Unrelenting questions, lobbed one after another by a well-intentioned ballet school dad, my back inches from an icy cooler packed with pricey frozen concoctions in one of Knoxville’s fancy new grocery stores. Did I think there was something special in his young daughter Celia? Did she possess a gift for classical ballet? And what about … Continue reading How Firm a Foundation: Training a Young Dancer for Life
Ballet School
My Journey to the Corporate World: Don’t Hate
A ballet friend and colleague recently asked whether I’ve been “itching” to teach again. I had to think about that. These days I’m not sure I would describe my desire to teach as an itch, but maybe—it felt like something more profound when I took the colossal and risky leap of faith to open a … Continue reading My Journey to the Corporate World: Don’t Hate
Swan Lake, You Rock My World.
Prologue I wish I could rewind a particular winter night about a dozen years ago at the Kennedy Center. I wish I could find all the people who were sitting in the right section of the orchestra at the opera house there, people who thought they were about to enjoy a memorable performance of Swan Lake, and tell … Continue reading Swan Lake, You Rock My World.
Dancing in the Company of Giants
Robbins was more immediately successful than Balanchine, but the two together...when I think that we had them both! What a combination! We were incredibly lucky. —Violette Verdy In fall of 1969 Memphis Ballet School and its company had not long occupied the second floor of a mainly spent Depression-era building at the at the corner of … Continue reading Dancing in the Company of Giants
Settling into Your Gifts
The more she dances, the more she wants to dance. In the intervening decades since I was a young dancer the ballet competition has emerged as part and parcel of the classical ballet landscape. It is not the stuff of controversial choreography and revealing costumes on little people and trophies handed out willy-nilly, but a serious … Continue reading Settling into Your Gifts
All That Glitters: Making Effort Look Effortless
When I was eight I had a Russian ballet teacher who thought nothing of whapping me and my classmates in our tummies in ballet class. The message was clear, if unrefined: flatten the belly. He could have said it, of course. Despite his accent he was still understandable and I'd probably have internalized this as a verbal correction. But … Continue reading All That Glitters: Making Effort Look Effortless
Shut Up and Listen
Some people change the very demeanor of a space simply by stepping into it. Franco De Vita is one of them. So is his colleague and partner in life, Raymond Lukens. And for a beautiful and golden chapter in my own life I had the great privilege of learning from these two wise men how to … Continue reading Shut Up and Listen
Rituals And Boundaries: Important Life Lessons
Yesterday I hollared to Handsome Chef Boyfriend, Hey, don't put a new stick of butter in the dish 'til I have a chance to polish it—it's looking a bit gnarly. You must be feeling better, he said. It's true, I was. For the first time in over a week I was feeling somewhat restored after the … Continue reading Rituals And Boundaries: Important Life Lessons
Postscript: A Fire in Her Belly
Yesterday I posted about my former students at Knoxville Ballet School who worked like crazy to achieve high marks on their American Ballet Theatre Affiliate exams, and three of them who went on to attend the Young Dancer Summer Workshop at ABT in August 2012 after a successful video audition. I wanted to share images … Continue reading Postscript: A Fire in Her Belly
A Fire in the Belly
Three tired Knoxville Ballet School monkeys after a <successful> video audition for American Ballet Theatre's Young Dancer Summer Workshop in 2012 The same three monkeys at ABT in NYC later that summer, with their idol, one Catherine Hurlin Last week during a discussion at a writers' workshop I attended over in Cambridge, NY, I listened … Continue reading A Fire in the Belly
Sycamore Stories 