| My daughter took years and years of tap (2ND GRADE ON) but not ballet early on. Luckily for her, her tap teacher taught from a ballet perspective. So when she went back to intensive ballet (at Interlochen) she was not a rank beginner. In hindsight, she regrets having not done the ballet at the same time as the tap because she LOVES BALLET.
Thanks to the daily ballet classes at Interlochen and several times a week classes at CMU summer, she feels she is where she needs to be for musical theater. At CMU she also had jazz; no tap.
It's hard to fit everything in... and go to school. Based on the college dance auditions she has had so far, one does not need to be an advanced dancer. But it really is helpful to have basic moves and a good knowledge (in both your brain AND YOUR FEET) of the vocabulary particularly in ballet. That way you are not concentrating so hard on doing the steps that you forget to show your "presence." |