Body Dysmorphia in Retirement

I’ve been struggling with my weight recently. Now, before I get angry tweets or confused looks, I am aware that I am not actually struggling with my weight. Yes, I could lose about 5 pounds and be happy to see my six-pack abs return. But in the grand scheme of things, I probably look fit to the general public and my doctor would likely tell me that I am in the lower range of healthy weights for men my height and age. Taking all of these things into consideration, there is one more important item to note. I am probably not the image of the person I see in the mirror and that has changed drastically since I retired from the stage and began focusing my energy on choreography and teaching.

Throughout my 13 year performance career, I was always quite confident about my body. Yes, like any human being, my weight fluctuates up and down a few pounds from week to week. And back then, it may have swung a bit more if I had an extended lay-off or was recovering from injury. But I never felt stressed by these fluctuations. I knew that I would soon be back in the studio dancing for 7 1/2 hours a day and the image of myself that I wanted others to see would return. I didn’t have body dysmorphia then. I knew what I looked like and trusted the reflection I saw in the mirror. My stress, confusion, and acute attention with my perceived body image wasn’t an immediate response to retirement, though. It was a gradual shift in mentality after a few events that grew into mistrust about the person I saw looking back at me in the mirror.

Weight is a constant topic among professional dancers. While some of those conversations are serious, more of them occur in jest. Perhaps, this is in response to the stresses of a job where the central product is one’s fitness and ability to control every ounce of their body. I can actually note two singular comments that began my distrust of my own perception of self.

The first of these comments occurred as I prepared for the role of Puck in Balanchine’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This role requires the dancer to wear a transparent, open-front vest attached to a glorified dance belt over swirly tights down to one’s ankles. The funny thing is that I didn’t even have this costume in mind as I prepared for the role. I had been heavier earlier in the season due to an injury that kept me out of the studio. So, it made sense that I lost that weight as the season dragged on. Also important to note, beyond my rehearsal days and performances that season, I was secretly flying on weekends auditioning to leave the company. All of this dancing and stress had taken a few extra pounds off me. It was after a particularly long weekend of travel that I found myself rehearsing with a Principal dancer who was playing the role of Oberon (the character who acts as my master in the work). While other dancers were rehearsing the part, this dancer pulled me aside and told me, “You look bone.” After I looked strangely at him, wondering if comparing me to a skeleton was a good thing or a bad thing, he must have caught the confusion in my eyes. He very quickly followed up by telling me it was a good thing. I looked in the mirror at my thin frame and sunken-in cheeks and smiled at the compliment. My lowest professional weight had now become my benchmark for physical success, sex appeal, and confidence.

Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Soon after this “compliment,” I moved on from Pacific Northwest Ballet, joined Ballet X, was let go from Ballet X, and started my life as a freelance dancer. With all of these changes and developments happening so abruptly, it took about a year after the bone comment before I had a moment to process all of the life changes I had experienced and allow my body to rest. It was also around this point that my freelance career began to take off and I careened on the wildest 4 year ride of my life.

One of the first stressors I noted during this period was that it was harder to stay in shape. I went from dancing 40 hours a week to rehearsing in bouts and taking expensive classes less frequently. Here, I began to see my strength, stamina, and weight fluctuate on a regular basis. If I was working a lot, friends would note that I was frighteningly skinny upon my return home. But after some time locally and not dancing due to extreme exhaustion, stress, and financial pressure, my weight would normalize or I would start to look a little soft around my torso. I controlled my frustration by telling myself that I needed the break, I would be working soon, or that it wasn’t as bad as I thought. I believed myself, even if I wasn’t at my lowest weight standard.

It took only one comment to destroy my ability to see an honest reflection of myself. My body dysmorphia was triggered during a guesting opportunity with Festival Ballet Providence. During this gig, I had befriended one of the dancers who was growing into the role of the company’s regular male lead. I hung out with him once or twice outside of work and had briefly met his boyfriend. After an open studio rehearsal that the dancer’s partner attended, he walked over to me and poked me in the stomach with his index finger. I still don’t understand why he felt this was appropriate. But after poking me, he stated that I was “looking a little soft.” While I tried to laugh it off, the stress I was experiencing in my new career style and the concerns I already had about my inconsistent work and how it affected my body sent me in a tizzy. Luckily, I’ve never been at risk for an eating disorder. But from this point forth, I’ve always been overwhelmingly conscious of my weight and how others view my current fitness versus how I looked at my lowest weight. The worst part of this unsolicited poke was that I lost the ability to reasonably judge my own reflection and the memory of what physical attributes made me feel happy and confident.

I handled this issue like I do with everything else. I stress about it and try to micromanage the situation, but have difficulty finding a perfect balance that makes me most comfortable in all areas. My body dysmorphia has only gotten worse since I retired from my performance career. It stressed me out to be dancing less throughout my freelance career. I’m sure one can imagine how it has gotten worse when I am in front of the studio more often than standing at the barre.

