Alongside guest faculty, Did not teach during session
Did not teach during session
Attention from teachers
Very Little
1
2
3
4
5
A Lot
Technique improved?
No
1
2
3
4
5
Yes - Tremendously
Studios
Dance floors
A bit of a mystery. The school said sprung but dancer says no. We think perhaps "sprung marley" but not marley over sprung floors.
and they’re were multiple injuries incurred over the course of the 3 weeks.
however the students did not believe they were
Sprung floors with secure marley
Unsure. Parents were told that the floors were sprung
Studio space
Cramped
1
2
3
4
5
Lots of Space
Studio cleanliness
Dirty
1
2
3
4
5
Spotless
Schedule
Classes per day
4
5
Saturday classes
Yes
Saturday class duration
Half day or less
Leveling
Leveling
Assigned after placement class
Leveling type
Ability
Unsure
Did students move levels?
No
Yes
Leveling fair?
No
Yes
Students per class
16-24
25-30
Performance
Performance?
Full show
Small demonstration
Rehearsals happened
During daily class
Outside of class
Casting equitability
Uneven
1
2
3
4
5
Even
Rehearsals detracted from class?
Completely
1
2
3
4
5
Not At All
Housing - General
Housing provided
Yes and my dancer lived there
# of roommates
2
3
4
Bathrooms
Private in suite
Coed bathrooms
No
Air conditioning
No
Yes
Housing comment
The RA’s here are cruel and vicious people who were completely untrained in conflict resolution or how to safely and appropriately interact with minors.
We were in a different dorm than where some of the negative reviews are from. My daughter's RAs were amazing - really sweet, nice, came in and did things with them (eat popcorn, check out their rooms, play games, etc). We had no problems with the housing. The suites were very nice and spacious, kitchen and living area, 2 bedrooms on each side that shared a bathroom. FYI you need to bring everything - toilet paper, bath mat, trash bags, big trash can for kitchen, etc. The only complaint was the long walk to meals and it was generally required to go to the dining hall for breakfast and dinner. My daughter had no complaints about the food, she actually loved it! She said sometimes she got that she couldn't have something, but she always had lots of options and more than enough to eat. Lunch was great ($15 to spend at food court).
RA staff at USF were ill-equipped to deal with this age group. They received re-training during the program due to a high number of complaints, but that did not seem to help at all.
Suites were very nice - 4 private bedrooms shared a kitchen and living area and two full bathrooms
nope
Dancer had their own bedroom in a suite with two other roommates that also have allergies. She loved her room , her roommates and her RAs.
Dancers lived in a 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom suite.
Her RA was friendly and great! She asked the girls whether they wanted the bus or to walk. My daughter and her roommates preferred walking so they could chat and have fun on the walk. My daughter had her own private room and shared a kitchen/fridge/microwave with her 3 roommates. She was allowed to shop at Publix with her RA, and she chose to stock her fridge for breakfast and snacks. She was not required to go to breakfast and was allowed to sleep in and eat in her room under her RA's supervision.
Housing - Supervision
Curfew
Yes
Curfew reasonable?
Yes
Room check
Yes
How strict were dorms?
Just about right
Somewhat strict
Very strict
Infraction handling
N/A
Skewed depending on the RA
Too harsh
Housing - Cleanliness
Laundry available
Yes
Laundry free
No
Yes
Housing cleanliness
Dirty
1
2
3
4
5
Spotless
Cleaning required
No
Yes
Meal Plan
Meal plan
Yes
Food quality
Gross
1
2
3
4
5
Excellent
Enough food
No
Yes
Dietary needs?
