The Glory and Challenge of Young Success

Bowing 2nd from the left (cat outfit) w/many other successful teenagers - School of American Ballet workshop '03

Every one of us has heard these stories. 16 year old dancer is discovered by Peter Martins and named Principal dancer with New York City Ballet before she even turns 20. Preteen posts video on Youtube of himself singing and gets signed for a record deal. In fact, most of us were inspired to begin training in our art or began to pull more focus into our studies after hearing similar glory stories. While we may not all strive to be these people, who doesn't want to be showered with accolades under the premise that they are a youthful prodigy? As a culture, we glorify these kids and emulate their gifts. But more often than not, we indirectly engage in what is the downward spiral of these prodigious artists. Why is it so common for young, talented artists to struggle with their art, their decisions, and their lifestyle choices as they grow into adulthood?

While I wouldn't consider myself to be one of these prodigies, I have experienced the pressures of being very successful at a young age, as have many of my colleagues. Many professional ballet dancers are hired before they are legally adults and even more are considered seasoned before they can purchase a drink at a bar. By the time a dancer enters their 30's, if one even makes it that far, they are considered over the hill. Due to the spotlight and short span of time our careers cover, successes are usually great, lauded publicly, and die out fast. Just making it into such a cut-throat profession is a great success. And since this all happens at such a young age, nearly all dancers are used to the feeling of success and the impression it makes upon non-dancers around them.

Abby & me motivating for a performance of Swan Lake

I was speaking to one of my dearest friends, former Pacific Northwest Ballet dancer Abby Relic, via text the other day. She left the company a year after I did to pursue a broader perspective in the world of dance and acting. We have both endured struggles since we left the comfort of a big company. Some simply being life-related and others relating to our struggle to find our new place in the dance world. In the process of being each other's support system, I had responded with what was just a thoughtful response to a comment. Her response was, "So insightful!" That thought is what inspired this post and I would like to share it with you. "Being super successful young is a lot of pressure as you get older. Maintenance of those feelings becomes exponentially harder to maintain." As professional dancers, we are all super successful just for achieving a position in a world that offers few job opportunities.

It is human nature to keep pushing forward and growing. People want cities to become bigger with taller buildings. People seek to find the most cutting edge science and technology. And people want their salary to continue growing. We are innately wired to push forward and want more. If a teacher makes $50,000 a year and decides to leave the profession, they probably don't feel very good about taking a job that only pays $30,000 a year.

Feeling Puck-ish backstage w/my friend Joerg

I experienced this struggle after leaving my job at PNB. Not only was my salary one-third of what it had been, our productions didn't have a live orchestra, Pointe magazine wasn't writing about us, and our audiences were, at most, 400 people (compared to the nearly 3,000 I was accustomed to). As I began freelancing, even my successes started to feel like failures. The first time I got hired for a job, which I made happen on my own, I felt elation. By the tenth time, I wasn't happy with the quality of jobs I was being offered. At another point, I danced one of the most accomplished performances of my career. But there were only 60 people in the audience, making me feel it was less valid. Everything started becoming a comparison game. Well, this success wasn't as big as my thrilling debut (or so I was told) as Puck in Balanchine's A Midsummer Night's Dream, so it must have been a failure.

This can be the biggest challenge of being successful. Comparison of successes. Is a success a success? Or is a lesser success a failure because it is not a step up on the success ladder? Today yields a great example of this thought. Justin Bieber, love him or hate him, is an incredibly talented guy. He was discovered on Youtube, at a ripe young age, singing and playing the guitar. Being discovered was his first great success. Next, he dropped his first album. Further ahead, he had his first tour. He has won awards for his music, crossed over into a more adult fan-base, and garnered millions of dollars. But today he was arrested for a D.U.I in Miami. Over the past year, we have watched this talented young artist become the male Lindsay Lohan of the tabloids. He's considered out of control, hanging out with bad people, doing drugs, having a god-complex, etc. But if we take a step back and see what is going on, he is a victim of his own success. His successes have been so great, that it is becoming hard to live up to his own record. To the public eye, anything that he is achieving which is not perceived to be greater than what has happened before is a failure. The stress of success is great. How does one cope with that?

Bieber's story is not the first, nor will it be the last. On the dance side of things, we can look at Gelsey Kirkland's rise to stardom, drug addiction, and fall from grace. This story is documented in her book, Dancing on my Grave. Gelsey was lucky that she was able to survive the demons of her own success. Not only did her career end way too early, she fell off the face of the Earth in regards to the dance world, only to reemerge many years later to open her own school, the Gelsey Kirkland Academy of Classical Ballet. Probably enough time for her to stop comparing her former successes to her current successes. Recently, Darcey Bussel, famous former Royal Ballet ballerina, stated, "At least I'm not being compared to everything I've done in the past," in a recent article that spoke about a deep depression that she went into after retiring from the stage. Inevitably, the pressure of other's expectation of her ever-growing success became too much to bear. And I get it.