Looking at my post-performance career reflection in the mirror

The biggest challenge as a retired dancer with body dysmorphia is cultivating an honest, healthy image of what I look like to myself and how I think I should look as a former dancer. Should I hold myself to the skeletal standard that garnered me positive attention during my performance career? Am I expected to have six-pack abs as a choreographer? And, if I don’t, will I lose my sex appeal or get comments about the loss of my “hot” body? I don’t have the answers to these questions. But I do know that it is important to consider a healthy image of myself as I age. In my 30’s, I still want to look like the person I was in my late 20’s. But it wouldn’t be fair for my 45 year old self to try and maintain the gold standard I had during my dancing days.

This post is more explorational than it is informational. I don’t yet have answers for retired dancers and how they should handle perception of their bodies after their prime athlete days. But what I can share is that I am working to understand how I view myself as I age, while appreciating that wonderful time when my body was fit just because I showed up to work. It would be unfair to always expect to look bone. So, now I need to explore what looks good on me at 34. And after I figure that out, I’ll probably have to reconsider that answer every 5-10 years. Just like the changes our bodies naturally endure as we age, we must also consider the mind.

Vacation Break

Hey there, dear readers! I am in Los Angeles vacationing, so there is no blog post this week. If you are hungry for content, either head on over to listen to my podcast (Pas de Chát: Talking Dance) or check out the archives of my previous blog (Life of a Freelance Dancer). Happy Summer and see you in a few weeks!

A little Hollywood view from my friend’s apartment balcony

8 Things You Probably Don’t Know About Me

1. I opened a credit card and put nearly $2500 on it at the age of 19 to join Houston Ballet. At the time, my family didn’t have the means to support me financially. So, I used this line of credit to purchase my airfare, put down a security deposit for my apartment, pay my first months rent, purchase a cheap, uncomfortable futon to give me a place to sleep and sit, get cable/internet for communication and entertainment, and stock my fridge.

2. I wasn’t initially planning on becoming a ballet dancer. At first, I saw myself having a career in jazz, musical theatre, and modern dance. After attending his master class workshop in the Philadelphia area, Bob Rizzo (former NYU professor, Steps on Broadway faculty, and current owner of Riz-Biz productions) took me under his wing and generously mentored me for 3 years towards a career in musical theatre. At the age of 16, I fell in love with ballet hard, which quickly changed my focus and the trajectory of my career.

3. While I danced throughout my childhood, my first artistic love was classical music. I started playing piano when I was 5 years old. By middle school, I added mallet percussion (xylophone/bells/vibraphone), flute, clarinet, and saxophone to my repertoire. In my free time, I would record myself playing one part of a duet on a cassette recorder and play it back so that I could practice duets with myself. Additionally, I used to transcribe music on the fly during band practices at school from different keys (for example, playing flute music on the saxophone). At my peak, I could play major classical tunes just by listening to them. When I was in 9th grade, my music instructor called my mom and suggested she send me away to a conservatory for music. I didn’t find this out until about a year ago in a passing conversation on the phone with my mom. I guess she felt I needed to focus on dance at the time. As an adult, I have unfortunately lost some of my skills due to 6 years traveling and focusing on my dance career.

4. I was severely asthmatic as a kid. I had my first asthma attack at the age of 3, which was so severe that I passed out in the car on the way to the hospital. By the age of 16, I was hospitalized 16 times for separate attacks. I only stopped using my in-home nebulizer, 2 inhalers, and pill medication after having nasal surgery in my mid-20’s to clear up scar tissue, congestion, and fix my septum. I attribute both this surgery, playing wind instruments, and dancing every day to relieving my asthma symptoms. Today, I only have to use my nebulizer or inhaler when I’m sick.

Cynthia Gregory in Swan Lake

5. I have always been very lucky to be surrounded by people who have generously supported and mentored me throughout my career. The famed American Ballet Theatre Prima Ballerina Assoluta Cynthia Gregory was one of my main mentors from the age of 16 throughout much of my early career. She helped guide my decision-making without ever telling me what to do as I entered my career and provided valuable insight as I found my footing in the professional world. I also had the generous support of Daniel Baudendistel during my final years of training with private instruction in pas de deux, as well as him providing me with private instruction with the legendary David Howard. Also, as I mentioned previously, Bob Rizzo was a great guiding force in my teenage years as I really sunk my teeth into the idea of a career and life in the dance world.

6. Alaska is practically my second home. Back in 2012, I was first brought out to Anchorage to dance with the now defunct Alaska Dance Theatre professional company. Over the past 6 years, I have spent almost an entire year in the state between professional performance work, directing Alaska Dance Theatre as Interim Artistic Director, and creating my own intensive programs for intermediate/advanced students.