No
Yes
Specific needs
allergies
Food Dyes
Vegetarian
vegitarian
Dietary options
Limited
1
2
3
4
5
Lots
Activities
Weeknight activities
No
Yes
Weekend outings
Yes
Attended weekend outings
Yes, all of them
Favorite
N/A
Busch Gardens
Busch Gardens
None were great; and because of a big mix-up with bush gardens they had to reschedule at the last minute and miss the pool day
shopping
Liked them all equally
Busch Gardens
Bush Gardens
Least favorite
N/A
none, she liked all. We did not get to do the pool day as the Busch Gardens day was rescheduled
none
I think all were required. Dancer had fun being with friends but they weren’t very exciting of themselves
buche gardens was very stressful
N/A
N/A
N/A
Logistics
Quality of handbook
Spotty
1
2
3
4
5
Comprehensive
Program communication
Limited
1
2
3
4
5
Comprehensive
Transportation
some times we would take the public bus if it was really rainy, most of the4e time we walked and we were always accompanied with a chaperone.
Walked with chaperone
Walked with chaperone but a shuttle could be used in rain
Walked with chaperone by choice and road bus when rained
Neighborhood safety
Not Safe
1
2
3
4
5
Very Safe
General Comments
Overall recommendation
Definitely Not
1
2
3
4
5
Absolutely
Best aspect
My dancer responded quite well to the ABT curriculum and believed it to be a good fit for her. Although none of the actual ABT/JKO NY faculty taught at the Tampa location with exception of maybe a single guest teacher class, the instructors are ABT certified, and my dancer liked the training a lot.
The level of instruction, the classes, the amount of dancing per day, the ABT style, the show at the end was great, the suite style bedrooms with single rooms was good for the kids
personal growth
Teaching
my friends
They felt the training was top notch, made amazing friends and loved the dorm life.
The teachers
She grew as a dancer in technique, independence, and in confidence. My dancer came home and auditioned and earned the role she wanted in her studio's Nutcracker production. It was a bonus that she made friends and still stays in touch to this day. I would gladly have her return.
Least liked about program
This SI was a complete disaster. ABT and the teaching staff were lovely. I speak I specifically regarding the entire faculty at Florida State University. They were cruel, thoughtless, and ill prepared. There was a football clinic happening during the same time as the SI, and dancers were barely fed, and often told that they weren’t allowed to eat something specific (like the omelets for example were apparently only for the football players). The dancers weren’t brought to the cafeteria to eat until after the football players, who had eaten their fill, and then the healthy foods weren’t replenished for the dancers. My dancer had only green beans for 3 straight meals. Despite having a meal plan, the dancers were also walking 4-5 miles a day to get to the studios, in addition to a full day of rigorous dance training, so the parents were having to door dash food to their dancers, which at one point was forbidden by the RA’s because they didn’t want to have to take the dancers to pickup their door dash. The dancers could go on one grocery run per week, but with the walking back to the dorms, couldn’t get much. My daughter lost nearly 15 pounds during her 3 week stay here when she has absolutely no spare weight to lose. The woman who runs the SI program, although a sweet lady was completely out of her depth. The RA’s developed highly odd and inappropriate attachments to certain kids, and targeted others. Within a week in, they began making threats of the nature that “they would ensure that any future the dancer hopes to have with ABT would be destroyed” and “if it were up to us, you’d already be kicked out of here!”. The RA’s would openly speak poorly about the kids. There was a dorm wide meeting held one night in which the children were all screamed at and accused of being discriminatory by not honoring the RA’s gender identity pronouns, when none had been announced, nor put on name tags to inform the students. My dancer feels strongly about acceptance and showing support and respect, and felt so hurt and confused about how they had been disrespectful when the RA’s gender pronouns weren’t communicated. Several children were accused of stealing and bullying, simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. There were children accused of sexual harassment because they happened to be in a friends room when their room mate came out in their pajamas and bathrobe. At one point, the RA’s pulled about 5-6 students out of their dorms at night, in their pajamas, and decided that these students should collect the garbage for their entire dorm room and dispose of it. The garbage collections were quite a walk, but at 11:00 at night, in their pajamas, these children had to collect and carry garbage out. Parents were constantly getting emailed empty apologies from the FSU dance faculty using the phrase “we apologize for the RA’s reactionary reaction last night”, and yet no disciplinary actions were ever taken to control the RA’s with the exception of one single day long training. As parents found out, the RA’s had not received any training prior to being appointed authority over minors. My own dancer has a diagnosed severe anxiety disorder with selective mutism, which had been under control for several years. My dancer had such a bad anxiety attack one evening due to the RA’s threats that I nearly had to call an ambulance because they couldn’t breath, and there wasn’t a safe adult to go to. My dancer developed a stress rash all over their body that got so bad it would bleed, and wearing clothing became painful. My dancer also developed this same rash on their scalp and is still trying to recover from the infection that was caused on their scalp from the stress induced rash, and then putting their hair into a bun and sweating and dancing all day. My dancer asked that we not pull them from the program, because they had dreamed of ABT their whole life. This was a truly horrifying and demoralizing experience for my child, and although the dance training was very nice, I cannot recommend that anyone send their child here.
