Daje Dance Academy strives to provide a strong ballet foundation for its students with
opportunities for both the recreational and pre-professional dancer. Our ballet curriculum is designed to progress each age group and level in a systematic way, allowing each student to understand and apply the material before moving on to the next level. As an enhancement to Daje Dance Academy’s ballet program, we are excited to be introducing a new curriculum with multiple level program that combines high quality artistic training as an integral part of Daje’s technical curriculum. Our curriculum consists of a comprehensive set of age-appropriate, outcome-based guidelines to provide the highest quality ballet training to dance students of all ages and skill levels. Incorporating our new Curriculum will provide our dancers with the very best in ballet education for both the recreational and the intensive student. Recreational students will still be able to participate once a week in the varying levels, while our intensive students will have the opportunity to take multiple classes a week.
Daje’s Ballet classes will be relabeled using our New Curriculum levels as noted in the chart below. As always, dancers will be placed in age and level-appropriate classes where they will learn proper body placement, terminology, musicality, rhythm, and strength and flexibility skills appropriate for their level. Young dancers will also learn to work with and respect peers and teachers while in a creative environment. With each class advancement, the student willlearn new steps and vocabulary, perform more intricate combinations, expect a faster-paced class structure, and develop a more refined ballet foundation.
Ballet will be a year-round program to help students to continue building students strength, flexibility and technical skill. We will condense classes and move them to the morning time slots in the summer months, with a week off the first week and last week of summer.
Our Ballet classes will perform in a Christmas Nutcracker Compellation Concert and will not perform in the spring. This will give students more time to build skill in their classes.
Dancers under the age of 13 will be placed in Pre-Ballet, Foundation Levels, based
on their age as of January 1st of the closest School Year Session. These younger dancers will also be placed, as appropriate in section A, B of these levels using the Curriculum and these classes will implement that curriculum to help the dancers progress towards the Pre-Professional track, if desired. Dancers age thirteen and older have two options: the Teen Track or the Pre- Professional Track.
The Pre-Professional Track is designed for the serious dancer who wishes to commit to a more rigorous schedule and demanding class environment. This Track leads female dancers to work on pointe and male dancers to develop partnering and strength skills, and ultimately prepares the dancer for the pre-professional realm.
Dancers who do not wish to make this commitment are placed in the Teen Track and will continue studying ballet with a less demanding schedule and workload. They will still be able to move up through our Ballet levels, but depending on amount of dancing hours and ankle strength they will not be allowed to take class on Pointe. Ballet is the foundation for most forms of dance, and important to the progress of dancers who want to pursue other styles of dance as well. Some dancers under age thirteen will be admitted into our Pre-Professional Track program, at the discretion of Daje’s Ballet Directors.
Winter Showcase: All Ballet classes will be performing in a Winter Recital and not the Spring Recital. If your student is in a combo jazz/ballet class they will perform in the spring.