My name is Ingve Groven, I have been a professional ballet dancer for
15 years in different ballet companies in Germany and Austria.

Through my career I have been teaching ballet. In the beginning only in
schools in the cities I was dancing, later I have concentrated my
teaching activities on advanced students and professional dancers in
ballet companies.

For the last two years I have been working on a project trying to give
advanced ballet students and professional dancers and aspiring
professionals a chance to get easier access to ballet class independent of
their schedule, and more important, independent of the offer, or lack of
places to go and train where they live

I have now managed, in co operation with the ballet company at the
opera house in Graz, and a film production company in Norway to put up a
beta version of how I imagine ballet dancers and advanced ballet students
can get additional access to ballet training in the future.

Initially I planned only to offer full classes and technical studies,
but it seems like people are used to shopping baskets and single
studies, so I've made both.

So far only one class is online, but three more full updates have been
produced and will go online the next months.

This project is NOT intended to replace the work with a personal
teacher. It shall be an additional and supplementary offer.

My reasons:
I grew up in a small village in Norway. I traveled almost two hours
every day to go to ballet class. This was not the biggest problem. The
problem for me was during the times when the schools where closed. I
wanted to train but could no get new input.
My skills as a dancer was not high enough to "teach myself" but I had
enough knowledge to train alone if someone would give me the exercises.
So there I was: at home, with space, with time, but no class.

I hope to close this training vacuum.

Not all ballet dancers and ballet students live in New York, London,
Tokyo or Paris with more than enough training offers.

I would like to have your opinion on this idea, as one of the biggest
ballet communities on the net.

Any critic or or opinion will be received with gratitude.

If someone wants to review the full class and write about it, please
contact me off list.

The site can be found at:
http://www.buy-a-class.com


Ingve Groven

Hello, Ingve, and welcome to CriticalDance. I was just looking at your website, and it is intriguing. It is clear to me after watching the "trial" plie section that the product you are offering is of good quality and of value. If you are marketing this to advanced students/dancers to supplement during a break and if they have some space in which to work, I think it seems like a viable option to stay in shape. You seem to make it clear that this is not for beginners or to take the place of traditional ballet class in the studio. Your dancers are excellent, well-trained, and enjoyable to watch. I haven't seen the entire class, just the plies; so, I can't speak for the remainder of the class...It's an interesting concept, which might not work for everyone, however. If you buy combinations separately, can you, in essence, create your own class? I can't find the feature that allows us to "see" the combination/enchainment before we "buy"...Dancers can be very picky (I was... )

Hi Gina,

thanks for your reply.

I am happy that it is so easy to navigate through the page, and also easy to recognize to which audience we are addressing the classes.

In about two weeks it will be coming the second full ballet class online. Then people can "build their own class". I understand however that this is not easy, since you cannot see the exercise in advance, and we are working on a solution to that. We tried out in the beginning a version where you can have a full barre, but with very very short exercises to help people picture the format and how it works. The result was that many people thought this was the actual thing, and complained because it was too short etc. That is why we have now found the solution of "giving away" the full pliè so you can see the teacher, the dancer and the format.

I guess we might find a compromise where the dancer who want to build the class themselves can see some of the exercises shown by the teacher before they buy it. Anyway, I think this function will be more interesting when there are more classes and teachers to choose from.

Thank you very much for your time and your valuable reply.

Ingve

I am not from the "IPOD" generation, but it strikes me as a great idea that you give the option of downloading to IPOD. When I think of all the times I warmed up for a performance in silence, it would have been so wonderful to have some music for my barre...Good luck with your enterprise!

What an interesting idea - perhaps one day there could even be a service with a web cam so people could get live feedback from a teacher.
I suppose getting a download is cheaper than buying a dvd but for an advanced dancer part of the fun of being away from company class can also be in making up your own exercises which can help you self develop other skills and knowledge. I am not sure that there would be enough take up to make this a very profitable business as it stands - though it could be developed if you sold other products as well. Good Luck
Gavin
www.gavinroebuck.com

Hi Gavin,
Thanks for your reply, ideas and interest.

Actually the original idea was a webcam solution, but we quickly left that idea.

Why?
We did not believe that a web cam/video solution could give you any of the feeling you get in a normal class, so we decided to make a top level film production instead of a youtube looking live stream solution.

So instead of copying the unreplaceable (the live classes) we wanted to create an oportunity to those who do not have access to different teachers, just need fresh input or for young teachers who needs a bigger "repertory" for their classes. (It is no secret that a lot of schools send too immature students in to substitute classes)

Of course me, Ingve, with 20 years of professional experience in ballet, know that this is a new and unorthodox way of working for dancers.
I mean in all oher art forms a lot of your work you do in private, and then "publish", but the dancer is in a constant surveillance. From my personal experience I had to realize that after a period when I had to work alone to get back to work, I developed more than I had ever dreamt of.

I believe that the dancer also needs time to work alone to find "the real dancer within" and I hope we can help some to do this.

If there is need for this in the dance world? I do not know! It would have ment a lot for me, but in my time, the oportunities of Internet did not exist.

cheers

Ingve

I recently had the opportunity to download and observe a complete class given by Ingve Groven. I was very impressed with the quality of his class and with his demonstrator, Ardee Dionisio. Mr. Dionisio is an accomplished and very musical dancer! The barre was very thorough, and the order of combinations logical. The center was well-paced and enjoyable, yet challenging. The tempos were good for the combinations. Mr. Groven gives a bit of advice or focus before each exercise with a calm, pleasant voice. "Breathe with the movement and move with the music." and "Use a clear and decided spot." are a couple examples that come to my mind. I liked this...Mr. Groven is a fine teacher (it's clear he was a fine dancer), and it is an interesting project worth checking out...