New York Called

My view from the Bolt Bus as I wrote this post

Nearly 15 years ago, I sat in the backseat of my mom’s car with my luggage packed in the trunk and stars in my teary eyes. We were waiting in line to pass through the bottle-necking entrance of the Lincoln Tunnel. I had just completed my final year of pre-professional training at the School of American Ballet, was embarking on an exciting career journey, and had just offered goodbyes to many friends that I still remain close to today. While I was sad to say goodbye to my friends and to move on to the next stage of my dance life, I wasn’t crying for either of those reasons. I knew then that it would be quite awhile before I called the city that I felt so closely connected to home. The city that inspired me to work hard. The city that showed me art mattered. The city where I grew from child to man. There I was, in the back seat of the car talking out loud as if the city had ears, “One day you’ll be home again. I’ll be back!” Well, I’m not one to say things that I don’t mean. Today is that day.

Awhile back, I wrote a post titled “New York Calling,” where I considered the fact that New York seems to hold some strange gravitational pull for any artist that calls themselves dancer. At that time, I was caught in the middle of my freelance performance career floating from gig to gig with little direction but the wind. I wasn’t necessarily getting much work in the city, but I was receiving little sparks of possibility as I began dreaming of settling down from traveling for a little bit. While I started feeling that pull to return a few years ago, circumstances just seemed incorrect or impossible to move the hour and a half hop, skip, and jump north of my hometown.

At one point in my life, I would have probably just run with my gut feeling and moved to the city without furniture, job, or care for how I was going to make something happen. But things changed at some point along my artistic journey. When I first met my partner, I gave him the daunting ultimatum, “Don’t make me choose between you and my career...because I won’t choose you.” After agreeing to this intense consideration, he moved to Seattle to be with me (I claimed 2 weeks after he moved that I was auditioning to leave PNB, which took nearly 5 years to actually happen) and later relocated to Philadelphia for the next stage of my career. But by the time I started realizing Philly wasn't working out, I couldn’t choose between him or my career. He had already given up so much just to be with me, so I needed to give him a chance to develop himself and his career. So, I’ve freelanced out of Philadelphia for 4 years and ignored the pull of the dance capitol.

I came to a realization in the last year, mostly brought on by my first extended period of time staying home in Philly the first half of 2015. During my time at home, I did everything that I could possibly do to find inspiring work and connect myself to the greater Philadelphia professional dance scene. I sent applications to teach at pre-professional training programs, I applied for a ballet master position with PA Ballet, and I reached out to find a way to be a part of the greater ballet scene the city has to offer. At one point, I even applied for a week-long collaboration residency that placed Philadelphia-based artists with others in different genres. My rejection letter was kind, but I was disheartened by the feedback that stated, "It seems you are more interested in meeting artists than collaborating with them."

While there were moments of hope, I was left to go back to my regular way of working; creating my own inspiration and traveling the country to places that valued my work. By the time this summer had passed, I began craving outside inspiration and a place to call my artistic home. And it just seemed that Philly wasn't going to offer that to me. I knew what I had to do. But I was afraid to say it. I was afraid to ask. I was afraid to give myself permission. What if I moved to New York?

I spent much of the fall season working on my Core-ography project and developing my AK-BK Intensive Winter Workshop in Anchorage. But New York was on my mind the whole time. Slowly, but surely, I realized that I had to make this happen. During a quick visit to the city right before heading up to Alaska this past December, I mentioned to a good friend that I have freelanced with in the past that I was looking for a place to live. I was just catching this friend up on what I was doing. And, by chance, he happened to have a room opening up at his apartment.

Fast-forward a little over a month later, and here I am (I started this blog on the bus and finished after I settled in) laying in my brand new bedroom, staring out my window at the beaming George Washington Bridge, and smiling after my first day as a new resident of this incredible city. What am I going to do now that I'm here? I don't know. But I am so excited to have hope, possibility, and dreams staring me straight on. I look forward to looking back at this post down the road and seeing where this risk and adventure takes me.

