BALLET HELP DESK

Summer Intensive Reviews

Programs Reviewed: 232
Total Reviews: 1867

Canada's National Ballet School

Summer Intensive Reviews

General

Dancer age

1
1
2
1
1
4
1
1

First time at a summer intensive?

9
3

Year of SI

1
6
3
2

Weeks available

1
10
1

Weeks attended

1
1
10

Reviewer

2
9
1

Curriculum

Techniques taught

2
8
3

Partnering (based on age)

12

Dedicated men's program?

1
11

# of boys in level

4
1
4
3

Other dance genres

4
2
1
11
2
4
2
1

Quality of other classes

Not Helpful
2
1
4
5
Helpful

Injury Prevention

Strength classes?

5
5
2
1

PT offered?

2
10

Extra fee for PT?

5
5
2

Injury rate

4
7
1

Teaching

Who taught?

2
10

Guest teachers

8
4

Year-round teachers taught

3
1
8

Attention from teachers

Very Little
3
6
3
A Lot

Technique improved?

No
3
5
4
Yes - Tremendously

Studios

Dance floors

1
11

Studio space

Cramped
1
11
Lots of Space

Studio cleanliness

Dirty
2
10
Spotless

Schedule

Classes per day

10
2

Saturday classes

10
2

Saturday class duration

2
10

Leveling

Leveling

12

Leveling type

2
8
2

Did students move levels?

11
1

Leveling fair?

1
11

Students per class

7
4
1

Performance

Performance?

1
10
1

Rehearsals happened

1

Casting equitability

Uneven
1
Even

Rehearsals detracted from class?

Completely
2
10
Not At All

Housing - General

Housing provided

1
8
3

# of roommates

2
6

Bathrooms

1
4
1
1
1

Coed bathrooms

7
1

Air conditioning

8

Housing comment

  • "Housing is at the school and is run all year. Things run much more smoothly than programs that rent university/college dorms for summer housing."
  • "Dorms close to the school"
  • "Very close to ballet studios, about 1/2 block walk. 3 meals a day plus snacks. Laundry is done for the dancers and is free"
  • "She had an amazing experience"
  • "The rooms were very small with 3 dancers to a room in most cases. One set of bunk beds and one single bed across from the bunk beds. There were 2 desks and 2 armoires. And the lower bunk and single bed had drawers underneath. The residence building is about a block from the studios and the dancers walk there with a supervisor. It is not the nicest area to be walking in, but it is daytime and my dancer had no problems. The residence building is also quite old and may even be considered heritage. But this means it is very dated and worn esthetically and with regards to space and layout. My dancer still loved it, but I have heard other parents say theirs didn't like it very much."
  • "The residence is very close to the studios and only a short walk. The RA's on my daughter's floor (for grade9/10) were fairly lax about rules. There were instances when dancers were out past curfew (or left after curfew) and up making noise and carrying on in the halls past the lights out time. My daughter said these were usually the year round students. However, the RA's didn't seem to do much about it. On the one hand, it's nice to have some freedom, but as a parent, it's a bit worrisome. Please note that the RA's are different on each floor and each floor is a different age group, so this may have just been my daughter's floor and I would suspect, it is more strict for younger dancers."
  • "Small rooms with 3 roommates"

Where did they stay?

1
1
1
1

Housing - Supervision

Curfew

8

Curfew reasonable?

8

Room check

2
6

How strict were dorms?

5
1
1
1

Infraction handling

1
2
5

Housing - Cleanliness

Laundry available

8

Laundry free

8

Housing cleanliness

Dirty
5
3
Spotless

Cleaning required

8

Meal Plan

Meal plan

8

Food quality

Gross
2
1
3
2
Excellent

Enough food

8

Dietary needs?

7
1

Specific needs

  • "Soy, nuts, dairy, chickpeas"

Dietary options

Limited
1
Lots

Activities

Weeknight activities

8

Weekend outings

2
10

Attended weekend outings

2
8

Favorite

Repeated Responses:
  • "Niagara Falls" (2 responses)
Unique Responses:
  • "Baseball game or CN Tower"
  • "Ripley’s aquarium, Casa Loma, CN Tower"
  • "Casa Loma and Wonderland"
  • "Casa Loma, CN Tower"
  • "Shopping"
  • "Canada’s Wonderland"

Least favorite

  • "not sure"
  • "Ripleys Aquarium (Too busy)"
  • "N/A"
  • "depends on what interests your child"
  • "The zoo"
  • "High Park"

Logistics

Quality of handbook

Spotty
1
1
10
Comprehensive

Program communication

Limited
2
1
4
5
Comprehensive

Transportation

1
1
1
4
5

Neighborhood safety

Not Safe
1
3
6
2
Very Safe

General Comments

Overall recommendation

Definitely Not
4
2
6
Absolutely

Best aspect

  • "NBS is a magical place and my son was hooked. Received an invite for year-round and graduated in 2022.."
  • "The structure of the schedule"
  • "teachers"
  • "My daughter was safe, happy, made so many friends and the training is impeccable."
  • "Great teachers and you were able to make wonderful friends and really build connections with them."
  • "The small class sizes and the beautiful facility."
  • "Dancing at NBC studios with live music and incredible teachers"
  • "1) Small class sizes and same teacher everyday for tech and pointe 2) Group of auditioning kids were wonderful and from many countries all around the world 3) Good, solid, technical training 4) Beautiful studios 5) Residence very close to studios"
  • "Excellent, consistent training. Clean technique taught. Very well organized"
  • "Boarding and possible acceptance to the school"
  • "Meeting new people and being in an environment where my dancer’s passion for dance was shared."
  • "The kids were mixed with year long kids and the teachers were thr year round teachers"

