SMART J O BS
Dancers stay on their toes at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet school; joining as pre-teens, they put in long, hard hours – but love it.
Jenny Ford R
yan Vetter was five when he became captivated with dance. He was watching Gene Kelly tap dance across a street in a rainstorm in the musical Singin’ in the Rain.
“I just wanted to dance like that and move like that,” he says. “I fell in love with it.” Ryan asked his parents in his hometown of Sioux Falls, S.D., to
sign him up for dance classes and at the age of 13 he auditioned for the Royal Winnipeg Ballet professional school. Now, at 16, Ryan has one more year of training before graduating from the school to pursue ballet professionally. “I wouldn’t go through all this trouble if I didn’t want to do this for the rest of my life. Tat’s the kind of mentality you have to have to go to this school,” he says. Te Royal Winnipeg Ballet professional school celebrates its
40th anniversary this year. Since it first opened in 1971, the school has trained over 400 graduates; many have gone on to become principal dancers, choreographers, teachers and artistic directors for dance companies across the globe. Tere have, of course, been many changes since the school first
opened, says Bruce Monk, a graduate of the school who has been teaching with the RWB for 25 years. One of the biggest changes, he says, is the school’s facility in the RWB building in down- town Winnipeg. “It’s one of the best facilities for dance in North America,” he says. “Te students can have mentor relationships with the dancers. So, while you’re training scholastically, you can also see the big picture down the road.” Attached to the school is the student residence, where RWB
students live from September to July. Tuition costs for students is between $2,275 and $4,625 depending on their training level. Students have a dorm with their own cafeteria and common room, linked by a catwalk with the dance school itself. Tey attend public school to maintain the academic side of their education, finish- ing high school at the nearby University of Winnipeg Collegiate. “Te academic program is in a regular school environment,” Bruce says, noting that many other ballet schools have their own isolated academic program. “One day your best friend isn’t your
18 SMART careers | Early Spring 2011
best friend anymore. Te types of lessons you learn in school re- ally make a difference in how you cope with life aſter dance.” Typically Ryan’s day starts around 7
in the morning, when he gets ready and warms up for rehearsal starting at 8:30 a.m. Te students dance until 11:45 a.m. before head- ing to the collegiate for their academic work Te school day finishes around 3:30 p.m. when the stu- dents returns to the ballet school for more rehearsals finishing around 7 p.m. Ten, it’s on to homework. “Your day is never really finished here,” he laughs. Ideally students start training as young as grade 6
for a professional career, says Bruce. Tey spend the next six years of their life with the RWB school until they graduate from high school. “It’s basically like they’re doing university training at the same time as they’re doing academics. At grade 12, they’re ready for a job.” “Tere’s an American-Indian language that if you
don’t learn it as a child, you can never learn how to make the sounds,” Bruce says. “Te same thing hap- pens in dance. You learn those phrases and positions and just to move a certain way in your youth. You have to sacrifice a lot in your younger years, but the result of the work is a much more harmonious look. It’s a movement vocabulary and you become incredibly fluent in it.” Previous training isn’t necessary when audi-
tioning for the RWB school. Bruce can oſten tell if an applicant will become a good dancer just by looking at them. “Your physique is very important,”he says. “It’s not necessarily things you can see on the outside, but the length of
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