How to become a professional ballet dancer in the UK?

You would have to audition for a top ballet academy like the Royal Ballet School or other feeder school to a major ballet company there. Perhaps Elmhurst which has ties to the Birmingham Royal Ballet, the English National Ballet school or the Sottish Ballet's associate school. You would have to be born with the body, facility and musicality for a ballet career or they would not train you. You would have to do it starting at a young enough age to get the right training. Certainly by age 10 would be the latest for starting training for a beginner. Then if you are lucky they would ask you to apprentice with the company when you are about 16 or 17 and then get asked to join as corps de ballet 6 months to a year later. There have been talented dancers who have trained elsewhere with good solid training and have transferred to a feeder school at a later age, but it is harder without the best training available starting at a young enough age. Real ballet training doesn't start at age 2 and 3 like many here think. Even though many dancers have started baby classes at that age because their love of dance was so strong. Real ballet training starts at age 7 or 8 when the body is mature enough to handle turnout.

I am in no way an expert on ballet companies and training in the UK as I am from the states. Closest I come to knowing anything about it was my daughter did their 2 week summer program at the RBS some years ago. But certain things are pretty universal. Dancers from other countries have danced with some of the ballet companies in the UK as they have auditioned after training at other top ballet academies around the world. The bottom line is you need to be born with the all the gifts for ballet in order to get the right training for which yo will be screened. Then you need top professional training. As there are not a lot of jobs in the ballet, many dancers with both the gifts and the best training don't all reach the professional ranks.

@ Ballyhoo- I did call it the "Royal Ballet SCHOOL" but we do speak different languages. We use the term "academy" to mean top training here. As you say "Lory" we say "Truck". What you call college is still high school here and university is what we call college. I never implied that it was an automatic progression as here only a scant few get chosen to be an apprentice anywhere you train. She just asked about the process and that is pretty much the same all over. However, that is where the apprentices are chosen from. I did say they could come from other schools as well if you read my answer; including outside of the country. I do know of many dancers who joined ballet companies in the UK under the age of 19. Alina Cojocaru trained at the RBS for 6 months and joined as corps de ballet at age 16. Her main training was in Romania. Lauren Cuthbertson trained at the RBS from a young age and joined the company at age 16 in February of 2002. There are many others as well. Not all join at age 16 and 17 but 19 is pretty much the cut off. After that age it isn't likely to happen for you. Even in the USA at SAB, they officially take dancers to study up to age 18 for entrance and only keep them to age 19. However, the majority are take into NYCB at 16 and 17 If they want them at all. Occasionally they have the option to take an older dancer but they rarely do.

I do know you know a lot about vocational and recreational dance training in the UK and I don't. You are familiar with al; of the major and minor schools. I do know about professional ballet training and what it takes to have a ballet career, and most do it well before age 19. Even in the UK. I asked David Howard about that and he concurred. True not every single one takes the identical path to get there and all one can do is generalize on how it is usually done. There are always exceptions.

* Note: I have never been unkind to you or put down any of your answers and have even bowed to your knowledge on vocational training in the UK when you corrected something I didn't know about and appreciate what I have learned from you about that. However, I really don't think it is necessary for you to thumbs down all of my answers when you answer them. A TD always seem to appear right after you answer a question I answer. This is about giving the right information and helping people. Not who likes who. I have no resentment towards you and don't know why you have it towards me.