Hiking along Turnagain Arm in the Anchorage area

7. A lot of my choreographic work has focused on my fascination with the human psyche. A lot of this (and likely a huge part of my diving into dance training) is due to the fact that I was raised in a house with a parent who had an undiagnosed mental illness. A few years after leaving home, my step father was officially diagnosed with bipolar disorder and depression. While I learned how to cope in an unconventional home throughout my childhood, he wasn’t the only person in my life suffering. As a teen, I helped a few friends cope with mental health situations that could have become potentially life threatening situations. And as an adult, I have found myself in regular contact with people suffering with diseases and disorders from Bipolar to Schizophrenia, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and depression.

8. When I was finishing up my ballet training, I was concerned that I wasn’t going to be offered a contract to start my career. As a counter to my anxiety, I auditioned for 17 ballet companies. Considering my expectations, it was quite surprising to me when I ended up with offers ranging from Corps de Ballet to Second Company contracts with Houston Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet, Kansas City Ballet, Colorado Ballet, Carolina Ballet, Alberta Ballet, Oregon Ballet Theatre, and a trial contract with American Ballet Theatre. I was quite lucky that my expectations didn’t match my reality.

 

Coaching Students vs. Professionals

The first day that I worked with American Ballet Theatre was filled with an enormous sense of accomplishment and a great deal of anxiety. It was during my final year of training at the School of American Ballet when I was one of 4 boys offered a trial contract with the company to go on tour to the Kennedy Center as a member of the corps de ballet in MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet (before ABT’s JKO school existed). I was David Hallberg’s 2nd cast when he would step out of the corps as the 2nd cast for Benvolio and I was tasked with learning intricate fencing and intertwining corps sequences from the moment I walked into the studio. My excitement of dancing with my dream company was equally balanced by my stress level, as I had never been shown so much choreographic material at once or been expected to retain it with such immediacy. This style of learning was a grand departure from what I was used to in school when it came to learning new material and preparing to perform it. Now that I have moved forward into the realm of choreography and coaching for a range of student and professional dancers, I use experiences I’ve had as a tool to help prepare dancers in the most appropriate, economical fashion possible.

There are a couple of ways in which students are treated differently when it comes to preparing for performances. Those moving in the direction of a professional career will often learn choreographic content that is progressively closer to what professionals perform. When I learned my first classical pas de deux at the age of 15, I learned it off a VHS tape (yep, throwing it back) of fully realized dancers in performance. While we were young and had not completely developed as artists, we put in our best effort and performed the pas de deux as we saw it on the video. While a teacher or coach can offer a simplified version of choreography, student dancers will (for the most part) perform the same steps as professionals. The only difference here is that technical tricks like pirouettes may not be performed with as many rotations or certain sequences may be simplified for safety until enough strength and coordination is gained.

One of the main differences when it comes to coaching a student is the amount of time allotted to learn the work, clarify material, and build stamina. When I performed the Don Quixote pas de deux for my graduation performance at the Kirov Academy of Ballet (you can see footage here), we began rehearsing for our May show at the beginning of February. With 2-4 hours of rehearsal each week on the pas de deux alone plus additional time for rehearsal of the variations, we had many hours of practice to ensure that we knew the steps, understood the characters, and had the physical prowess to get through this challenging, pyrotechnic 8 minute piece. Students are often given a greater cushion of time to allow them to safely find their way through the material of a professional while still working as a student.

In rehearsal with my student

The final aspect of coaching kids that differs from working with pros comes in the form of how the coach approaches corrections. For me, I find that there is a huge emotional aspect when it comes to giving feedback, as it involves giving that feedback and seeing how the student responds both physically and psychologically. I have been coaching students to compete at the Youth America Grand Prix (YAGP) international ballet competition for nearly 4 years. My approach has changed over this period as I have gathered more experience working with different kids from a range of schools. When I first started working with new students, I would coach them in the same way that I was throughout my final years of training and as a professional. I gave direct feedback that got straight to the point without any coddling or wasted time. What I found was that some students felt demoralized by certain corrections, as they weren’t used to this style of coaching, weren’t taught how to receive corrections in that way, or didn’t understand that a correction wasn’t an attack on them as a person. Dance can be confusing in that way because while we are correcting the body’s form and the way one portrays a character with their face, it doesn’t mean that there is something wrong with a dancer as person. It is just our pathway to express our art form and necessary to convey characters through dance. Now, when coaching my students, I make sure that we take time throughout lessons to discuss corrections, why I am giving them, and how they should be addressed.

This past week, 4 students I worked with competed in the final round at YAGP. One 13 year old in particular that I worked very closely with this season has made great progress throughout our rehearsal process. When we began, I offered a warmer approach to guiding her through corrections. As she developed during our time together, I began to alter my approach to working with her and started to give more direct feedback. By the end of the final round of the competition while discussing how she felt about her performances, it became clear that she had matured to a point where she understood critical feedback and had began self-critiquing her performances. In that moment, I recognized that she was ready to begin working in a more professional format. I sat her down and explained that my approach with her in class and rehearsals will be changing. I noted that I will greatly increase my expectations of her in class and rehearsals and that she should be prepared for a much tougher approach from me. I am a big advocate of teaching emotional well-being to my students and I feel it is important to carefully guide kids and teens into a state of understanding when it comes to extremely critical feedback. With this student in particular, she is there.

