My Life

Ballet has played a key role in making me the person I am today. From my first ballet recital when I was just two and a half, to now, at age fourteen, ballet is my life. It gives me a way to express myself both physically and emotionally, and gives me something to work on each and every day of my life. Whether I’m physically taking a ballet class or if I’m just sitting in front of the television, I know that there is always something that I can be thinking about in order to improve my technique.
Outside of my Corps Intensive class at ASA, I take classes as often as I can, and I love finding ways to further develop my technique with every class. I am constantly striving to be like my heroes, the ballerinas who not only have been lucky enough to have a successful career in ballet, but they have also been able to inspire a new generation of dancers, including myself, who’s greatest dream would be to be able to dance with the same artistry and technique that they bring to the stage.
Over the course of the past hundred or so years, ballet has changed radically. The expectations continue to get higher and higher with more and more being asked of every dancer. Even the typical “ballet body” has changed, in past years; a ballerina could look almost like a normal, very slender person. However, as times change, the ideal ballet body continues to get skinnier, and natural flexibility and turn out become more crucial. For instance, if you were to watch a video of the Ballet de Monte Carlo, which was considered one of the best companies in the world fifty or so years ago, today, compared to a video of New York City Ballet (NYCB), you would notice that not only has the level of technique and difficulty level risen considerably, but the dancers in NYCB would also look considerably more slender.
One of the reasons that ballet has evolved so much is simply because of the level of competition. For me, that level of competition is what drives me to improve and push through the pain each day. Because ballet is my life, I love it. It’s just that simple.