Summer Teacher Workshop

If you really enjoy ballet and want to learn more, you will need to practice nearly every day. It can be hard to fit this in with school, homework, and hobbies, so some children go to full-time ballet school, where they can do everything in one place. Each day in ballet class, the teacher helps the children to practice exercises.

 

The children work together and help each other. Most of them live at the school and only see their parents during school vacations. It can be hard to be far away from your family, but the children are happy dancing. Children at ballet school study all the usual subjects, such as math and English, as well as learning ballet. In anatomy class, they learn how their muscles and joints move. It’s the strong muscles in her legs, ankles, and feet that let Maddie dance en pointe. You must not try this until you are at least 12 years old and your teacher says your muscles are strong enough.

 

When a dancer is en pointe, she is dancing on the tips of her toes. She wears special pointe shoes that have hard soles and toes to help support her feet. The shoes are kept in place with ribbons tied neatly around her ankles.When girls are learning pointe work, boys concentrate on jumps; there are one or two ballets where the men also dance en pointe.