Coaching dancers at Columbia Ballet Collaborative (Photo: Eduardo Patino)

I tend to go back and forth between periods of working with students and professionals as a coach. Generally, when I work as a coach with professionals, it often comes in the form of me choreographing on them and then providing feedback to ensure that they perform my work at the highest caliber. After reading the above information, you can probably see where I am going when it comes to explaining the coaching process with pros versus students. Coaching professionals is much different than working with kids. There isn’t as much emotional coddling in a professional work environment. With less time available in most professional rehearsal processes, corrections are given in a matter-of-fact way and it is expected that they will immediately address issues. We also expect dancers to be critiquing themselves and working to fix issues before we have to call them out.

Beyond all of this, most rehearsal periods are much shorter for the pros. As I was discussing at the beginning of this post, going from learning choreography as a student to rehearsing with American Ballet Theatre, I experienced a major learning curve. There wasn’t really a progressive period from student to professional where I was shown how to learn choreography at the speedier rate in a company. This tends to be a sink-or-swim period for new dancers coming into their own. I was one of the lucky ones that figured out how to learn material at a much faster pace. Without much guidance, many talented dancers fall behind their peers with this new expectation. To help a bit with the learning curve, many apprentices and young corps dancers spend multiple hours of their rehearsal days standing in the back of the room understudying roles. They are essentially being taught how to retain material faster. For this reason, it is so important that professional division students in schools and early career dancers that are asked to understudy take this role very seriously.

There is no guidebook when it comes to coaching dancers to perform at their best. But it is important that those of us who are coaching students don’t blindly walk into a studio and treat dancers exactly as we were taught. It is important to look at the individual dancer and assess what their needs are. Sometimes, this comes in the form of finding appropriate material for the physical form of a students. While at other times, it includes determining how to build a dancer’s emotional stamina. If this process is appropriately followed for the individual, we will create professional dancers who can function properly in the challenging work environment that often accompanies company work. And in the end, students who become company dancers will have all of the tools they need to become efficient at their jobs and help their organizations turn out the best product possible.

Social Media: Posting as a Role Model

The first time I heard anything relating to social media was during my time living in the dormitory at the School of American Ballet. There was a young student, who at 16 years old was using the Myspace network as a sort of coming of age and coming out. Essentially, while I didn’t come to know the term social media for years, my first impression of MySpace was that it was a site used for the sexually promiscuous and for those willing to risk their lives in the process of making bad decisions. It probably makes sense why it took another 2 years and the influence of my first love to get me to join a world that would eventually become an integral part of my (and many others) life.

I reluctantly joined MySpace back in 2003 and, like most any Xennial, quickly adjusted to a life where we shared the thoughts inside our heads with anybody who dares to cross our profiles. It only took me a few weeks to go from lurking to writing short blog posts for my friends and colleagues (at the time, I wouldn’t dare let my family see my profile). As I learned that MySpace wasn’t what would eventually become Tinder or Grindr, I began sharing more and more of my daily experiences and personal thoughts. Just like the judgment of my peer at the School of American Ballet, my colleagues at Pacific Northwest Ballet began to judge my decision to share more of my life publicly, both behind my back and to my face. I remember a moment when a Principal dancer who was most rarely kind or friendly towards me pulled me aside and demanded, point blank, that I needed to stop blogging on my MySpace page. I remember the conversation that followed with my (now) husband, where I told him I felt that it was important that I share my life publicly because it was an expression of myself as an artist and human. In 100 years, they may say I was one of the pioneers of social media. My husband’s response (who is Gen X) was supportive, but also stated the fact that he also would never share his personal life in the same way. We spoke at length that night as I evaluated whether I was going to continue down this path of being as publicly honest and straightforward as I could or whether I was going to carefully guard my life experiences to avoid anybody vengeful using my public sharing against me either professionally or personally.

Life of a Freelance Dancer (Photo: Brian Mengini)

If you are reading this blog, it is quite clear which decision I made. After some time and over 400 blog posts on MySpace, I transitioned my full energy to Facebook. It took me a few years to start writing in any type of blog format again, but it eventually happened. If you don’t know my story, I’ll share it in brief here. But you should really browse my first blog, Life of a Freelance Dancer, if you want the whole story. While I had become adept at using Facebook, my social media expertise didn’t really become apparent until I began blogging again. I didn’t start up my second blog out of boredom, expression, or curiosity of the reactions of others. Instead, I did it out of fear and necessity. After transitioning away from dancing with a major ballet company to stretch myself as an artist with a small, grassroots contemporary ballet company, I became injured and was eventually fired because of this injury. It was too late for me to get healthy enough to participate in audition season and I couldn’t imagine moving again so soon after relocating my home and family 3,000 miles for the job with this company. I knew I could write, but I didn’t know if people would read anything outside of random musings and thoughts from my days. But I pushed forth and began sharing my experiences and thoughts on Life of a Freelance Dancer as I attempted to salvage a failed attempt to try something new with my career. The first handful of posts, I remember friends reaching out and asking for me to stop sharing my blog on Facebook or they would unfriend me. They felt like I was marketing on a personal platform, kind of in the same vain as a pyramid scheme. I pressed forth anyway, and eventually my blog became so popular that I didn’t have to audition for work, I spent nearly 35-40 week’s on the road dancing yearly, hundreds of people were reading my blog daily in over 120 countries around the world, and I was included on a list of 49 Creative Geniuses Who Use Blogging to Promote Their Art. I didn’t quite realize it was happening because I was living it, but my social media star had risen. I had become a role model for many hopeful freelancers, working professionals, and people looking for inspiration in general. It was nice that I didn’t have to worry too much about what I posted because my audience mostly consisted of adults and students in their late teens who were prepping for a career.