The biggest challenge of being successful is the way that people view you. At first, gaining praise for a success feels good. This motivates us to push harder to continue the flow of positive feedback that received praise. If one continues to achieve on a linear level, praise will disappear as the achievement loses it's excitement and becomes old news. As one's accomplishments grow larger and more exciting, there is less room to grow and greater expectation to continue that growth pattern. By the time an artist reaches the pinnacle of their achievements, there must be a fall. Success is fleeting because a singular success is not sustainable over a long period of time. Public pressure, whether national or local, can put so much stress on a person that they may begin to collapse. This leads to depression, burn-out, and/or self-destructive behavior.

How does one avoid the pitfalls of young success? It is challenging. First and foremost, we successful artists need to surround ourselves with people that love us for who we are, and not what we are. At times, artists may come off as cool and awkward upon meeting them. This is usually their way of assessing whether somebody wants to get to know them or get to know what they can do for them. Assessing friendships and finding people that one can trust are pertinent to keeping a level head. The next step is to stop comparing successes. This is most challenging for me. When you start comparing successes to one another, the excitement of big successes doesn't last as long and the smaller successes don't hold you up to keep you on a straight path to the exciting, big successes. One of the last things that helps keep oneself on track is to find a third party to speak to that has no stake in your success. I have recently started seeing a counselor to help me cope with the stresses of working as a traveling freelancer. My counselor doesn't just listen to what I may not be able to share with most people, they offer support, insight, and exercises to help me cope with my successes and failures.

While our culture looks at young success with wide smiles and high praise, it also relishes watching the downfall of the adult version of these young, successful artists. Many of us strive to become those artists that are at the top of their game at the earliest age possible, but steady success as we grow older seems to be underrated. Glory is good, but stressful. Surround yourself with trust and love and stop comparing yourself to yourself. You are who you are today, not yesterday. The biggest lesson I have learned in the past 3 years has been that my big successes are my trophies and my failures are, most often, actually successes that I didn't give enough value to when comparing them to my bigger achievements. Be kind to yourself and enjoy all of the success that you have had!

Memorable Moments

When you've been dancing for 10+ years, there are a vast number of moments that happen throughout your career that really stand out to you. Some of these moments are pivotal to your career moving forward, while sometimes they are the biggest setbacks. At other times, these moments can be downright funny. I've decided to move away from a freelance specific post this week and focus on dance careers as a whole. Here are a handful of moments throughout my career that have been more than your typical, run-of-the-mill experiences. Enjoy!

Promising - It took a while for me to really get noticed after I joined Pacific Northwest Ballet. The first few seasons I was typically pushed to the back or left to dance in the 2nd cast corps of many ballets. When the company brought in stagers to set William Forsythe's iconic One Flat Thing, Reproduced (click link for video), all of that changed. The company went through a series of workshops and auditions in order to be considered for this piece. At the end of those three days, my name went up to learn this piece in the 1st cast. This was the first time that I ever really got to do a leading role with the company. In the cast of 13, I was one of only 2 corps dancers that got to dance this piece the first time around. After I got noticed, Peter Boal told me that he had never considered me for roles like that until they had pointed me out. In the years to come, I found myself dancing multiple leading roles in the contemporary repertoire of the company.

The whole cast of "One Flat Thing, Repoduced"

Embarrassing - It is pretty hard to embarrass me. Accidentally pulling down my tights while taking off my warm-ups, falling in class, and having a blooper onstage have always been a good laugh instead of an embarrassing story. If I had to name one moment that would be the most embarrassing, it would be when I was dancing with Alaska Dance Theatre this past winter. I was performing a solo to Johnny Cash's Walk the Line in an open rehearsal for donors. The very last moments of this piece had to be perfectly timed as I performed a series of running jumps and rolls to the floor only to end on one knee with my right leg held in one hand while being strummed like a guitar with my other hand. As I got to the point where I strum my leg and roll backwards over my shoulder into the wing, I realized I was early. As I strummed my leg, I very loudly dropped the F bomb for the entire room to hear. As I rolled over my shoulder, my hands covered my mouth and I very sheepishly apologized to the audience as they all roared with laughter. Luckily, they saw the humor in my error.

