Category: Ballet
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The Day I Stopped Dancing
When I was a full-time dancer, I never thought about the day when I wouldn’t be able to dance anymore. Injuries or illness, or a family vacation, would cause temporary lapses in dance training. But even these never brought me to a complete halt. If I injured my Achilles tendon, for example, I could still…
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When It’s an “On” Day
When I was living a full-time dance life, nearly every waking moment was consumed with benchmarks. How close is my side-split turnout to a 180-degree line? How many pirouettes can I do to the right (spinning clockwise on my left foot with my right toe at my knee in passé) before looking balance? How many…
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When You’re A Dancer
When you’re a dancer the first thing you do upon awakening is a body scan. What is sore? What is tight? How is my energy? What do I need to eat? How should I begin to move today? You may know right away that more stretching and a gentler lead-in than usual will be needed.…
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Introduction to Former Dancer: Keeping the Dancer Inside Alive
The motivation for this blog is to share some reflections on my striving to keep the dancer inside me alive, even though in some ways the dancer I was died after my body stopped dancing. I spent 10 years from ages 6-16 training for a career in professional ballet. Today, about 50 years later, I…