ISTD Ballet

Ballet is the core of all dance! Ballet encourages: discipline; good posture; musicality; grace; core strength; poise, co-ordination; expression and all whilst dancing to beautiful classical music. We start students in Ballet at age 2 years old and students can take their ISTD Ballet exams from age 6 years old which start at Primary level and then Grades 1-6 and then vocational exams with a live pianist! In the younger grades we enter a magical kingdom of make believe and use imagery to help improve technique and understanding and as the dancers move up the grades they find their own artistry to add to their dancing. Ballet helps creates beautiful lines and classical, lyrical movements. Grade 6 upwards give UCAS points and Intermediate up Vocational exams count as GCSE’S! Ballet was my first love and remains a great love of mine I adore sharing this passion with my students. Brilliant class to focus, work hard and dance with grace! Xx

ISTD Modern

Modern is a brilliant class to build style and strength. It really compliments Ballet and Tap and I cannot recommend this syllabus enough. Students gain performance skills as expression and acting is encouraged through the dance, co-ordination in isolations, musicality and rhythm and strength and core stability in the body conditioning exercises. Students start off in the younger grades with fun ideas to help bring out performance and timing like /The Clown’ routine and as they go up the grades lots of style and artistry is encouraged and added into the work. Students will learn to dance sharp strong jazz moves / lyrical moves and learn to go between the two moving from strong movements to soft movements and picking out the highlights in the music which really helps for routines. The exams help focus and bring a great sense of achievements!

ISTD Tap

Tap is a brilliant dance style to learn. Once you start learning tap you will find your feet tapping away in shops/ in the car/ whilst chatting to someone without even realising! It is a fantastic feeling to conquer knew beats and tap skills! Musicality and rhythm are hugely required for this style of dance and timing is key. Students are taught to create strong clear beats all whilst performing and keeping their bodies nice and relaxed. Tap is a great bonus technique and required for an all round performer we always have a big tap number in our shows. Any student wanting to take their dancing to a professional level and attend a school age 11 or college age 16 they will be auditioned in Ballet, Modern and Tap along with Singing and Acting! Each class compliments the other and really builds the all round performer. Grace and beautiful lines in Ballet, strength and performance in Modern and rhythm and timing in Tap.

MUSICAL THEATRE

Musical Theatre class is super fun and the core of our stage school! I encourage every student to attend this class as it really is the heart of our school and a great base class to bond the age groups together despite them maybe being in different grades for dance. They will be trained in fun dance routines whilst singing too. We study lots of different musical theatre songs from lead West End and Broadway musicals and we work towards our annual show! We have performed as a whole school ‘Oliver’ ‘Bugsy Malone’ ‘Grease’ ‘Billy Elliot’ ‘Annie’ ‘Shrek’ ‘Matilda’ and we will be performing ‘The Greatest Showman’ later this year!! Students are encouraged to be brave enough to sing on their own to their peers which will hopefully lead to them feeling happy to sing in-front of audiences in our shows! This class builds a great knowledge of musicals and songs and a fantastic team spirit to put routines and build on characters together :]

STREET

Street classes cover: Lyrical; Jazz; Street and Contemporary. Students will learn routines that can lead to ISTD exams. Currently in our Kent school and coming soon to our London school. We also hold street shows just for street dancers to perform their group and solo/ duets etc. Super fun and a great dance to put all the skills learnt in technique classes into action!

Our street teams have great fun forming a bond through learning routines and taking on new styles and new ways of moving!!

STRETCH AND CORE

Flexibility and strength are key qualities for young dancers. Being flexible and strong helps our dancers manage the higher grades and to have the ability to perform all different dance styles safely. We teach Progressive Ballet Technique {body conditioning can be for non ballet dancers} and use bands/ mats and balls to help our students achieve more and more flexibility and strength. Students get so excited when they achieve the splits or a cartwheel or a bridge!!! A great class that really helps build strong dancers!

LAMDA

LAMDA is a worldwide prestigious exam board and is the acting and musical theatre equivalent to ISTD dance exams. Students have two monologues that they work on with their teacher and they also have the option to learn and work on a song. Once they are ready they are entered into exams and we also hold LAMDA shows for students to perform their pieces to an audience. Exams and show are optional this class can be taken to boost confidence to speak in-front of a group which will hopefully lead to being happy to perform solo to large audiences!! Fantastic character building and a great chance to explore different acting skills and accents.

SINGING

DSS students have the opportunity to train with our singing teacher in private 1-1 sessions.

Focusing on vocal technique and strength plus performance whilst singing. Students can work on musical theatre or current music and will always be welcome to perform them in our end of term showcases!

Students who work on a solo piece will also be able to take LAMDA musical theatre exams.