Ok so here’s some background. My D is a jr & like I have posted before, planning on pursuing BA or BFA in MT. She has been doing MT since she was about 9. She is primarily a singer & has been in voice since that time and has done school, summer & community theatre the entire time. About the age of 12 we saw this going in a "I really love MT " route and signed her up for dance classes. Primarily tap. She did that for 2 years. She also had dance in show choir. She also did a small bit of ballet then too. Once h school came she enrolled in an arts h school. She currently has dance of various forms twice a week. She is not an excellent dancer. She’s good I would say but it’s her weak spot. The problem is she carries this “monkey on her back” regarding her dance skills. She constantly feels inferior and gets upset about it. Because she is a singer (and acting is no problem) she always gets pegged for singing roles as she is quite good at it ( not trying to be braggy! Lol) and she tends to be the strongest singer in a group as she is soprano and can belt etc. my dilemma is I can’t get her to understand that she’ll have 5 yrs now to continue dance training. What tends to happen @ school is there is usually some jealousy over the singing thing and her getting parts etc so the jealous kids will try and find my D’s weakness…dance of course , so then they try to make her feel even worse about it. Like if she doesn’t get a combo right away or the teacher corrects her in front of them. It’s becoming a problem . I don’t know how to encourage her to get past this and focus on just keeping at it. I think as she gets ready for college it may get worse in terms of constantly comparing herself to great dancers. She will never be a great dancer. But then again she can be a good one…anyone in a similar boat?
@theaterwork, it might help your daughter to know that the most selective of all MT schools, CMU, has done away with dance auditions, as they feel that acting/singing are less easily taught within four years at the school than dance. I wouldn’t be surprised if other schools follow suite.
Being a great dancer is a wonderful thing - BUT having great dance skills is not what will bring longevity to a theater career. Yes, when you are young being able to hit yourself in the face with your knee or kick yourself in the back of the head looks flashy and gets “oohs” from the crowd, but it is the singers who can truly “act” a song, or an actor who can “act” the dance that touches the heartstrings or tickles the funny bone. Even if you look at the shenanigans on DWTS, it is the “actors” (no matter what their backgrounds) who can get the audience to “feel” along with them who get the highest ratings. Those kids who can do split jumps and twist themselves into pretzels may just be jealous that your D can “touch” an audience.
On the subject of not being able to learn dance combos well, my S falls into that category. He has had EXTENSIVE dance training since he was eleven, but still has difficulty learning dance combinations - and he always will. Now in his sophomore year in an MT BFA program, he has been cast as a “dancer” in every musical production at his school. He gets discouraged at how long it takes him to learn the dances, but keeps at it and knows he will “get it” before tech rehearsals (he wishes it would come much sooner). As a tutor for dyslexic kids, I know that memorizing sequences of things can be a concurrent difficulty for those with many different learning issues - or perhaps is the only “obvious” problem for those who don’t seem to have other issues. If this sounds like your D, you may want to coach her on various ways to help her learn combinations - team up with the best dancer in the bunch, ask the instructor/choreographer if she can record the combinations, practice steps before she goes to bed and first thing in the morning, study YouTube videos to make sure she knows the technical vocabulary for all the steps, etc. If your D wants to pursue a path in MT, she will have to learn to persevere through the roadblocks - whatever they may be - and not let the comments of others get to her. Tough advice to follow for most teenagers.
I have told her she’s going to have to get past this hang up she has or just bag MT because she can’t let it be this constant thing where she’s always upset about it. The problem with my D is she tends to want to be good at things immediately. No patience. Her singing and acting come rather easy to her. Dance not so. She’s also a perfectionist. Well in MT stuff lol so like when she has a part to learn or a song etc, she’ll practice it over and over and over till it’s perfect. There’s been shows she has been in when she is the only kid who already knows all her stuff right away. That’s a good trait but I fear it’s going to cause her great degrees of stress later on.
Not all successful MTs are dancers! Ideally a person could be all things for ultimate casting flexibility, but there is a market for singers who move (so far our non-dancer D is working steadily). I was a dancer from age 3, and as a young adult actor was on occassion told I wasn’t cast in a role specifically because my movement looked “too dancy”. In my opinion, the best thing our young actors can do is learn to know and accept their type, and to recognize that some work fits them while other work doesn’t.
