Talk:Royal Academy of Dance

Complete Revision
Hey all, I'm completely re-writing this article to try and make it more informative and wikipedia friendly at the same time. I'm including a selected history and other information about the Academy. I am taking all my information from the chornology and Facts & Figures pages on the RAD website, but do feel free to change anything if things have been updated and you have a reliable infromation source. Cheers Crazy-dancing (talk) 05:21, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi my name is Grace shali I would like to come to your school Shalizta (talk) 10:28, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

RAD is not a dance technique
I removed RAD from Category:Dance technique but was reverted because "The RAD is an organisation that is built around a specific dance technique". The first part of that statement is true: the article says RAD is a "dance education and training organisation". However, the article goes on to say that RAD's training syllabus covers "the English style of ballet", free movement, and character dances based on Hungarian, Russian and Polish folk dance. That's not a "specific dance technique", is it?

Whether RAD is focused on a specific dance technique isn't really the issue here, though. RAD does teach dance technique (including "English ballet technique"), and it employs a teaching technique to do so, but then so does every other dance education organisation on the planet. That doesn't qualify RAD as a dance technique, and consequently RAD doesn't belong in the dance technique category; otherwise every topic that is loosely associated with a dance technique (including every dance education organisation, dance school, and dancer) would clutter the category page, and that wouldn't be very useful, would it? On the other hand, an article about a specific dance technique that is taught by RAD, such as English ballet, probably does belong in the dance technique category.

In light of this, shouldn't RAD be removed from Category:Dance_technique? --Lambtron (talk) 14:26, 14 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Please do not misquote the article, which does not claim that the RAD teaches the 'English' style of ballet, merely that the style has become identified as English. The RAD has devised a specific technique or method of classical ballet, for which notability is well established. This technique is unique to the organisation and is codified in its publications, the "Foundations of Classical Ballet Technique" and "Progressions of Classical Ballet Technique".  The research, development and teaching of this technique is the sole reason for the existence of the RAD.  It is the unique nature of this technique that produces a particular style or aesthetic of ballet that is so easily recognisable.


 * Ballet technique is not universal and whilst the movement vocabulary remains the same, the techniques employed to perform those movements varies from method to method. A dancer trained in the RAD method of ballet will not learn to execute a pirouette using exactly the same technique as a dancer trained in the Vaganova method for example. The same applies to other dance forms and usually with the differences in technique being less subtle than those used in ballet. In modern contemporary dance for example, a dancer who studies Cunningham technique will experience a very different training than someone who studies Graham technique.  Both Cunningham and Graham worked in the same field of dance, but they certainly did not use the same techniques.


 * The difficulty here is that the RAD has expanded beyond its core technique, but fundamentally it is no different from the methods of Vaganova, Checchetti, Balanchine and the other notable ballet masters who exerted great influence on ballet. Unlike those techniques however, the RAD method was not devised by one person, it was a collaborative effort that has simply been developed, supplemented and enhanced over the years, with a whole business building up around it. But the fact remains that the core technique of the RAD has not changed and remains the basis on which the organisation operates. Crazy-dancing (talk) 23:54, 15 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Please do not assume bad faith on my part. My "misquote" is based on this statement: "[t]he style of ballet that forms the basis of the RAD syllabus has become recognised internationally as the English style of ballet". Doesn't that mean that RAD teaches the English style of ballet? If that's not what is meant, perhaps the statement should be revised to clarify its meaning.


 * As the lead sentence suggests, this article is all about a "dance examination board specialising in Classical Ballet". Significant coverage is given to grades, the dance education process, awards, and the history of the organisation. A careful reading of the article fails to turn up evidence that RAD teaches distinct, proprietary dance technique. While methods such as Balanchine, Vaganova, et al, have well-documented, distinct differences in technique, this article says only that "[t]he most identifiable aspect of the RAD method is the attention to detail when learning the basic technique of ballet and the progression in difficulty is often very slow", and it goes on to explain that "[t]he principle behind this is that if enough time is spent achieving the maximum level of technique before introducing new vocabulary, the easier it is for the student to learn the harder steps, whilst working the basic technique to the maximum at all times." I take that to mean that the "RAD method" is a teaching method, not a distict form of ballet.


 * I appreciate that you have intimate knowledge of the RAD dance technique but, unfortunately, none of that knowledge is divulged in this article. I have no doubt that you are correct when you say that there is notable and distinct RAD dance technique, and I believe that technique deserves prominent discussion in Wikipedia. That hasn't happened, though, and until it does happen there is little justification for including RAD, the organisation, in a list of articles that discuss dance technique. When it does happen, I would hope to see RAD (dance technique) in the ballet technique category, though I would settle for RAD (organisation) if it contained a decent discussion of RAD dance technique. --Lambtron (talk) 14:07, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Excessive external links
I've noticed that the list of external links has grown quite large. Is it really useful to link to the RAD websites of every country? It seems to me that readers can easily find links to specific country sites on their own. Wouldn't it be sufficient to just list the principal official site (rad.org.uk)? Lambtron (talk) 13:28, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 3 one external links on Royal Academy of Dance. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20101201155441/http://www.rad.org.uk:80/article.asp?id=30 to http://www.rad.org.uk/article.asp?id=30
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20110724232648/http://www.rad.org.uk/article_blue.asp?id=255 to http://www.rad.org.uk/article_blue.asp?id=255
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20120920091514/http://rad.org.uk/article_green.asp?id=198 to http://www.rad.org.uk/article_green.asp?id=198&realCat=75

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 18:26, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 6 one external links on Royal Academy of Dance. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20130621032849/http://www.rad.org.uk/files/ART34_2010_2011%20FULL%20FINANCIAL%20STATEMENTS.pdf to http://www.rad.org.uk/files/ART34_2010_2011%20FULL%20FINANCIAL%20STATEMENTS.pdf
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20120220120946/http://www.rad.org.uk/01who/0111chronology.htm to http://www.rad.org.uk/01who/0111chronology.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20111230142613/http://www.rad.org.uk:80/article.asp?id=249 to http://www.rad.org.uk/article.asp?id=249
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20120505024837/http://rad.org.uk/article_green.asp?id=112 to http://www.rad.org.uk/article_green.asp?id=112
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20120510173313/http://www.rad.org.uk/article_green.asp?id=185&realCat=73 to http://www.rad.org.uk/article_green.asp?id=185&realCat=73
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20130621032832/http://www.rad.org.uk/05exams/index.htm to http://www.rad.org.uk/05exams/index.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 00:44, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 05:00, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
 * The above comment is still relevant nine years later. Lambtron (talk) 20:38, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Hi my name is Grace shali I live in Africa .i am looking for a school. and i found this lovely school called The Royal Academy of Dance in uk and my Talent is dance and sining songs Shalizta (talk) 10:23, 12 May 2020 (UTC)