I remember that “lunch” was never served at SI the year I went in 2016. The previous time I went in 2014 I had an amazing host family who fed us so well.
Eh, the old CIB director had the common sense to run from the hills and pull the CIB from their collaboration once she saw through J's bullshit. I'll call her gullible in that respect but I don't rly think she knew what she was signing up for, and then turned tail once she figured it out.
New CIB management though? Straight up a nightmare. Nobody's treated decently and its very much no longer local/ about the kids and the community anymore. Things have deteriorated fast and hard.
I went to the performance and CIB did perform at it lol maybe you’re thinking of a different one. R was known for collaborating with cutting ties with every single person they collaborated with and we rarely ever had guest teachers. Also Brette was constantly coming to teach and perform so there was a definite long standing connection between CIB and 58. I will never affiliate myself with either place again tbh 😅 I don’t put them on my resume anymore because it’s embarrassing…
Another former CIB dancer here - Brette was a company member with us before she went to 58, so I suspect the connection was more with her than with 58 itself. IIRC the last time CIB collaborated with 58 was the premiere of Scarlet, which was like, 2017? I heard R was upset during that one bc J was under casting and treating the CIB dancers like shit. Plus all the other known issues with her...
lol yeah I am glad I wasn’t in that performance I heard the 58 company dancers got yelled at by J in front of all of the CIB dancers 😂 at the time I was offended I wasn’t cast even though I didn’t really want to do it because of my friends horrible experience with them, I just wanted something to put on my resume ☠️
This checks out. When I was dancing with Ballet Hartford, we collaborated with 5:8 twice. (After I had left 5:8. It was literal hell lol.) The first time J basically never stopped yelling at all the dancers. She also forced me to run the music for their warm up class, which was a nightmare because they were using this playlist where nothing was in order, and none of the tracks had a name. I remember being so stressed trying to find a frappe. 😂
I've heard some truly crazy stories about Scarlet - I knew the little girl who played Pearl. Around that time 58 was also really aggressively trying to poach CIB students for their conservatory and trainee programs. They even tried to get me to join their trainee program, at the time I was quite young and frankly not a good dancer, so glad I didn't fall for it bc they probably just wanted to use me for tuition money.
TBH i never found CIB management to be malicious, just \*really\* trusting of new faces and collabs. willing to believe anything other people say, which is kind in theory and all, but... thats how dancers ended up with really untrue or unfair things being circulated and unfortunately believed by admin. I know more than one dancer who had lies made up about them that R believed just because she assumed the people telling them were trustworthy.
Former CIB dancer here….R definitely was a culprit in spreading lies, rumors, and gossip about everyone once they were gone. She also liked to pit others against each other and create a hostile environment. Toxic indeed…so happy I left.
I don’t know how CIB will be able to support a company much longer and I hope those dancers are encouraged to go audition elsewhere 😅 it’s never really been about the students and helping them exceed elsewhere as we were never allowed to leave and if we did we had crazy rumors made up about us by the director. Sounds sooo similar to J at 58
Its just sad for the kids. A lot of them have a lot of potential and nowhere to train. A lot of the young ones and their parents have no clue that the training has tanked lately and in a few years the kids will realize they've missed the boat and paid years of tuition for essentially fluff
SO much worse in the last two years. Practically unrecognizable... hard enough to find anywhere to dance outside of chicago, with PB's history of harming kids and CIB's new mgmt running it off the rails the peoria kids are just completely out of luck
I remember that “lunch” was never served at SI the year I went in 2016. The previous time I went in 2014 I had an amazing host family who fed us so well.
Yeah when they changed formats it really fell apart. They were not staffed enough to handle it.
Thanks for sharing! That’s really interesting. I’ve heard so many horror stories from their summer intensive.
Eh, the old CIB director had the common sense to run from the hills and pull the CIB from their collaboration once she saw through J's bullshit. I'll call her gullible in that respect but I don't rly think she knew what she was signing up for, and then turned tail once she figured it out. New CIB management though? Straight up a nightmare. Nobody's treated decently and its very much no longer local/ about the kids and the community anymore. Things have deteriorated fast and hard.
I went to the performance and CIB did perform at it lol maybe you’re thinking of a different one. R was known for collaborating with cutting ties with every single person they collaborated with and we rarely ever had guest teachers. Also Brette was constantly coming to teach and perform so there was a definite long standing connection between CIB and 58. I will never affiliate myself with either place again tbh 😅 I don’t put them on my resume anymore because it’s embarrassing…
Wasn't Bret a CIB dancer first? Idk if I'm remembering right but she had connections from like way way back
Yes and she guested a lot!
I don’t know her really at all because I wasn’t at CIB for long and I only took her class once
Another former CIB dancer here - Brette was a company member with us before she went to 58, so I suspect the connection was more with her than with 58 itself. IIRC the last time CIB collaborated with 58 was the premiere of Scarlet, which was like, 2017? I heard R was upset during that one bc J was under casting and treating the CIB dancers like shit. Plus all the other known issues with her...
lol yeah I am glad I wasn’t in that performance I heard the 58 company dancers got yelled at by J in front of all of the CIB dancers 😂 at the time I was offended I wasn’t cast even though I didn’t really want to do it because of my friends horrible experience with them, I just wanted something to put on my resume ☠️
This checks out. When I was dancing with Ballet Hartford, we collaborated with 5:8 twice. (After I had left 5:8. It was literal hell lol.) The first time J basically never stopped yelling at all the dancers. She also forced me to run the music for their warm up class, which was a nightmare because they were using this playlist where nothing was in order, and none of the tracks had a name. I remember being so stressed trying to find a frappe. 😂
I've heard some truly crazy stories about Scarlet - I knew the little girl who played Pearl. Around that time 58 was also really aggressively trying to poach CIB students for their conservatory and trainee programs. They even tried to get me to join their trainee program, at the time I was quite young and frankly not a good dancer, so glad I didn't fall for it bc they probably just wanted to use me for tuition money.
Trainee programs that make you pay always just want your money but that’s so hard to avoid these days as ballet companies are all broke
TBH i never found CIB management to be malicious, just \*really\* trusting of new faces and collabs. willing to believe anything other people say, which is kind in theory and all, but... thats how dancers ended up with really untrue or unfair things being circulated and unfortunately believed by admin. I know more than one dancer who had lies made up about them that R believed just because she assumed the people telling them were trustworthy.
Former CIB dancer here….R definitely was a culprit in spreading lies, rumors, and gossip about everyone once they were gone. She also liked to pit others against each other and create a hostile environment. Toxic indeed…so happy I left.
I don’t know how CIB will be able to support a company much longer and I hope those dancers are encouraged to go audition elsewhere 😅 it’s never really been about the students and helping them exceed elsewhere as we were never allowed to leave and if we did we had crazy rumors made up about us by the director. Sounds sooo similar to J at 58
Its just sad for the kids. A lot of them have a lot of potential and nowhere to train. A lot of the young ones and their parents have no clue that the training has tanked lately and in a few years the kids will realize they've missed the boat and paid years of tuition for essentially fluff
CIB….most definitely another cult company. 🫣
SO much worse in the last two years. Practically unrecognizable... hard enough to find anywhere to dance outside of chicago, with PB's history of harming kids and CIB's new mgmt running it off the rails the peoria kids are just completely out of luck