I really find it hard to believe that the training in the UK is so much slower or poorer that it takes 3 years longer for dancers to become professional ballet dancers as compared to any other place in the world. So, I really don't buy Ballyhoos answer on this. I am in American and was a former ballet student at SAB which is the feeder school to the NYCB. I attend a different ballet academy now. Yes, there are classes for student entering at age 18 and they go to age 19, but they rarely are the ones that are chosen to be in the company. Does it happen occasionally? Yes it does.The majority of the dancers are like mintchips says 16 when they apprentice and 17 when they join the company. At age 16 your training really should be complete and if trained properly, you really don't get much better after that. Then it is just learning repertory or style of a ballet company and that is what apprenticeship is for. If they don't call it apprenticeships but they dance as corps de ballet without being full members of the company from time to time, it is the same thing as being an apprentice and we are just mincing words here. Here student NEVER dances as corps de ballet unless they have the title of apprentice so as too not get a student confused with the main company of professional dancers. When ballet careers are so short to begin with, what is the reason to diddle about in classes and not work if you can work. True many dancers never get to be professionals even with the best training and facility for dance. So while Ballyhoo has other academies ...oops excuse me "schools" for ballet that also produce professional ballet dancers, that information is indeed helpful to this answer.But to think that dancers wait until age 19 to get into companies as a rule there is hard to swallow. It is also not a reality when you check most of the bios of dancers who are in the RB as many not all, started there at age 16 and 17.

^^Ballyhoo. I wanted to mention that I did some googling about dancers in the Royal ballet and most of the female dancers I found birth dates on joined the company at age 16. or joined anther company at that age or younger and then joined the Royal Ballet. Even Moira Shearer of the famed "Red Shoes" film and one of the RB most famous dancers joined the company at age 16. As the company has a lot of internationally trained dancers. there are many stories of dancers from different training around the world. I think the majority who study at the RBS don't get work anywhere so the fact that many train longer doesn't really mean all that much in terms of getting work with a ballet company in the UK. Perhaps instead of an apprenticeship program, which they really don't seem to have, they use the upper school students that interest them in that manor. But then they often don't hire them for the company from what I was able to find out. Most of the dancers the RB use are from other countries including some trained in the USA. I know the RB is often referred to as the "fat" ballet company and the dancers are certainly not fat. They are not as thin as other ballet company dancers that is true. I never heard of the company referred to as the "old" ballet company for starting dancers so late.

^^^@ the asker- as ballet isn't a sport but an art, that is why you couldn't find anything in a NGB for ballet.

Firstly, are you sure that ballet will be an acceptable subject as it is not a sport but an art form. The examiners can be very pedantic so I would check with your school first.

Some of the things that Mintchip has said are correct but things are different in the UK to the US. Yes, you have to audition for one of the top ballet schools (including the ones mentioned, but it is the Royal Ballet School, not academy) but there are other schools that are not associated with companies that are also good such as Central school of Ballet, Ballet West and Northern Ballet. Whilst Royal, Elmhurst and ENBS Re associated with companies there is no automatic progression from school to company and only one or two dancers make it each year, and this is by coincidence as a dancer from Elmhurst may just as easily get a job with ENB etc etc.

Students generally stay at school here until they a 19 and acceptance into a company, at any level, is very unusual any younger than this, although students are ocassionally asked to dance if companies need extra corps.

At some stage during their final year, students audition for a company and many will attend many auditions before getting placed.

@mintchip. I see no need for such a defensive answer. I was also simply stating the facts as I know them. It is a FACT that the top dance schools in this country train students until they are 19 and THEN they look for contracts. Very ocassionally and exceptional student will be offered a contract before this age. One of the lesser schools has just started to offer a three year 6th form (we call schooling past the age of 16 6th form) so as to be the same as the major schools and prevent their students leaving to look for a place for just one year.

If we are being pedantic, the school websites do say that they offer a three year course for 16-18 year olds BUT the 6th form, ie the first of three years starts in the academic year in which you turn 17. By the same token, you graduate in he year in which you turn 19 so some with birthdays that fall late in the academic year may still not quite be 19 when they graduate, but will be within about six weeks. That is just the way our system works.

I can assure you that I do not thumbs down your posts. I do this only very very ocassionally to anyone and that is only when I feel that they give advice that could cause injury.

@Georgia. I am sorry, but what I have said about training in the UK is factually correct. I don't know why it is that way, but it is. When students dance with a company, the programme will say that students appear with kind permission of - insert name of school" I know this because my daughter has done this herself and she is very much still at school and not an apprentice.