My Podcast Logo (Photo: Bill Hebert)

It was thanks to my willingness to offer the most candid presentation of my life and my life’s work that I had achieved all that I had in a short 4 years. After I was featured alongside New York City Ballet Principal Megan Fairchild in the January 2016 issue of Dance Magazine for being an innovator in social media, I was approached by Kimberly Falker of the Premier Dance Network to host my own podcast show on her network and iTunes. Suddenly, I had a massive platform to continue doing something that dancers were never really known for, sharing my voice as a part of my art. My brand is candor and it is daring due to the fact that the dance world doesn’t necessarily function on fact. It can be dangerous to be vocal about the less ideal parts of our art form, like sexual harassment, injury, burn out, anxiety, or emotional training. But my willingness to share my experiences and stories with the dance world and beyond has really pushed me into the spotlight more than I ever was while putting all of my sweat and tears into my performance career.

Now, the point of me sharing all of this information isn’t to create a documented timeline of my social media experience or gloat about my successes that have arisen from being an over-sharer. Instead, I am writing to discuss a challenging topic that I have recently been facing within my personal social media. As my interest in Facebook has steadily declined (mostly due to algorithms, the political mess of 2016, and too much noise instead of personal connection), I have turned more and more of my attention and effort to Instagram. I was quite resistant to join this photo/video sharing network mostly out of fear that it would take up more of my non-existent time. Although I delayed, I knew it was inevitable that I would eventually join this platform and immediately fall in love with this visual app. I’ve always had a knack for taking photos and I love the idea that Instagram offers me the opportunity to show my followers what it looks like to see the world through my eyes. I already had a good following on Facebook and on my Life of a Freelance Dancer blog when I joined. So, I never really felt the need to build an audience of followers beyond my family, friends, colleagues, and peers. That was until my recent falling out of love with Facebook.

As I have transitioned more of my attention to my Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/bkerollis/), I have been slowly gathering followers who enjoy my content and want to follow my career and lifestyle. I feel that I’ve gotten particularly good at cultivating a following within my network just by posting the things that I enjoy and the work that I am doing. These items include dance, city life, skyscrapers, and imagery of my travels. But my wishes to grow a vast audience, brand, and network beyond my daily reach of people I personally interact with has become a challenging conversation that involves who my audience is, what communities I belong to, and my own personal integrity.

For me and my regular brand of candor, I want to post whatever images and content I want to at that moment. But things have changed a lot for me over the past few years. I am no longer backstage dozens upon dozens of time during the year and promoting myself solely as a performing artist. My audience has widened in many ways. I work with students ranging from young hopeful 10 year olds up to recreational 80 year old adults. My audience consists of everybody from small kids to gay men to Broadway dancers, ballet dancers, podcast listeners, blog readers, fans of my photography, parents of my students, and more. As I said earlier, I have been slowly building my Instagram audience. But I now feel ready to go all in to promote my choreography, teaching, and media work to a much larger audience on an international scale. The main challenge here is how does one build an audience with integrity while catering to a range of communities as diverse as my own. I have really struggled with this idea lately and, perhaps, this is the reason that I am ruminating over this publicly. I don’t want to post videos of myself dancing, as I would rather spend my time focusing on making my students into amazing dancers. I already had my performance career. Sometimes, I find it tempting to post practically nude photos of myself to cater to the gay community and gather easy follows. Sex sells and I still have my dancer body, so it could be a cheap sell. But I have children looking at my account, parents monitoring my activities, and being a married man I don’t need to market myself in that way (though I will post the occasional artistic nude-ish photo). I also don’t like to build an audience using hashtags like #followforfollow, as I feel that there is no investment from those followers beyond patting them on the back. I want people who see my content to be invested in what I am doing, sharing, and promoting.