Least liked about program

  • "It's on the short side for US dancers--more aligned with European summer intensive scheduling."
  • "Not enough communication prior to the start of the program (if you are an exchange student)."
  • "Not having as much dancing as other intensives and not having partnering. Also because it is a 4 week audition for year round it got very stressful for my dd who really wanted to get in."
  • "The audition aspect takes away from the training a little bit. The dancers become very focused on who is getting offers to stay during the 3rd and 4th weeks. I also feel that the teachers know who they will be inviting at the start of the summer and put more attention and energy onto those dancers throughout the rest of the month. My daughter had a knee injury toward the end of the 3rd week and went to her teacher several times about it. The teacher did not offer Physiotherapy or anyone to look at the injury and just told her to sit out as needed. In contrast, while I was there watching the parent observation class, I witnessed another student complain of an injury that happened at that moment. I saw the teacher become consumed with this child's injury, calling the physio from the studio phone and emailing as well when no one answered. The teacher ignored the rest of the class for several minutes while attending to this student. I will note that this student was one who was invited to stay and I will also note that the injury wasn't severe and the child was not visibly in pain or upset and was capable of sitting on the side to watch the rest of the class."
  • "No performance for parents"
  • "1) Dancing days quite short. Started at 1 and ended at 6:15 with 2-20 mins breaks included 2) One of the daily teachers heavily favored a few students 3) Too much free time in the mornings 4) Food 5) Auditioning aspect takes away from the learning a bit. When the AD and others come into the class to watch, obviously the dancers are distracted by that and take their focus off of their learning for that time and instead focus on performing and auditioning for them."
  • "It is not an intensive in the traditional sense, it is an audition for their full time program. Students can get stressed and anxious about getting accepted. It creates a difficult dynamic as some students get accepted and others don't know and may not find out until after the program is finished."
  • "Not placing by level"
  • "My dancer felt that classes ended too late in the day at 6:00 (but note that she was in the youngest age group so had the earliest curfew and lots to fit in before curfew time)."

Suggested changes to program

  • "A bit longer."
  • "Add pas class"
  • "Nothing really."
  • "Longer dancing days. There were only 3 classes per day. 1pm-4:45pm with 2 breaks included in that time. One ballet tech, one pointe and one other genre (jazz, afro etc.) The morning were spent doing "group bonding" activities such as watching movies and crafts."
  • "Add a performance. All I saw were glimpses on IG stories."
  • "1) Longer days 3) Have lighter meal options at lunch. It was always a full dinner type meal at lunch. Very heavy when you are eating before you have started your dance day. Perhaps offer salads or sandwiches/wraps as a lunch option. 2) Auditioning - the intention of the summer here is to audition for the year round. However, in several cases there were dancers who had already been invited to year round before the summer program (either from a competition or from previous year and weren't even attending the summer session). In several grades/levels, there weren't any spaces or maybe only one or 2 spots in a level/class available. I understand this to some degree because the school needs to gain income from summer students. Perhaps it would be better to make this program just a summer intensive experience? Since there are so few spots open (especially grade 9 and up), they could just reach out and invite dancers who they feel would be a good fit during the summer without having everyone there feel they have a chance for a spot."
  • "My dancer would have liked some additional hours and partnering. Partnering is taught in the year round program but is not done in the summer program."
  • "More challenging classes"
  • "Finish classes earlier than 6:00pm"

Culture of program

  • "very methodical, kind, and even-keeled."
  • "I don’t think I can articulate how special the culture is at Canada’s National Ballet School. They respect each individual dancer, they want them to feel safe, respected, and able to communicate through their voices and through dance in a tolerant space. They are amazing. Magical."
  • "Positive. Everyone (teachers, admin, students) was very encouraging and the culture was to build others up"
  • "Competitive, but fun. Laid back training. Very nice kids, no problematic behaviour with excluding, bullying or breaking the rules."
  • "Friendly and supportive"
  • "The culture seemed to be different depending on if you were an auditioning student or a year round student. The auditioning group was wonderful, very welcoming, very supportive and all became wonderful friends with each other. It didn't feel competitive at all. The year round students don't take classes with the auditioning dancers. And they don't interact at all, even though some are roommates with auditioning dancers. In my daughter's grade, the year round group was very cliquey and not very welcoming to the auditioning group. My daughter said the year round dancers would watch her class through the windows and be whispering about the dancers while they watched. She was uncomfortable with this and felt it gave her a glimpse into what the culture was like there year round. This actually was a part of her deciding it wasn't somewhere she wanted to go for year round training. She didn't like the vibe she got from the year round students."
  • "Both supportive and competitive."
  • "Competitive"
  • "Friendly, supportive, welcoming. Year round students were very welcoming to the auditioning students."
  • "kindness and caution towards children's bodies to avoid injuries"

Other comments

  • "NBS is not a flashy place. Focus is on impeccable technique and being a well-rounded person."
  • "They best culture of any SI my daughter has attended and exceptionally high level of ballet. Plus my daughter had the most fun."
  • "It was such a great experience."
  • "This is a great program if you are hoping to have your child accepted to the full year program. However, please be aware that it is very difficult to determine what this school is looking for in their potential students. Some of the dancers invited to stay were not the strongest dancers technically or artistically, but had very good feet or other facility."
  • "If your dancer's intention is to get into the full year program, then absolutely go. They will have good training and a good auditioning experience. Just keep in mind that at the senior levels, there may not be any or only 1 or 2 spots available for year round training. If you don't plan to entertain an offer for year round training, I would say give other places a try."
  • "If you are looking for a traditional intensive, this is not that. Dancers attending should be hoping to attend the full-time program."
  • "The dancers need more freedom on their down time."
  • "My dancer loved making lots of friends!"
  • "I recommand it ! NBS is really a place of kindness and grow. My kid is flourishing there"
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