I'm going to tell you the same thing I told Yelp: I stayed at the Vacaville Ballet for nearly 10 years. I grew up there, I learned to love dance there. Guest teachers Ikolo Griffin and Alan Schofield specifically made me feel worthy and well-trained as a dancer. \r
\r
HOWEVER. During my stay at Vacaville Ballet, there is most certainly a culture of abuse that exists. There is some, I don't know, threshold of approval, that must be met when you become a teenager there. There is a catty clique of main dancers, and while I was there, if you weren't a part of it you were ignored. If someone made fun of me I did not feel safe going to the teacher for help. \r
\r
The worst case scenario was when a guest teacher, El, from UC Irvine called me and my friend fat--and the whole class laughed to our faces, right then and there. (No, I am not making this up.) Think about what that means, calling two teenage girls fat, and blatently supporting bullying of students. I still can't believe my pa
more