RAD Classical Ballet

The Royal Academy of Dance (RAD) is one of the largest and most influential dance education and training organisations in the world. RAD was created with the objective to improve the standard of ballet teaching and in pursuit of that goal, a new teaching method and dance technique was created.

The most identifiable aspect of the RAD method is the attention to detail when learning the basic steps, and the progression in difficulty is often very slow. While the difficulty of an exercise may only increase slightly from grade to grade, more importance is placed on whether the student is performing the step with improved technique. For example, plié exercises are employed consistently throughout the lower grades to enable the student to progressively deepen the plié and improve turnout. The principle behind this is that if enough time is spent achieving optimal technique before introducing new vocabulary, the easier it is for the student to learn the harder steps, while exercising basic technique to the maximum at all times.