Audition Season Begins With a Bang
On a lazy day in the middle of winter break, I signed up for a few auditions. And then I signed up for a few more.
And then I checked my calendar and I'd signed up for 18 live auditions.
They're all for either summer intensives, year round pre-professional programs, or traineeships. I know that while I've definitely improved a ton during my time at Joffrey, I'm still not ready for a professional setting. This year, I'm looking to either be in a very small school with super individualized training, or I want something linked to a company with performance experience. Joffrey is doing a lot for me, but it really has neither, and I can't really afford to stay there until my 3rd and 4th year when they'll finally help me with auditions, since I'll be about 26 by then.
This weekend, I went to the ABT Collegiate Summer Intensive audition, which was in the ABT studio space and I had to walk there just as the snow was getting slippery. It was a fairly large group of auditionees--they split us into two classes for the 16 and older group. The class was fine--technically easier than my daily classes at Joffrey but with different stylings (that I thankfully remembered from Maryland Youth Ballet and PNB). It was a nice group of pleasant girls (I've yet to meet someone really catty at an audition), and everything went smoothly until a young girl in the front line passed out in the middle of marking a pirouette.
It was more shocking than anything. She narrowly missed taking a hit to the chin on the piano as she went down, and she was back awake and responding to the teacher and the panel judges in less than a minute. Her mom was in the building so she was a-ok, but we all were a little more consious of our water intake after that.
In the end, the ABT audition was a good experience, and in addition to potentially leading to a new training opportunity, I think it's healthy to audition in order to decrease future audition anxiety as well as to see what the training level is outside of one's class, and I look forward to my seventeen other auditions as 2017 rolls forward.
And then I checked my calendar and I'd signed up for 18 live auditions.
They're all for either summer intensives, year round pre-professional programs, or traineeships. I know that while I've definitely improved a ton during my time at Joffrey, I'm still not ready for a professional setting. This year, I'm looking to either be in a very small school with super individualized training, or I want something linked to a company with performance experience. Joffrey is doing a lot for me, but it really has neither, and I can't really afford to stay there until my 3rd and 4th year when they'll finally help me with auditions, since I'll be about 26 by then.
This weekend, I went to the ABT Collegiate Summer Intensive audition, which was in the ABT studio space and I had to walk there just as the snow was getting slippery. It was a fairly large group of auditionees--they split us into two classes for the 16 and older group. The class was fine--technically easier than my daily classes at Joffrey but with different stylings (that I thankfully remembered from Maryland Youth Ballet and PNB). It was a nice group of pleasant girls (I've yet to meet someone really catty at an audition), and everything went smoothly until a young girl in the front line passed out in the middle of marking a pirouette.
It was more shocking than anything. She narrowly missed taking a hit to the chin on the piano as she went down, and she was back awake and responding to the teacher and the panel judges in less than a minute. Her mom was in the building so she was a-ok, but we all were a little more consious of our water intake after that.
In the end, the ABT audition was a good experience, and in addition to potentially leading to a new training opportunity, I think it's healthy to audition in order to decrease future audition anxiety as well as to see what the training level is outside of one's class, and I look forward to my seventeen other auditions as 2017 rolls forward.
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