 

My most artistic “nude-ish” photo (Photo: Shalem Photography)

 

So, at the moment, I am finding myself caught in a social media pickle. How does somebody like me market to a vast audience with differing tastes, receive brand sponsorships, gain opportunities in and out of my field, and add followers who are invested in the work that I am doing? I’m not sure that I really know at the moment. But for anybody else who has found themselves in a similar situation, I can tell you that it is important to set standards for yourself and move forward with integrity. If you have integrity, no matter the outcome, you will always look back and be proud that you didn’t sell out to get ahead. I have chosen to move forward with integrity and am trying to set certain standards in my social media practices. Photographs that include nudity will only be shared if they are artistic and tasteful. Footage of myself dancing my own choreography in a class will only take place if I am regularly posting footage of my actual students dancing it with me, my attention is focused on them for the entirety of the class, and filming doesn’t take place more than once or twice a month. And, lastly, I will build an audience based purely off of people who want to follow me, and not off of some idea of reciprocity where somebody disinterested in my content will follow me only because I have followed them.

With all of this said, I am curious if you have found yourself in this same type of situation. Do you have a wide range of audience members and have trouble making sure that your content is completely appropriate for all of your viewers? What do you think of posts where the teacher is dancing front and center in a class they are supposed to be teaching? Do you believe that you should build your audience and then cultivate content to keep them interested or that you should only seek out followers who found you because they initially liked your content? Feel free to leave a comment here or to reach out to me on Instagram to let me know your thoughts!

A recent Instagram post of the sunset from my bedroom window

10 Things I’ve Learned Since Retiring

There are so many lessons to be learned in this life. In the past few weeks, I spent some time with a handful of my students coaching them while at the Youth America Grand Prix competition. I was so impressed to see how they held their own under the pressures of competition, and a handful of them even placed (one of them won the Grand Prix, two won 2nd & 3rd place in their categories, and a handful placed in the Top 12). While my job was to warm my kids up, hone in their focus, and provide support no matter the outcome of what happened onstage, I learned a very important lesson. Read on to see what that lesson was along with a handful of others I’ve learned since retiring from the stage.

Two students I choreographed contemporary solos for at YAGP (Allison Chen – L, Elisabeth Beyer – R)

1. One of the most surprising lessons I’ve learned since retiring has been that I don’t have to take class every day to maintain my technique. As my schedule has become overwhelmingly booked with teaching, coaching, choreographing, podcasting, and blogging, I have had difficulty making it to class as often as I would like. But taking class 2-4 times each week (as opposed to 5-6 times) actually allows my body to recover and feel better from day to day. While there are a few areas I feel that I’ve lost ground in (adagio and extended stamina), I can still perform a majority of the feats I executed daily during my stage career. And if something isn’t working one day and it stresses me out in the moment, I just remind myself that I’m retired from the stage and class is now wholly for me again.

See! I can still get a leg up!

2. With no intention for any negative connotation, a performance career is very selfish. In order to perfect one’s art, we must spend countless hours working on ourselves and focusing great attention to personal detail. Beyond this, due to the brevity of our careers, we tend to feel that we need to achieve every goal we set, gain every opportunity available, get cast in every role we dream of, and climb up the promotion ladder as fast as possible. It has been liberating to step outside the selfishness of my own performance career and to allow my focus to include others. In the past few weeks while coaching a handful of students to compete at Youth America Grand Prix , I suddenly became very aware of how invested I was in the success of my students. I was so extremely hopeful for them to perform well because their success and happiness was also mine. This post-career life has taught me that the success of many is greater than the success of one.

3. This may sound odd since my attention has shifted from fully focusing on my own instrument. But my technique has improved greatly since I began teaching and coaching dancers. While teaching my students, I often have to find unique ways to express muscle engagement, joint movement, placement, balance, coordination, and more. I find myself evaluating my own work in class much more meticulously as I explore the best way to convey information to students while teaching. This has netted an overall positive in my own dancing, as I have a greater understanding of many things that I hadn’t grasped during my performance career.

4. I didn’t always notice this, but there were many times that I wish I had a certain type of support, guidance, or mentorship during my career. I left home at the age of 17 to train and I moved across the country into my own apartment at the age of 19 to start my career with Houston Ballet. As I transitioned to Pacific Northwest Ballet, became an adult, and eventually navigated my way through a national career as a traveling freelancer, I often wished that I had more support in many ways. Now that I have stepped into a more educational leadership role, I have been baffled by the number of dancers who have reached out to me in need of physical, emotional, and financial support. If these are the dancers that are asking for help, I can’t imagine the number of dancers who don’t ask. One thing that has become abundantly clear to me is the need for support in our community and the lack of resources, access, and assistance available to help our the real-life culture of our country.

5. Throughout my nearly 13-year performance career, I gave up a great deal to fulfill my life’s biggest dream. From saying no to social events to avoiding activities that had even the slightest risk of injury, traveling for 4 years away from the comfort of my friends and family, and avoiding foods that may add that extra pound of weight onto my body, I sacrificed much to enjoy what I still consider one of the greatest experiences of my life. Now that I am officially retired from the stage, I have been able to enjoy my time in different ways. I now see that there is so much more to life than dance. But that doesn’t mean I love it any less. It is still the focal point of much of my attention. But I don’t limit myself in ways that I used to and I don’t feel like I am missing out as much.

