Have you ever wondered what it is like to dance in a pre professional dance company? Well all your answers will be answered once you read this article. 

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, there are mandatory classes that each company member is required to take. This consists of two ballet classes, a pointe class, a jazz class, a modern class, a conditioning class, and an optional tap class. Some dancers choose to take Wednesday class which would consist of a musical theater class, hiphop, and acro.

Auditioning to be in the company takes place in March, but auditioning is not the deciding factor for casting each show. Our dance instructors watch us thoroughly in every dance class to decide what part to give us for each show. Once you get into the company, there are three levels to be in, apprentice, junior, and senior. They place us based on our skill level, and that will also determine what dances we are in for each show.

To prepare for the first two shows that the company puts on, we have rehearsals on the mandatory dance days. We learn all the choreography for the show, periodically running it. When we finish learning all the choreography, we alternate running the show with the two casts.

We have a few dress rehearsals before going on stage. The weekend before we have our onstage rehearsals, we do a Saturday rehearsal. This rehearsal is from 10am to 3pm. We run each cast in costume and have a ~20 minute long lunch break. 

On show week we normally have three rehearsal days on stage with no audience. This is to run the lighting and music, and run all the dances to make sure everything runs smoothly before showing an audience.

The final stage of being a Rockbridge Ballet dancer is performing. We have four shows, Friday night, Saturday matinee, Saturday night, and lastly, Sunday matinee. Once we finish the shows, we get a week off. Then we do it all again with a different show and different choreography.