Funniest - When I was dancing with Houston Ballet, we toured to Cleveland to perform Ben Stevenson's Cinderella. In one of the shows, we had a bit of a snafu during the ballroom scene. It was that beautiful moment when all becomes quiet and Cinderella's carriage pulls up to the ball. As the 4 corps dancers dressed as horses pulled the carriage across the raised platform, you could hear one of the stage crew members scream. At that point, the carriage started to tilt, a la Titanic, and fell backwards off the raised platform with Cinderella still inside. The driver, the doorman, and one of the horses flew backwards off the platform while the other 3 horses struggled to get the carriage back upright. Once a few stagehands dove behind the platform to push it back up, it was back on track to make Cinderella's entrance to the ball. If you thought it couldn't get any worse, as principal dancer Lauren Anderson, stepped out of the carriage, her cape snagged on the door as she bourree'd forward. She pulled as hard as possible and was thrust forward about 3 feet when it finally tore off. All of this happened as the music quiets and the corps de ballet turns upstage to watch her entrance. Let's just say that even with our backs to the audience, you could see our shoulders jiggling up and down with laughter.

Challenging - When I first moved to Philly and was dancing with a local contemporary ballet company, I danced a pas de deux choreographed by Amy Seiwert. This duet to Jeff Buckley's cover of Hallelujah was essentially an emotionally wrought 8-minute lift-fest that ended with a deadly
dead-weight lift. Beyond the 6 shows that we performed in that one week, we also had two days of rehearsal and a dress rehearsal before we started the run. I couldn't believe I survived that week (I also danced in another piece on that program).

The beginning of that final lift - Chloe Felesina and myself dancing Amy Seiwert's "Not a Cry." (Photo: Alexander Izaliev)

Rewarding -Throughout my year at the School of American Ballet, I auditioned for 14 different ballet companies. While most students only auditioned for the companies that they really wanted to dance for, I was convinced that I had to audition everywhere to get a job. After spending 4 stressful months pushing my body and mind to the limit, I was able to choose my apprenticeship with Houston Ballet from 7 job offers.

Humbling - During my 3 years as a union representative at PNB, I had to handle a mix of legitimate complaints and selfish requests from dancers. But nothing was more humbling than watching the entire company come together to unanimously vote to freeze our salaries for one season to save 7 dancers jobs. My fellow rep and I put a lot of hard work into putting this deal together. I may have shed a few tears when we counted all of the votes and not one dancer chose their pay raise over their colleagues careers.

Daring - I was never really a dancer that got things easily. As a teenager, the director of my home dance studio constantly suggested that I go into what I was good at, jazz and modern dance. When I got into the Kirov Academy of Ballet, as Madame Vinogradova said, "It's slow year for boys." Halfway through that year, I was pulled aside and told that I should stop auditioning for ballet companies and focus on organizations like Momix. At the end of that season, I had solidified a Corps de Ballet contract with Colorado Ballet at the ripe age of 18. I had also been offered to attend the School of American Ballet summer intensive on a full scholarship, an invite that had not been presented to me the previous 3 times I had tried. Attending this school had been my dream since the age of 15 and inspired me to focus on ballet. I asked SAB if they were going to ask me to stay for the year and they told me they couldn't tell me until the 3rd week of the summer intensive. So, I signed my contract with Colorado Ballet and went to SAB for the summer. At the end of the first week of the intensive, Jock Soto pulled me aside and offered for me to stay for the year. After much deliberation, I decided that I couldn't turn my dream down. I called Colorado Ballet and told them I wasn't able to fulfill my contract and would spend another year training. One of the best decisions I ever made in my career.

Magical - While on tour with PNB to the Vail International Dance Festival, the company was rehearsing after warming up on the outdoor amphitheater where most performances take place. As two dancers began to dance the beautiful pas de deux from Christopher Wheeldon's After the Rain, thunder started to lightly roll in. By the time that the pas de deux was finished it was raining everywhere but under the canopy of the amphitheater. It was such a mystical and beautiful moment that everybody present was completely entranced.

Being Puck-ish with Jessika Anspach

Gratifying - When I went to the School of American Ballet back in the summer of 2002, in typical fashion, New York City Ballet performed their final program of their spring season, Balanchine's A Midsummer Night's Dream. While most male dancers dream of performing the lead role of Oberon, I instantly fell in love with the mischief and animation of Puck. My final season at PNB, I got to perform Puck right before I left the company. My debut in this role also happened on the night of PNB's Backstage Bash, my favorite event of the year. This occasion was a dance party thrown backstage after a performance. This event was put on by the young patrons/audience growing group that I was a liason for throughout my time with the company. To perform this role that inspired me as a student on such a special night with so many friends and supporters in the audience made this performance not only gratifying, but magical.

