KJD Artist Development Penrith

(Solely my experience) Was offered a trial at their Penrith location. Sounded good, was sent timetable, confirmed Sun in writing the location, time, day (the Tues). Husband left work early to help me get her there on the Tues (as I'm heavily pregnant), went to address. Locked up hall, no-one there. Waited outside with young child, at 445pm when meant to start rang them as still no-one. They said they'd find out & call me back. A car arrived, lady told us that class got changed & is on another night, she was sorry they gave me wrong info. I showed her the timetable I was sent just a week before, she said it had been changed & didn't know why they told me that, rang the number again while there, they still believed the class was on that day. Total confusion & terrible communication between them. Had to go home with a VERY disappointed 4yo, and we were obviously extremely annoyed to have wasted our time, especially after having confirmed it all 2days before. A terrible first impression for us unfortunately. Owner never rang us back to explain or apologise either.

I was a dancer here all of 2018. I was aged 11-12, we had such brilliant teachers, they were lovely. My friends and I really enjoyed the class. It was a very small company indeed. Only about 12 people in total across the whole of the Penrith company. The owners daughter runs the other location. Now the reason I left. The owner was not a good person. She would make rude comments and remarks to all the girls and myself. (Aged 7-13). For example we were told to “shake your tits” in a musical theatre dance. I am a larger girl and The owner would also make fun of and criticise my body behind my back to the girls and the teachers. She was also supposed to be teaching our musical theatre class but she would hand off the class to my fellow classmate’s older brother (a member of the senior company) to run the class when she wanted a break. Very unprofessional. And The owner was also very biased. She would only give opportunities to one girl in our class whom didn’t want to do those things when the rest of us wanted the same opportunities but were denied them. The building was also extremely run down. The floor was uneven and had severe dents in it to the point where tripping was common