1. amount of walking to meals - hopefully they will change this - maybe provide a bus or shuttle or provide other options; 2. communication needed to be better before the program and throughout (better hiring of staff)
residential aspect and excessive walking
Residential/ activities were Poorly organized
sometimes it felt really competitive and not very supportive, and some people were really stuck up and rude
Floors should be sprung and the onsite administration might benefit from more support from NY
Food and walking long distances to the dance studio
Communication before the intensive began was slow.
Suggested changes to program
as above, less walking to meals/more options to stay in dorm and eat (since there were kitchens) would be great
USF staff and excess walking
Location
I would have stuck to talking to only certain people
Sprung floors.
The food options
Get rid of the performance and just have the dancers train. She performs and competes all the time.
Intense but fun training, wonderful teachers, advanced dancers.
Supportive
Wonderful! She loved the teachers, students, and the RA staff.
Other comments
My daughter wants to go back next year and it is her top choice. ABT instruction is amazing. I think they had some growing pains with the housing/USF staff and hopefully they will have better oversight/communication. However, this didn't really impact my dancer and she loved it and is recommending it to her friends. Just FYI, they didn't have a lot of freedom - they danced almost the whole day then moved in a group with chaperone to meals or activities, or were in rooms, so an older more independent dancer may not like that, but it was great for my daughter who loved her roommates and was only 13.
Would only recommend this program if USF makes changes to their staff, programming, organization, and communication
Dancer had a great time; good length of time for first away intensive; great teachers; dancers from all over the country; hopefully usf staff will be better prepared moving forward.
be carefully enthusiastic
My dance enjoyed the Florida intensive. We are posting this review in response to some recent, controversial Facebook activity. For the record, my dancer has also been accepted to ABT NY three times, PNB, SAB, Royal Ballet and other prestigious intensives. We know many other dancers from FL who had a great experience, and we know dancers who had bad experiences at ABT NY. ABT Florida is “run” by ABT but “managed on site” by a FSU employee who probably could have been a little more organized and perhaps needed more support from NY. I really couldn't say. But my dancer has been to enough intensives to know this is often par for the course. Half the teachers were actual ABT staff from NY and half were ABT trained (former ABT dancers or otherwise) who are MORE THAN qualified to teach at a summer intensive. Google Sean Stewart ballet if you need more proof. BTW this is also true for the NY location. In 2023, Adrienne Schulte from GBA was a teacher at the NY intensive who is also more than qualified! Both are amazing teachers. Many of the dancers accepted to Florida have been to YAGP finals and other prestigious intensives and are all very good. Only ABT knows why ABT selects certain dancers for Florida. Many dancers choose Florida as their first choice because not every parent has the funds or freedom to spend $10,000 to live in NY for five weeks. I will say that Florida did have some hiccups that were outside of the training, but my dancer’s first priority was to dance and train. Not go to Busch Gardens. The biggest complaint we have were that the floors in the studio do not appear to be real sprung floors. ABT might want to consider finding a different location to work with in the future for that reason only. The dancers walked about a mile to the studios each way. If you go to ABT NY guess what… you’ll be walking there too. If your dancer has been accepted to ABT Florida, whether you choose to go or not - it’s still an amazing achievement and congrats to your dancer. Not EVERYONE gets accepted to Florida. If I may offer some advice, please encourage your dancer to also discuss their SI options with their studio director who knows your dancer best (even at age 10).
I would do it again. My RAs were great. We heard about issues with lower level dancers but the older students did fine.