My daughter was much the same way, although something has finally clicked and she’s gotten over the dance hump in the last year or so (she’s a senior now). She’ll never be a great dancer, but she’s gotten to where she can pick up the dances quickly - and polish them up with work.
Something you might consider is private dance lessons. When my daughter started to concentrate more on dance, she often found that she was the oldest and least experienced student in her classes. It was discouraging for her. We found someone to meet with her privately for a while to kind of catch her up and move her up into classes with people closer to her age. Also, the dance instructor where she takes dance sort of took her under his wing to help encourage her. Both of these were extremely helpful with building her confidence.
Just some suggestions for what helped us. Good luck to your daughter! BTW, my daughter had a roommate at her summer intensive who couldn’t dance at all due to a medical issue. She’s still auditioning for MT and has passed all her prescreens thus far, so there’s a place for all sorts of MT people.
@theaterwork, realistically, there are very few 16,17 or 18 year old true triple threats out there! If your D accepts her weakness, continues working hard and tries to HAVE FUN in her dance calls, it will all work out in the end. IMHO, a joyful face and good attitude helps tremendously in auditions. All you can do is encourage her to try not to stress and have a good time. (I know, easier said than done!) .
My D went into college auditions EXACTLY like your D as far as confidence (or lack thereof) in her dance abilities. She was strong in singing and acting but knew she lacked training in dance but she tried her best to “act” like she was enjoying herself! She came out of several of her dance call auditions deflated and upset and pretty sure she blew her chances of getting in.
She ended up getting accepted at and is attending Boston Conservatory, which she said was THE hardest of any of the dance auditions she did.
Point being, you really never know what the auditioners are looking for on a given day. Our kids have no control over that aspect, so they might as well focus on being prepared the best they can and trying to have a good time.
P.S. I was at parent’s weekend at BoCo a couple weeks ago and got to watch one of her dance classes. HOLY MOLY…what she has learned in a couple of months is nothing short of amazing. I can’t wait to see what kind of dancer she will become after four years!
Well that is all encouraging news. I think she doesn’t realize how she has improved just in the past year. I thought about private lessons but we tried it once and her school schedule always caused problems. She ended up always having rehearsals etc and missing class. I saw threads about leveled dance in college so we just need to be sure she goes somewhere that has that so she’s with others on her level. I thought she learned a lesson from when she went to a summer mt camp in NYC. There were several crazy dancers there that were on competition teams etc, and after the first days dance class she was a wreck and felt awful cause she got stuck in the lower level dance . Well, come to find out those dancers couldn’t sing a lick. Lol. So we told her " see, everyone has a weak spot. "
I think this can’t be overemphasized. Of course at times they are looking for seriously-strong dancers, in which case our “moving” kids aren’t booking the work. But it’s amazing how often when they throw an impossibly hard combination out in an audition what they’re really looking for is attitude, and the smug dancer may be more apt to be cut than the bumbling-but-good-natured singer.
At some point in professional theatre, body type will rule out even the finest dancers. An inch too tall/short and you’re otta there. And your D’s snotty classmates may quickly build a reputation which limits their employment options. Our kids can only control what they can control, and in auditions that boils down to reasonable preparation, a knowledge of how to emphasize your strengths, and a warm attitude.
Totally agree that everyone has strengths and areas where they can improve, “know your type” AND the sooner she can rise above the back-biting jealous types, the better off she’ll be.
That’s so funny you mentioned the “having a good attitude” and joyful face comments . My D says this all the time that her dance teacher points this out in class about her. She’ll say " well D isn’t the most polished out of our group today but she has the most upbeat attitude" . My D had this happen in tap class too. Her teacher knew she wasn’t the strongest dancer in class but acknowledged that my D had the best presentation in terms of facial expression & enthusiasm. At our recitals, which I admit I dreaded, lol , the other parents were always telling me " I can tell your D is in theater because I am drawn to watching her over the others" lol