Audition for Washington Ballet next year (1B level, 9-10 yrs old) - how hard is it?

[Anonymous]

My children have improved rapidly at MYB. I also like that it is a very diverse pool of students and teachers.

[Anonymous]

We recently left TWSB, and looked at MYB and it seemed really lovely. DD really enjoyed her trial class, but ultimately we couldn't make the commute work with our schedules.

[Anonymous]

Anyone have any information on Metropolitan Ballet Theatre? They have a pre-professional program and on their social media pages their dancers seem very strong and happy. I don't care about how many dancers are becoming professionals, I want to know retention until HS graduation.

[Anonymous]

The school is a joke

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The school is a joke

TWSB or Metropolitan?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anyone have any information on Metropolitan Ballet Theatre? They have a pre-professional program and on their social media pages their dancers seem very strong and happy. I don't care about how many dancers are becoming professionals, I want to know retention until HS graduation.

This post is really old, so i don't even know if you will see this... but we are really happy with the school. They are under new leadership and have several new faculty members of good pedigree. It's a smaller school, but several of our dancers have placed in YAGP/made it to finals and gone off to study at prestigious national programs.

[Anonymous]

Metropolitan Ballet has dramatically changed this year under new leadership. So it is hard to answer your question. It always was a school that retained dancers through senior year. Girls in their highest division had danced together for years and were a tight knit, supportive cohort of dancers who mostly enjoyed one another and cheered one another on. It also produced several gifted dancers who left during the high school years to pursue training at Boston, Houston, Philadelphia, and Oklahoma City. This year, class times have been shortened so classes start at 3:45 instead of 3:15. Next year, classes will not begin until 4:00pm. The ending time is the same as before. Shorter class times reduce a dancer’s stamina and training opportunities. The spring performance has been a full length ballet for a long time - this year was “excerpts from Don Q” . Some younger dancers had no actual dancing in the performance - they stood on the side of the stage and moved their arms. It was sad. The audience was half full for the excepts from Don Q run. This past Nutcracker the new AD hired a professional to dance Sugarplum for most of the full length performances rather than let the students have the challenge of performing the role every show. MBT productions have long been student productions but that doesn’t seem to be a guarantee anymore. As for having a pre-pro level - don’t be fooled, the majority of upper level dancers are in it. It doesn’t mean much to be “pre-pro” at MBT.