The Royal Ballet School’s guide to audition preparation

With applications now open for our next cohort of students, we’re excited to welcome aspiring dancers to showcase their passion and potential for classical ballet.

Auditions can often feel daunting and nerve-wracking, but they’re also a wonderful opportunity to showcase your love for ballet to an audience of panel members. At The Royal Ballet School, we believe in creating an environment where every dancer feels comfortable and confident to perform at their best. Whether you’re auditioning for the first time or returning for another chance, we’re here to help you put your best foot forward.

While you don’t need to prepare anything for our auditions, we’ve asked our Artistic staff and students and compiled a complete guide to help young dancers shine and nail their audition.

Get to know The Royal Ballet School

Whether you’ve already applied or are still deciding, take some time to explore The Royal Ballet School to get a sense of what we’re all about. Visit our website or scroll through our social media channels to get an idea of our System of Training and unique English style of classical ballet.

Along the way, you’ll also learn more about our wider curriculum and other aspects of training, including performance opportunities and our Healthy Dancer Programme. Gaining insight into what it’s like to train with the School will help you feel more prepared for your audition. You might even uncover helpful tips or inspiration along the way.

Practice at home with a mock-audition class

To ease any worries or nervousness about our auditions and help you perform at your best on the day, practising at home or in your dance studio can be helpful. Although our audition classes are structured like regular ballet classes, and you don’t need to prepare anything specific, our online Audition Insight classes can help dancers experience an age-appropriate audition-style class.

Led by Royal Ballet School Artistic staff, our Insight classes cover the exercises typically given in an audition for each age group and help students learn more about what we look for in potential auditionees.

The royal ballet school's guide to audition preparation

Be organised and prepared

In the lead-up to your audition, continue to do what you usually do in your regular classes. It’s important to eat a nutritious meal the night before and get enough sleep to perform at your best.

Choose simple dancewear that you usually wear to your dance classes and that you feel comfortable in and put it aside the night before. Whatever you choose to wear, pick something that makes you feel confident (and that you’ve danced in before!). We also recommend coming to the audition with your ballet clothes under your everyday clothes for ease.

On the day of the audition, pack everything you need and give yourself plenty of time to get to your audition venue. Once you arrive, stretch beforehand and warm up—this will prepare you physically and help you familiarise yourself with the space.

Don’t forget about mental preparation

Nerves are not bad; everybody feels nervous, and it often means you care. Before your audition, learning some mindfulness and breathing techniques can be helpful.

Take a few deep breaths, practice positive thoughts and visualise yourself confidently performing at your best in the audition studio.

Remind yourself that the audition panel want you to do your best. If you make a mistake during your audition, don’t worry. Remember, the panel are looking for potential over perfection. As long as they can see that you have a passion for ballet, that’s all that matters.

Enjoy the experience

If you think about the numbers—2000 people audition, and only a small percentage gain a place—the experience is as important as the outcome. Enjoy every moment of the experience, try to show the panel that you love dancing, and most importantly, have fun! It will make you have a better experience, and the people watching will have a better experience because they are watching someone do something they love.

After your audition, take some time to reflect on what you’ve learned and how you can apply those lessons to your future training. Whatever the outcome, auditions are an exciting opportunity to learn and grow.