Many young dancers may choose to undertake further dance training and kickstart their career, rather than take a gap year and travel, for example, like many of their peers at school might. Further to that, some dancers may choose to travel abroad to train, or even to a different city, but for some dancers they might prefer to continue training much closer to home.
They may be lucky that the training facility nearest to them suits their dancing needs and the route they would like to pursue as an aspiring professional dancer. Often the choice to train near home can save on the cost of living away or abroad, so students can save a little of the money they may spend by living at home. With this comes the added home comforts to be enjoyed during a big transitional stage in their life, and the support of those they are familiar with, in a place they are equally as familiar with.
Despite this, there is no doubt that the people you train with form your immediate support group while training and during the first few years out in the industry, so it could be argued that this supportive network would quickly build up if the dancer was living and training away from home. As a result of this – due to the fact you would work so closely with people for three years – you would form life friendships. Depending on the outcome, sometimes this is more valuable than the training.
Ultimately there is no right or wrong when choosing a place to train, only where is right for you. The dance world is small, so training in a certain place or country does not mean that you will stay there after graduating – or that you cannot travel home for the holidays and at weekends. Look at the graduate destinations of that facility and work out if you would suit that type of training and course content.