6. While there is often a great deal of competition and comparison throughout a performance career, all former professional dancers share a special bond that connects them once offstage. One of my favorite experiences in recent history came while teaching a master class at Uptown Dance Company in Houston, TX when a former colleague with Houston Ballet took my class. She had been a long-time soloist with the company when I joined as a young apprentice and I looked up to her and respected her time put in. Since I was younger, I remember feeling shy around her. But now that we are both retired and have shared similar career experiences, we shared some good conversation and laughs while reminiscing about our past career lives.

7. When you retire, some aches and pains go away and other aches and pains get worse (The ones that get worse are usually when you are teaching – see previous blog post about this here). But the stress and anxiety that accompanies minor to moderate pain or injury is not nearly as great as when you are preparing to perform.

Papa Bear

8. When I was finishing up my career in my early 30’s, I was often considered older for a dancer. By my late 20’s, I already found myself a guiding force for younger dancers entering the field. In fact, at one gig, I was jokingly referred to as Papa Bear. When I finally decided to officially retire at the age of 32, I suddenly became young again. I can’t tell you how many people have mentioned how young I am for a teacher and choreographer at my level, even at the age of 34. It was quite surprising to see how quickly I went from being old to young again. Perhaps, retirement from a performance career is the real fountain of youth.

9. Dancers are the face of our field. But as I have started to experience how I am treated (whether locally or traveling) as a choreographer and dance educator, I have come to see how absolutely undervalued and mistreated dancers are. When I freelanced around the country as a performer, I had to fiercely negotiate a livable wage, deal with questionable housing accommodations, and handle situations in and out of the studio that most professionals in other fields would never find themselves in. Since I have begun working in my post-performance career, I have been treated much more respectfully when it comes to salary, travel, accommodations, and treatment. This is definitely something that I would like to inspire to change in our field. I am still baffled that dancers, the face of our art form, are so often the least valued commodity in dance.

10. I’m actually more in love with dance than I have ever been. I thought that getting to perform my dream roles in my dream companies would be the pinnacle of my love for the art form. But while those experiences were amazing, there was a certain level of stress and anxiety that went hand-in-hand with preparation activities and live performance. Now that I have succeeded in my performance career and have moved on to teach and choreograph, I get to enjoy every part of the dance world that I love, leave the parts that I don’t love behind, and make sure that almost everything I do is for me, because I want to do it, and to share my passion with others.

My latest cohort of adult dancers in my Absolute Beginner Workshop at Broadway Dance Center – Next Workshop is 4/8/ – 5/27 on Sundays at 6 pm – Sign up at BroadwayDanceCenter.com

Submitting Your Work as a Choreographer

Studio to Stage – “Diagnosis” for Columbia Ballet Collaborative (Photos: Eduardo Patino)

There aren’t a great deal of guidebooks when it comes to navigating one’s way through many parts of our insular dance world. Over the years, we have made gains with more information and resources to help prepare dancers for auditions, professional life, and retirement. But there is still a dearth of guidance when it comes to finding support for your work as a choreographer and putting yourself out there to gain commissions. While I have had some success when it comes to choreographic workshops and competitions, I am still very much in the navigation phase of coming into my own as a prominent dance maker and gaining commissions to create and present larger scale stage works. When I first started my blogging career on Life of a Freelance Dancer, I was writing to fill a void of information that I wish I had available to me as I navigated my freelance career. Here on Dancing Offstage, I am hoping to do the same thing with the post-performance careers of dancers. So, while I haven’t yet fully achieved my goals as a choreographer, I plan to share what I have learned thus far for those of you who may be seeking content to help kick start your choreographic career.

There is no straight line to gaining work as a dance maker. But there is one clear place that all budding choreographers need to start. Get in the studio and start fine-tuning your craft by making some work. One of the most difficult parts of building a choreographic portfolio rests in getting in the studio to sharpen your creative pencil with quality dancers who can appropriately portray your ideas. As you continue to learn how you work in the front of the studio and refine the process of taking inspiration from your mind and putting it into a physical form on your body and other dancer’s bodies, the next clear step is to record footage of your work. Video of your creativity doesn’t need to be caught by a professional videographer and it doesn’t need to be filmed on a $2,000 camera. But it does need to be clear, far enough away that it doesn’t cut off the full visual effect that you are trying to create, and offer a crisp idea of who you are as an artist. While many workshops and competitions do not require that you have full stage production footage of your works, some do. And almost all commissions from organizations will come from a director who appreciates knowing that you have had the experience of producing a studio work that translates appropriately onstage. So, if you need footage of your work in a theatre format, perhaps consider applying to be a part of festival or ask around your local scene for performance opportunities.