Biggest Mistake - The most common mistake that most dancers make is pretty much the same across the board. Whether involving a great opportunity in the form of a role, proving yourself in a new company, or fear of judgement, working through an injury and telling those around you that you are alright when you are not is a horrible idea. It's interesting how acting stoic through an injury is often considered heroic and selfless. But in the end, aside from making the injury worse, it could end your career. Or, even worse, put you through a lifetime of pain. I did this after a back injury during my first season dancing with a new company. Unfortunately, there were many other factors in my decision to dance through the pain. At a certain point, I realized that I couldn't continue dancing in such pain and took time off. Unfortunately, the company was not understanding of the situation.

Me performing Tharp's "Waterbaby Bagatelles" (Photo: Angela Sterling)

Horrifying - The first time that PNB performed Twyla Tharp's Waterbaby Bagatelles (I can be seen turning at :22 seconds in this link) was an interesting experience. This was my first introduction to Twyla's work. Waterbaby was a challenging piece that played with the idea that we were fish dancing in an aquarium. One of the most challenging lifts was for one of the principal couples. It was an overhead star lift that had the woman parallel to the floor with arms and legs in an X and the man only holding her waist above his head. After class, the dancers were practicing this lift when the female's body tilted forward and the male lost his grip. She slid through his hands over the back of his head and fell straight down belly flopping onto the floor. As she lay on the floor unconscious for about 20 seconds, everybody looked on in horror. Slowly she looked up, seeing all of the people staring at her and asked, "What happened?" Surprisingly, she stood up completely uninjured.

Least Shy - My final year dancing for PNB, we performed Jiri Kylian's Sechs Tanze. For the performances, I was 1st cast "Megastar" and 3rd cast in one of the trios. While being cast as a "Megastar" sounds like a rock star part, it didn't involve any dancing. I had to wheel a massive, old-style dress out in front of my body, only to have another dancer underneath it wheel the dress right offstage. The gimmick? I was wearing only a thong-ed dance belt with a fig leaf over my goodies. When asked if I had a problem with this, I said, "No. My only problem is that Im not dancing first cast." (of course spoken with a wink). They told me, I should run offstage sideways, as to avoid exposing my bare ass to the nearly 3,000-seat theatre. When my moment came on opening night, my dress rolled away, I did my job, and promptly turned forward to run to the wings, giving everybody a little taste of what they truly came for.

Shocking - One reason that I left PNB was because I felt that I needed to be surrounded by the most passionate artists around. Working for the same company for a long period of time can, at times, leave workers feeling apathetic and uninspired. When I left, I was on a mission to surround myself with passionate, driven artists. In my mind, I saw myself hanging out with the likes of Andy Warhol. My first summer project out of company work, I danced with a small modern company to recreate a classic work by a modern master. When we arrived in NYC to have a rehearsal with the 95-year old choreographer, we stepped not only into her studio, but her home. I asked one of the dancers where the bathroom was and he told me to go through the lobby, through the bedroom, and the bathroom would be there. I was utterly dumbfounded when I saw this elderly woman sleeping in a bed that was behind the front desk in the lobby. At this point, I realized that I had found exactly what I had been looking for. Passionate artists. And I also realized that it is important to find a healthy middle-ground.

Prideful - During my 7 seasons with PNB, I danced practically every role in The Nutcracker. The only role that alluded me was the Cavalier that danced with Clara in the snow scene and 2nd act grand pas de deux. I always dreamed that I would eventually be asked to dance that role with a live orchestra playing as I lead the company. Last year, I was asked to dance that role with Rochester City Ballet. To be brought in to dance this role for a professional company was a great honor. And to do it with a live orchestra made it all the better.

Take advantage of opportunities

Performing Mercutio w/ James Moore in Maillot's Romeo et Juliette (Photo: Angela Sterling)

There are people that sit on the sidelines because they have been put there and there are people that purposely place themselves there. The main reason I started freelancing was because I felt that I had spent enough time sitting on the benches at Pacific Northwest Ballet. Yes, I had some great opportunities dancing roles like Puck in Balanchine's A Midsummer's Night's Dream and Mercutio in Maillot's Romeo et Juliette. But out of the 7 programs (including Nutcracker) the company danced each season, I often spent about half of them dancing in the corps while other less experienced dancers were given the opportunity to prove themselves in roles that I had already proven I could handle. Personal story aside, I decided that I was tired of sitting on the sidelines. I have never been the type of person to sit back and watch opportunities pass and that is why I feel that freelancing is a great path for me.

