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Let’s be honest.  If you’re reading this, you probably grew up dreaming of a being a ballerina.  I know I did.  We imagined the pointe shoes, the tiaras, the tutus, and dancing the lead role in our favourite ballet (mine was Coppelia – what was yours?) opposite a stunningly handsome male lead with muscles chiseled out of marble (did someone say Roberto Bolle???).

Not many of us made it all the way into a professional company, but lots of us still dance because it’s what we enjoy doing.  Our day to day lives are taken up with emails, phone calls, errands and at times frustrations – but there is a beauty and a joy when you walk into that ballet studio, that this is time just for you.  Your head clears as you do your first plié, you begin the think about your technique and feel your muscles responding to your commands.  Your heart rate lifts as you move, you feel that trickle of sweat down your neck – and that report that was dumped on your desk that morning is long gone from your mind.  For that moment you are living your childhood dream.  You feel free, energized, alive.  We can each be that ballerina for a class.

And guess what – maybe we really are living the dream.  Aren’t we getting the best of both worlds?  The joy of ballet without the daily grind?  Would you trade your job for an 9:30am start that didn’t finish until you’d taken class, rehearsed, and performed till 9:30 that night?  Would you rather multi-task 5 open browser tabs and a ringing phone, or learning 3 different parts while balancing an foot injury and feeling so tired all you want to do is sleep (but you can’t – because you have to put on make-up for the 7:30 show).  Did we know how hard it would be when we were kids? No way.  Do we appreciate it now? Heck yeah.  But I wonder if sometimes ballerinas wish they had desk jobs….

Every job has its ups and downs.  Every job takes a huge amount of skill – whether it’s a double pirouette or dealing with an angry client.  Neither is better than the other, they’re just different.

So let’s see how the other half lives….

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rryxZjqLtNs?rel=0&w=1280&h=720]

What is ballet really about?

Is it a series of steps, learned, and perfected over the years? A language of technique honed and shown off to the extreme?  Is it expression, movement, or is it communication?

If it’s communication – with who? The audience, the dance partner, yourself?

Yet it must be more than just that, because there are many ways to express and communicate that don’t involve ballet.  You can tell a story with words or pictures.  But by the same token you can dance ballet steps over and over without communicating anything at all.

So what really is ballet?  Is it something different to each and every one of us?

In this video, Royal Ballet Principal Artists Sarah Lamb and Steven McRae discuss the difficult repertoire (steps) of Sleeping Beauty, but also what they think ballet is.

What is ballet for you?

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4Q3OLE491U?rel=0&w=1280&h=720]

It’s something I hear far too often.  “But I’m too old to start learning ballet!”.

I could substitute ‘old’ with many of the the other excuses people give – too un-fit, too un-coordinated, don’t know anything about how to…. But in my book they are not hurdles that stop you from beginning to learn the joys of ballet.

In this beautiful story by the UK’s Channel 4, the reporter looks at how ballet is helping people with Parkinson’s disease.  So watch and be inspired.  Then book yourself into a ballet class….

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