How it began

Half a week ago my host mother told me about a nutcracker audition in Des Moines. And since I do ballet for 7 years I really wanted to continue it in America. My host mother and sister drove me to the dance studio. I was in the highest age class with 14 and upper. Unfortunately I hurt my foot one day before so I was not sure if I should do it. But because it hurt just a tiny bit anymore I decided to take part.

How it was

So when we arrived I registered and got my number. So it was like the auditions in the movies with numbers and the judges in front of you with a long table. Then I went to the other waiting dancer. There were around 30 to 40 girls and we were five boys. We started with some basic plié and dancing warming up and then we had some basic choreographies. Then the boys had one or two solo choreographies with a lot of jumps. After that the girls had their pointe and a selection in two rounds for the higher roles. Then the boys had grand pirouette. When their were only six girls left we had some paring with pirouettes and some promenade. And that was it.

Picture of my shirt with my number

My difficulties

  1. So as you might know in Germany there is mostly Russian ballet taught and not the English like in the US. It might sound like small differences and they are mostly minor. But when you have ever danced the "Russian way" and never had any experiences with the English ballet you will be confused my things like way of holding your arms or common movements. So that was one of my major problems. I was not used to such minor things which got me out of my concept.
  2. And there was of course the naming. I bad in french names at home as well, but then their was an other accent of it which was quiet hard for me to understand. But with half a second of a delay in the beginning I got almost everything.
  3. As I said earlier I had some problems with my foots the day before which prevented my for example from jumping as high as usual.

Conclusion

Despite the given difficulties already the audition has a great experience for me to learn another type of ballet. And lucky for my their was a women in the judgment who speaks German and was informed by my host mother, so she helped my a bit with the expressions. And even if I know that three of the five boys were way better than me, I am looking forward to take some part in that production.