The Essence of Ballet: A Journey of Rediscovery

When I graduated from high school in 2000, I left the confines of the dance studio to go out and explore the world. Twenty-five years later, I’ve rediscovered the joy of ballet through my students and reinvented myself as a lifelong dancer.

From about age 4 to age 18, I had one primary goal: to become a professional ballet dancer. Ballet was not something that any of my close friends did. It was not my parents’ idea. But from the moment I discovered it, I craved more.

As a child, my mom took me to see the Cuyahoga Valley Youth Ballet. I told her I wanted to dance with them. At age 8, I started studying at their pre-professional school. At age 9, I auditioned for the company and was rejected. At age 10, I auditioned again. At age 11, I finally got in.

I did not have natural talent. But I had drive. The joy I felt when I danced ballet was unlike anything I felt in any other space. I lived for it. I couldn’t imagine living without it. In my understanding of the world, the only way to keep ballet in my life after high school was to dance professionally. And so I worked hard to make that happen. 

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By my senior year in high school, I was dancing lead roles with the Cuyahoga Valley Youth Ballet. I was preparing to audition for professional companies, or to continue my training at professional schools if I wasn’t yet good enough to be hired. For me, “good enough to be hired” meant good enough to be a soloist. My teachers agreed that my strength was classical ballet, but I was too short to be in the corps. Classical ballet companies, they said, look for a corps de ballet of uniform height. At five-foot-one, the only sure way for me to make it was as a soloist.

I auditioned for American Ballet Theatre’s Studio Company, and was not surprised when I didn’t get in. I made the second cut at Julliard, but ultimately wasn’t accepted. Butler University, well known to have one of the top college ballet programs in the country, offered me a merit scholarship, and I accepted. There I would stay, I thought, perfecting my skills until I could finally get paid to do what I loved.

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But during that summer between high school and college, I discovered that I no longer loved it enough to give up everything else. I couldn’t have told you at the time exactly what changed, except that I found a new sense of courage. I remember sitting in the studio at Richmond Ballet’s summer intensive. The school director was giving a professionalization talk for advanced students, and there was a moment when something clicked–when I realized that I was in the studio because I was afraid to leave.

I had always been led to believe that ballet is an all-or-nothing pursuit, that if we stopped training for more than two weeks, we shouldn’t bother coming back. I had not allowed myself to even consider trying out for a play, joining an international service program, going on a wilderness adventure, or applying to a college that did not have a professional ballet school. 

That summer, I was living on my own for the first time. Not in a dorm and not with a host family, but with a roommate in an apartment, where we had to buy our food and cook our meals. We were subletting from Richmond Ballet trainees who were away for the summer. Perhaps it was this newfound freedom that enabled me to see with clarity two paths ahead. I could see the lives of the professional ballet dancers whose steps I was tracing, whose furniture I was using. I knew these dancers, and I had always longed for that life. I knew it was a life to live while young, and one that I would not be able to return to once I left. 

But I could also see a path where I allowed myself to consider all of those other interests that had long been lurking at the edge of my mind. I could see myself going to college and choosing my courses, not just taking the dance classes assigned to me. I could see myself reaching beyond the walls of the dance studios and theatres, doing the things I had always made myself say no to. I could see myself studying philosophy and traveling the world. At that moment, I could only see two paths, and I chose the second. 

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It would be another ten years before I could enjoy a ballet class again. I was afraid to set foot in a studio and see how terrible my dancing had surely become. I was embarrassed to be seen at less than my prime. I feared that a ballet class would only bring frustration over what I could no longer do.

In the years after I stopped performing, I was occasionally asked to teach ballet—first to young gymnasts in Indiana, and later to professional flamenco dancers and amateur folk dancers in Chile. Eventually, I began seeking out opportunities to work with students who enjoyed ballet and whose lives and careers were enriched by practicing it, but who were not pursuing it as a profession in itself.

I taught middle and high school students who cared more about orchestra, drama, academics, and athletics than ballet. I taught children who were enjoying their childhoods. I taught adults who were finishing their PhDs, building their careers, and raising their children. Through these students, I rediscovered my own love for ballet and discovered that it could be part of my life—and so many other people’s lives—without giving up everything else.

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Only recently have I come to terms with the idea that I am not only a ballet teacher, but a ballet dancer. I did not choose the path that would have led me to perform in national theatres and opera houses. But I do dance, and I do perform. Every time I’ve taken or taught a ballet class after years of being away from a studio, someone has always told me that they enjoy watching me dance. If this is not performing, then what is?

Many people will only ever see ballet when they watch me demonstrate in my classroom, perform at a community event, or give a class on YouTube. And I am confident that those who see me dance are seeing high quality ballet. I know my limits, I know when to laugh at myself, I know how to choreograph steps that my students or I can perform well. 

I’ve discovered that as a dancer, I still have a spark, a grace, an intuition that grows stronger with age. My hips and shoulders creak. My back and ankles inform me immediately when I do too much too soon. And I listen. I center myself, find my breath, find that essence of ballet that has always felt like home to me. 

I let go of the athletic feats that professional performers and pre-professional students must achieve. If I can do fouetté turns or grand jetés today, great. Let it be fun, thrilling, exhilarating. Let it strengthen my heart and lungs. But when my ankles, my knees, my sense of balance tell me, “Not today”--and even the day when they tell me, “Not ever again”--I will still dance.

In a grainy video, I watch myself with a long white tutu dancing Balanchine’s Chopiniana. It was my last year in high school, and I didn’t know at the time that it would be my last classical ballet performance. I’ve never liked tutus. They’ve always felt too frilly for my taste. I’ve always preferred stories where the princess sheds her dresses in favor of more appropriate attire for wilderness survival. This was a student performance, and we usually wore leotards and skirts. But I remember someone suggesting that my princess costume from the company production of Fly Away Flock would be perfect for this piece. I remember reluctantly agreeing to wear it.

I’m proud of how I danced in that video. When I watch it, I see a dancer light on her feet, at one with the music, precise with the shape of each movement. She looks calm, collected, confident. Never mind that my feet in pointe shoes never formed stunning arches, and I wobbled on my relevés. It is the calm, collected confidence, and the careful attention to Chopin’s masterful music and Balanchine’s masterful choreography that make it breathtakingly beautiful. 

It is this essence of ballet, this feeling one with the music and one with my body and mind, that compels me to keep dancing as I move into my 40s, my 50s, and beyond.

I did another performance two years later, of which I am equally proud. I had retired from performing ballet, but was persuaded by dance professors at Bard College to choreograph and perform a contemporary piece for myself. I thought of it as my final goodbye to the stage, and I called it “Letting Go.”

As I watch this piece (equally grainy and dark, but with a costume more to my liking), I’m amazed at how well I was already adapting my artistry to my changing body. I hadn’t worn pointe shoes or trained intensively in years, and yet I was able to create and perform a stunning piece. At the time, I didn’t think I would ever perform again. I saw myself as letting go of my identity as a dancer. 

Now in my 40s, I think back on all the times I’ve graced a dance studio, a YouTube video, a community stage since what I thought was my final performance. Each time, it has taken courage to reinvent ballet, to rediscover and convey its essence through my dancing.