American Ballet Theatre
National Training Curriculum
A new way of delivering Ballet
Brisbane Dance Theatre is proud to include the AMERICAN BALLET THEATRE® National Training Curriculum, a breakthrough 9 level program that combines high quality artistic training with the basics of dancer health and child development.
The ABT® National Training Curriculum consists of a comprehensive set of age-appropriate, outcome-based guidelines to provide the highest quality ballet training to dance students of all ages and skill levels. Pre-Primary through Level Five will be taught by ABT® Certified Teachers, Sally Muntz & Melissa Lee, who have successfully completed the ABT® Teacher Training Intensive in Pre-Primary through Level Five of the ABT® National Training Curriculum.
Our new curriculum was developed by top professional across a variety of fields, not just dance masters but medical specialists and industry leaders; drawn from the best parts of historical ballet greats, based in well researched theory, child developpmental stages, and safe dance practice. The curriculum is designed not only to train dancers who are adaptable to different genres, but who fully understand and inhabit the abiding principals of strong ballet technique.
We believe this new curriculum will afford us and our dancers a greater control over our own environment and in turn greater opportunities to achieve success, individually and as a group. It also allows us, as teachers the ability to use our knowledge, experience AND creativity to create ballet levels and classes that gives us agency over our own work, to use and encourage critical thinking skills and most beneficially give our students the opportunity to really shine.
The examination process
ABT Student Examinations benefit students by serving as skill assessment document students’ progress, build their confidence, and improve their training.
Each participating student receives an individual rubric outlining his or her proficiency both technically and artistically with comments from the examiner. Students who successfully pass the exam will also receive an offical certificate listing their level of examination class they took along with their level of distinction. Examinations include workshops of the ABT examiner, exclusive to Brisbane Dance Theatre.
In 2024, Brisbane Dance Theatre aim to present students for examinations in the following levels:
Primary Ballet A (6 - 7 years)
Primary Ballet B (7 - 8 years)
Level One Ballet A (8 to 9 years)
Level One Ballet B (9 to 11 years)
Level Two Ballet B (11 to 12 years)
Level Three Ballet B (13 to 14 years)
Level Four Ballet A (14+ years)
Students in Pre-Primary Ballet (5 - 6 years) will be taught the ABT NTC but will not be submitted for examinations until they have progressed to the Primary Ballet levels.
To be eligable for an ABT NTC Examination, students must attend 2 syllabus classes per week.
Students in Level One B, Level Two, Level Three & Level Four must also attend a weekly Body Conditioning class.
Level Three & Four students are also required to attend a weekly Pointe lesson, as their curriculum includes Pointe work.
Pre Pointe Lessons will also be offered for students in Level Two.