(Click Here to see footage of a recent submission of my choreography)

Now that you have footage of your work, what are you going to need to put in your package, how do you find opportunities, and who do you send it to? Again, there isn’t any perfect answer to these questions. But with a bit of research and a bit of luck, you may find something that is perfect for you. Many choreographers assume that their work will speak for itself. And for a very few people, it may. But behind many of the most successful choreographers is also the mind of a writer, a presenter, and a hustler. Unless a director outright hires you to create a work for their company, most of the potential opportunities that will present themselves will require a proposal. These proposals often ask for a bit of background on oneself, where you find your inspiration for your work, and what you imagine you could make (which would include content of choreography, number of dancers, style of dance, music choices, etc.). Beyond all of this, a proposal is often requested in the form of a letter of intent, which requires you to state why you are applying. There is no exact formula for these letters of intent or proposals, but a bit of research on the company (including general style, number of dancers, etc.), past collaborators, and budget can go a long way in informing you on how to address your proposal. You may also be required to provide one or two letters of recommendation. Beyond all of this information, be sure to have an updated choreographic resumé that notes your professional experience as a dancer (to share your background and qualifications), as a dance maker, and the dates of your previous work. Many workshops will not accept submissions with footage of works that are older than 3-5 years. They want to know what your current work looks like and often have strict standards for submission footage.

While there are some workshops, residencies, and competitions that happen every season, most programs only occur when there is funding or on a less than regular basis. During your search for opportunities, you may find old links to choreographic workshops that claim to happen every other year, but are actually listings from 5-10 years ago. While at other times, you may read about a certain choreographic competition that intends to run annually, yet the organization only puts on the event once. I don’t know the exact reasoning for this, but I imagine that funding is a major factor. Also, some workshops gain financing through grants that have extremely strict qualifications for organizations to receive this money. An example of this is the Joffrey Ballet’s Winning Works competition (formerly Choreographers of Color), who only accepts submissions from non-white dance makers. When seeking out opportunities, be sure to very clearly read all of the information and submission specifications from start to finish before you begin prepping a package to send out to avoid wasting your time due to outdated information or not qualifying for the opportunity.

“Distinct Perceptions” at National Choreographers Initiative 2014 (Photo: Dave Friedman)

One of my best choreographic experiences thus far was having the opportunity to create for 3 weeks at the National Choreographers Initiative in Irvine, CA (please read about this experience by clicking here). As I stated previously, if you are non-white, the Winning Works competition at Joffrey Ballet also seems to happen yearly. Other regular opportunities I have seen include the New York Choreographic Institute (very difficult to obtain), Western Michigan University’s Choreography Competition, McCallum Theatre Choreography Festival, UNCSA choreographic development residency, Milwaukee Ballet’s Genesis Competition, SpringBoard Danse Montreal, NW Dance Project/Pretty Creatives, and NYU Center for Ballet and the Arts fellowships. Other than these known opportunities, I am regularly perusing dance periodicals for new listings and checking out Dance/USA, Dance/NYC, and Dancing Opportunities for new listings on choreographic pursuits and funding opportunities. In the end, it never hurts to perform a Google search on “choreography competitions,” “choreography submissions 2018” (or whatever year it is), or “choreographic opportunities.” Lastly, while you can seek out many opportunities by looking online, don’t discount your network of friends and colleagues, as more work presents itself from within your community than from cold calling organizations.

Once I’ve found certain opportunities, I send my package off to the person or form that is denoted on the site. But what if I am specifically seeking choreography commissions with professional organizations? How do I get in contact with the right people with a dance company to make sure that the director gets to see my work and considers me for the future? This is a completely different beast. Taking a page from my freelance career, I have become a master at cold emailing organizations expressing interest in creating work for organizations. I have a template email that I adapt to fit each company that I reach out to. I make sure to do a little research on the company before contacting them and to make sure that they can see that I truly am interested in the company (perhaps by discussing their current season, any tours the company is taking, or discussing something I saw in the news pertaining to the organization). As I get to know certain directors who have expressed interest, my template obviously changes to a true personal email. But this takes some time and a certain track record to achieve. But the best way to reach out to a director is to seek out their email on the company website or call the front desk and request that information, to track down information on the Artistic Director’s direct assistant, or to look for a ballet master, ballet mistress, or company manager who may answer directly to the person in charge. I can tell you from experience that this is a very tedious process that usually gets anywhere from a 10%-20% response rate. But unless you have direct access to speak to an organizational leader, you have to start here.

As you can see, there are many pathways to building a choreographic career without any clear or direct path. Like many things in life, success in dance making is often led by a small pack of choreographers who are talented and have found luck in timing and presentation that gave them a platform to show their ingenuity. I have felt so lucky to be selected for the National Choreographers Initiative, as a finalist at the McCallum Theatre Choreography Festival and Visions Choreographic Competition, and to gain commissions for Columbia Ballet Collaborative, CelloPointe, Uptown Dance Company, and many students competing at Youth America Grand Prix (Click Here for footage of one of my students prepping for YAGP). But my true dream is creating larger scale works for professional organizations around the world. While I am not there quite yet, this is all of the information I have learned along the way to building what I plan to be a very successful choreographic career. I hope that my sharing this information with you is greatly helpful. And I hope that our paths cross as we work towards achieving our dreams!