Auditioning for Fulltime Ballet Schools in Germany

Hi guys!
I asked you for some ideas for blogpost ideas and a few people brought up they were interested in hearing about my audition expirience and the process here in Germany, so here we go.

First off, getting into a state-funded program here in Germany is extremely hard and very atractive for dancers from all over the world, simply because you only have to pay a very small tuition fee. Usually those are around 300€ per semester and include public transportation for the area of the university, so you are practically paying nothing at all. In Berlin for example, I would be paying more than those 300€ per semester if I had to buy tickets for public transport, because those are over 100€ per MONTH! So you see why studying at German universities is atractive for so many people.
To add to that, there are really not a lot of programs around. Those are the schools I can think of on top of my head:
1. Staatliche Ballettschule Berlin
2. John Cranko Schule Stuttgart
3. Folkwang Universität Essen
4. Palucca Universität Dresden
5. John Neumeier Schule Hamburg
6. HfMDK Frankfurt
7. MuHo Mannheim
8. Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln
9. Hochschule für Musik und Theater München

All of those take in a maximum of probably 20 students per year, probably even less, so there are less than 200 spots in the entire country! To add to that, some of those school (e.g. Munich, Hamburg) only take in students age 18 or under, so I can't even audition for those anymore.
The audition process is simple: you register for the audition online, pay the audition fee and send your resume and paper application to the school via mail and usually get an invite within a couple of weeks via email.

Moving on to my experiences:
So far, I have auditioned for the Staatliche Ballettschule Berlin and the HfMDK Frankfurt.
The audition for Berlin was very difficult for me, about half the people there were students at the school already, so they knew the teachers and received a lot more training over the past couple of years than I had. That also showed in all the combinations they gave us, those were very complex and fast.
The Staatliche Ballettschule Berlin starts their syllabus at the age of 10 (5th grade) and you can enter the school at any time if you have the required skill level. At the age of 16 (end of 10th grade) all the students have to audition for the bachelor program to continue studying there and when they graduate (13th grade), they complete high school and their university degree at the same time. This concept is amazing for the students but it makes it very hard for people who haven't had professional training beforehand to enter the bachelor program.
At the audition, we first had a ballet class, followed by modern, pointe and a solo presentation, which was either a classical variation, a modern piece or an improv.
The audition in Frankfurt was a lot shorter: we only did a ballet class, which was the first round. After that, they announced the people who went on into the second round, who would be learning some short choreographies. I didn't get past the first round, but only about 8 people out of the 60 people who were there did, and half of those were men.
The ballet class was a lot easier than in Berlin and I felt like I could keep up well.
I also auditioned for the Konservatorium Wien, which was very similar to Frankfurt, except I was injured and couldn't jump at all. Like I mentioned in my last post, I also wasn't familiar with many of the steps either, so that wasn't a great audition either but I know I can do a lot better now.

I still have an audition for Mannheim coming up in early September, which I am very excited about because even between now and my last audition, I feel like I have learned so much and I still have summer intensive coming up before that, so I hope it goes well.
I will keep you updated on that and if you have any questions or post ideas, please let me know!
See you soon!
Laulie

https://instagram.com/laulie.dancer