I've been so busy dancing, teaching, taking an extended workshop in Safety Release technique, and having an active Alaskan social life that I can barely find any time for my regular life activities. One reason I've taken a short hiatus from posting on here is because I have been taking advantage of an array of opportunities that freelancing in Alaska has brought me. Yes, at times, I feel way too busy. But it is more important for me to build relationships, find new ways to develop my trade, and to see the world. For this reason, I haven't had a moment to sit on the couch and catch my breath.

Alaska Dance Theatre studios

I have found that freelancing gigs typically offer me more than just an opportunity to dance and make a living. Having already established a relationship with Alaska Dance Theatre while dancing with the company during their last season and following the impression that my blog has made on the leadership of the school, I was approached with the prospect of creating a workshop that focuses on career building for dancers for the students of the Alaska Dance Theatre School. Aside from feeling flattered, I was actually quite reluctant to follow through with this daunting task. Dancing 9:30 AM to 4 PM with the company and teaching four to six classes in the school each week were already eating up a majority of my time. I could have easily told the school that my schedule was too full and that I didn't have time to develop four hours worth of material to share with aspiring students. But an opportunity to develop my career in a new direction was presented and I knew that I had to take advantage of it. For the two weeks leading up to the workshop, I devoted many evenings and the whole of my weekends to put together this lecture. Not only did the students respond incredibly well to my workshop, but the push given to create it has given me an invaluable tool that I can bring elsewhere. Now that the groundwork for this workshop has been created, I can offer it to students around the country. I get to share my passion, I get to pass the flag, and I get to add another pathway to enhance my income. If I had chosen to sit in my hotel room and rest watching television, who knows when this opportunity would have presented itself again?

Another thing that shouldn't be taken for granted are social events. Often, after finishing a hard week of work, groups of dancers will get together for dinner and drinks. At other times, a donor may throw an event at their house. No matter the situation, one should do their best to attend a reasonable number of these get-togethers and events. Sometimes exhaustion gets the best of you or you don't have money to burn.  Keeping these things in mind, I have found that a majority of the dancers who don't attend these event just weren't in the mood to be social. This happens to me at times, but I do my best to fight the urge to hang back at my host family's house and sit on my computer. Having an active social life offers a handful of benefits. I find that I am always happier and less homesick when I am surrounded by other people. Many times, I have heard dancers mention that they don't want to hang out with other dancers for reasons ranging from needing work/personal-life separation to discussions that are always centered around work. What one must remember, though, is that the connections made with others in their field can benefit your career more than any other relationships you create while away from home. Lastly, if you take a chance to get to know the support system and community that created the arts organization you are working for, you can make invaluable friendships, connections, and support centers down the road.

Driving down the Seward Highway in Alaska

One thing that boggles my mind is when freelancers are given a chance to travel somewhere they have never been and they sit in their hotel room/host family's house for the entirety of the time that they are not at work. When I tell people that I travel the world dancing for a living, they always respond with envy. They say how they wish their work would take them to the places I have been brought. If you are going to be paid to travel, you might as well get as much out of that opportunity as you can. One example of this would be this past weekend. My partner is visiting me for nearly a month of my three months in Alaska. We decided to take a trip down the beautiful Seward highway (which has often been called the most beautiful drive in the world) to the town of Seward, where the highway originates. We had a two-day weekend and we had just finished an exhausting run of a show, so most people probably preferred to sleep late and hang low while resting their bodies. For me, this was something that just had to be done. We invited all of the dancers to join us, but ended up taking the 2 1/2 hour drive alone. It was definitely an opportunity missed, as it may be one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen. When I danced with Festival Ballet Providence, I took advantage of the city's close proximity to Boston nearly every weekend that I was there. While with Rochester City Ballet, I visited Buffalo, Niagara Falls, and Toronto. I have gone out of my way to visit cities, sights, and other great landmarks in every place that I have freelanced. Freelancing careers are sometimes short-lived. One might as well take advantage of visiting a new place, especially if your work is footing the bill of bringing you there. Who knows when you will have that opportunity ever again.

Panoramic of Seward, Alaska

Dancing is an exhausting career, both physically and mentally. Many dancers take their time off to rest and recover. Leaving time for recovery is very important, but it is not uncommon for dancers to get stuck in a pattern where they think that they always need to be in recovery mode. These dancers miss out on a great many opportunities because they turn down chances to push themselves as artists, make new connections, and to see the world. Be smart with your time off, but also push yourself to take advantage of as many opportunities that present themselves to you.

At the start of the Iditarod in Willow, AK