I'm new to the forum and I thought it would be fun to hear some stories about everyone's discovery of their passion for ballet to meet you all, as well as share my own story so you can all meet me!
I started ballet two years ago, I've been dancing for three years. The first year of ballet was hard and challenging, I was determined to learn ballet though and succeeded through the first year. This year I began pointe which was an awesome thing to accomplish in one year of ballet. I soon learned that it was an entirely different sort of challenge, but I love it. I often watch the advanced dancers and I am always immpressed by the grace and beauty they possess. I want to have that fire in me, I believe I have found it. Dance has become more than a hobby or a past time. I breathe dance, especially ballet. I enter a whole new world where I can express my soul, put energy out through every particle of my body. It's incredible to dance. My passion for dance has been unleashed, it can't be quenched but for me to keep on dancing forever. This is a bit of how I found my passion and way to live fulfilled.
Hi Nat, Thank you for your wonderful post and welcome to the DanceScape Forums! We love your comment about "breathing dance" and we share your passion. It is something that we cannot live without.
We love to watch Ballet, but actually have never taken lessons. Please share with us what you meant when you indicated it was hard and challenging the first year. Did it have to do with the flexibility, or perhaps you had a passionate dance instructor that really worked her/his students to try to best the best?
Welcome to the forums! That's a great story you have there and I am so happy that you are living your passion for Ballet. It is definitely the type of dance that I find myself most passionate about. I took R.A.D. Ballet for 16 years up to Intermediate - an exam I am still longing to complete once I find a studio close to where I live now. I can relate completely to your feelings about Ballet - it is like it becomes a part of you that will live inside you forever!
Also, how cool is it that you were able to start Pointe after a year! GREAT WORK!! All I can say Nat, is keep the fire burning inside you and maybe one day I will see you on stage
Thanks for the replies DanceScape and DanceScape Editor. I love that there is a place where passionate dancers can chat. This is really an awesome website!
In reference to the challenges ballet posed for me I struggled a bit with flexibility, also the use of different muscles that I previously hadn't used. I also had to learn how to memorize moves and pick up routines fast in order to in a way catch up to the other girls who had been dancing since they were three. My instructor is very passionate. She does more than teach moves, she is a type of mentor, encouraging all the time. It is also up to the dancer to be their best if they want to be, and that is what I chose to do.
That's great, Nat! You have obviously been working so hard at it. Thank you for your kind comments about our website. Remember, there are plenty of helpful and inspiring articles in DanceScape eZine www.dancescape.com/ezine that might be of interest to you as well.
Do you have a favourite section in Ballet? The Barre, Petit Allegro, Port de Bras, Grand Allegro, etc. ?
P.S. My Ballet Teacher was my mentor as well. There's something special about Ballet/Dance Teachers I tell ya
I studied ballet off and on from childhood, but didn't fall in love with it until I was 20. I studied intensively in my 20's, but just wasn't good enough to get anywhere. At 30, I stopped abruptly and didn't go near a studio or a performance for 17 years.
Last year, after that 17-year-absence, I found myself sick and tired of aerobic dance classes. "My form is ballet -- why aren't I there?" I'd say to myself after one more day in dance sneakers, thundering from one end of the gym to another as the music blasted. In a hip-hop class, the teacher would sometimes bellow at me, "Not like a ballerina! Watch those airy arms!" I was lost.
Enough. So I shopped around for a really good studio, called them up, and found a warm welcome at a Northern California pre-professional school, Western Ballet, which has a huge adult program (over 400 adult students!). Before I knew it, I was in class 6 days a week. In the past year, I can't believe what I've regained -- I can pirouette (just singles so far), do a few things on pointe, my extension to the front and side is 90 degrees, and on a good day I can almost do a double pirouette. And some things have a long way to go, still -- my arabesque and attitude, once a source of secret pride, are simply godawful as my extension to the back is very limited. And my feet, never admirable, are just marginal. But I'm working on it, every day.
Most important, my soul feels nourished after many years of famine. I know I won't have the abilities I had at 20 -- but I cherish what I do have. At 20, I fretted constantly over whether I'd ever get good enough to dance at just the civic or regional level, and I could recite long lists of my deficits. Today, I enjoy every tiny accomplishment. It's amazing to dance again.
I've been performing again, as well. I've been a 'party guest' in Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty, with real character dances to perform. I've also joined a modern dance company of dancers over 40, and we've performed in San Francisco and in guest appearances throughout the Bay Area.
You'd be surprised what's possible if you don't give up on yourself. I'm happier now, as a dancer, than when I was younger, because I am free from the competitiveness and anxiety that made that experience so tense.
Today, I dance for joy, and for love, and my teachers tell me it shows. As Goethe said, "Whatever you do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it."
Thank you SO much for your beautiful and inspirational post. On a personal level, you have summarized for us what we LOVE and are so PASSIONATE about dancing, as well as our own philosophy that you can never be too "old" to learn skills and artforms such as Ballet and other Dance styles. Whereas when we are young, our bodies may be able to do more things, even when we get older, we can still acquire new skills! And it will have more meaning.
Don't you think also that classes with mixed ages also benefit, so that mature students can be inspired by the exuberance of youth, but that youth can be inspired and learn from experiences of older peers? Also, some more mature people we know actually still have the "spirit of their youth" and that's what it's all about, isn't it?
That was an awesome post Tzigane99, it's amazing how a passion for dance can soothe your soul and make you complete, your story is very empowering. Thanks for posting!
I started dancing the past year, I joined late so it was only part of the year. I took jazz and ballet with an old best friend. At first I didn't like having to miss certain things while at classes, but then i realized it was something I really started to love. Over the last year taking dance I have really found myself. It had definately become a part of me and I don't know what I would do without it. I plan on taking summer classes in July for Jazz, Ballet, and Acrobatics. The upcomming year I am going to take Jazz and Ballet again only I will be on pointe for ballet.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: DreamDancerx3,
I dont remember my life without dance. My mother enrolled me in a small, local dance studio when I was 3 years old. At first, it was only ballet and tap every Wednesday. Then, as the years went on, my instructor told me that I "shot above", as she said, all of my classmates. I remember crying the day I was moved up a class because I was going to miss all my friends.
In my new class, I joined jazz alongside my ballet and tap. When I first joined I found myself more challenged than I ever was before. I loved it. I loved seeing myself change in the wall mirrors of the basement studio. My instructor gave me solo parts in almost ever dance show. Man, my parents were proud.
I took me 6 years to be ready for pointe. I never really got the perfect pointe shoe until this past year, when I got a pair of Gaynor Mindens (a little expensive, but well worth it). Me and my friend Rachel got a duet pointe song as well as the dance for the whole class. I'm yet to learn the fouette but I am this year. I have high hopes for the upcoming years. Little old ladies in the audience come up to me sometimes and say I have Juilliard potential. Juilliard has been my dream for as long as I can remember. I'm so determined to get there that I'll probably never settle for anything less, even if I'm forced to. I dance so much that my friends think I have no life.
All I can say Nat, is keep the fire burning inside you and maybe one day I will see you on stage 
