Thank you all. Some good advice. We are based in Leeds and from what I can gather we have a few decent options up here. She can sing a little and I am thinking about lessons for her to help strengthen this area. She's not done acting on her own but does do drama as part of her MT class. She is mainly focused on dance. Her dream is to dance on a cruise ship and she knows that to do that she has to have all three.

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I’ve got a former pupil who works as a performer for Royal Caribbean and she’s having a wonderful time. She went to Bird. She says it’s great because, although she’s away from her family a lot, she is able to put away a lot of what she earns. As she knows she won’t be able to dance at this level for the rest of her life, she’s saving for her own dance school. Great opportunities. RC rehearse in Miami, so the performers spend several weeks there in prep - what a fab life for a young person.

Definitely pick up the singing and acting if she’s going down this route. The shows tend to be full productions, so she will need to tick the all the boxes.

[School teacher]

I agree with the other comments, she needs to get additional experience in acting and singing. My daughter does all 3 even though she originally only wanted to dance and the advice all along has been that you need all 3. I therefore pushed her into drama school which has since become her favourite. I feel concerned by my daughters career choice as it is so difficult to achieve! You are certainly doing the right thing by asking. Only last night my daughter went to watch a show (in the heights) in London performed by Urdang as that’s a possible choice for her. I feel out of my depth!

[CarolynU]

Go onto the websites of any of the institutions that you are interested in sending her to and see if they have information about what they require at their auditions for their courses and start firming up your daughters skills in those areas.
She might have to take a joint dance class, prepare a short solo acting piece and a song or it might be completely different. Some places will be looking for raw talent and potential some will ask them to take a ballet class to look for the ability to stretch and have good turnout. She might have a physical examination to look for curvature of the spine and the formation of the hips. There are so many variables.
As far as working. It’s very tough to get jobs so it’s recommended that you are or close to being a triple threat, that means that you are equally strong in singing, dancing and acting.
Good luck to your daughter. It’s a potentially wonderful life.

[novocastrian]

my daughter going this route as well, goes to move it every year and various events / conventions , she is strong in dance not so much singing but id doinf GCSE drama. wants to be a dancer. she loves ballet & tap but ticks all the boxes in other styles She is taking singing lessons but is painfully shy to sing in front of anyone but has no qualms about dance and to a lesser degree acting

she has her heart set on Laine or Bird and has applied to Laine summer school this year to get a weeks 'taster' in dance as opposed to musical theatre

she is 15 BTW & has two cousins already studying performing arts so has seen what they are doing & how hard it actually is to get work

[Lell]

My daughter is doing a degree in Performance and Drama although the course she is doing is more academic than performance. Her course gets lots of applicants. I think the more your daughter can do to improve her chances the better. My daughter did Tap, Ballet, Modern and Disco since she was 3, she did Advanced Higher (Scotland) Drama at school and is a good singer.