View of George Washington Bridge from my bedroom window

How Failure and Risk Helps Me Succeed

A few months ago, when I walked into the advanced ballet class at Alaska Dance Theatre on a warm summer afternoon, I am pretty positive that I caught a few of the kids off guard. I am far from an easy instructor. In fact, I can initially come off a bit harsh in my teaching methods. I'm no bullshit and I will tell a student exactly what I saw. If I truly think they did well or if I have seen marked improvement, I will tell them. But I don't really care to coddle students, patting their backs with comfort, or telling them that it is OK and maybe they'll get it next time. At the time, there wasn't much room for nonsense, anyway, because I wasn't even sure how long these kids would get to have me as their instructor. After what was probably a shockingly difficult barre that required exact precision or a restart to the beginning, I stood in front of the class and told them this. "I want you to fail in my class. Ballet class isn't about succeeding. It's about trying the same step incorrectly multiple ways until you find what works for you. Trip, fall, hold your leg until it is shaking with exhaustion. The studio isn't a place to constantly succeed. It is a place to fail, so that you can ultimately become successful." I don't remember if an instructor ever put it to me this way, but perhaps I feel this way because this is how I live my life outside of the studio.

Attempting to get a good shot as the sunrises over Masada & the Dead Sea in Israel

I've been dancing my whole life, but I didn't fall in love with ballet until I was 15 years old. I was a jazz competition kid who just happened to get bit by the ballet bug while working with choreographer and former New York City Ballet and American Ballet Theatre principal Robert Lafosse. Once I fell in love with ballet, there was no stopping me from achieving a career. With that said, there were countless times that I was told to give up my ballet dreams and head in the direction where I excelled, jazz and musical theatre. Each time I was given that talk, sometimes from the people I most respected, it pushed me to work harder. After finally succeeding at getting into Houston Ballet's year-round program, I probably took the first major risk of my career. After accepting my offer to attend and an August summer intensive with ABT, I came home with three days to pack and head to Texas. As I tried to mentally prepare for a move that I had been waiting over a year to do (I was accepted the year prior, but my mom wouldn't let me go), I slowly began to feel that I shouldn't isolate myself in the middle of the country during the last year or two of my training. I begged my mom to let me risk this opportunity and we drove to New York City to audition for the School of American Ballet year-round program. We drove to Lincoln Center, I auditioned, and the next day I got my results directly from the horses mouth. "No. The notes say, generally poor technique and extremely large quadriceps. Goodbye." I was beside myself!

After this crushing failure, I could have easily jumped on that flight and began training. But I just couldn't bring myself to leave. One day later, we drove three hours south to the Kirov Academy of Ballet. After a private audition, the late director stated in broken English, "Very slow year for boys. One third scholarship." This was far from my full ride to the Houston Ballet Academy and way out of the financial abilities of my family, but we were able to get a sponsor for my first month in the academy. As I headed down to the Kirov, I knew that I had to get greater sponsorship to continue my training at the school, but I felt hopeful that I was still close enough to New York City to feel connected to the center of the dance world. Then, two days later, September 11th happened, my sponsor froze their assets and I was left with an impossibility to continue my training. After the school graciously allowed me to remain for the first two months, they eventually decided to put me on full scholarship and I finished out my year of training.

At the end of my time at the Kirov, I had obtained a corps de ballet contract with Colorado Ballet. While I was ecstatic to begin my career as a professional. I had also been accepted to the School of American Ballet on full scholarship for their summer intensive. SAB was my dream and it had eluded me until this point. Seeing four students who trained at SAB perform in the Nutcracker that Robert Lafosse had choreographed was the defining inspiration that changed the trajectory of my career. I knew that I had to take this summer opportunity to see if a year-round option opened up. If this happened, I was willing to delay my career to live my dream. I called SAB and asked if they were considering me for the year-round program. They told me to take the job with Colorado Ballet because they couldn't promise me anything. So, I excitedly, yet reluctantly, signed my contract and started looking for a place to live in Denver.

A few months later, I arrived in Lincoln Center to finally realize a 5-week version of my dream. After three amazing days working with teachers I had only read about in Dance Magazine, I was pulled into a conference room along with one other classmate. There I was with one of my peers being the first two dancers asked to stay for this world-famous year-round program. I was committed to Denver, but my dream had just arrived. There was no way I could turn down this opportunity, even though it meant I had to train for another year, as well as destroy a very positive connection in the dance world. I promptly called up the director of Colorado Ballet and profusely apologized as I explained that I had to follow my dream. That next year at SAB changed my life as a dancer.

SAB workshops 2003 (Photo: Paul Kolnik)

One ironic part of my path is that turning down Houston Ballet Academy to train at two other schools only led me to get a job dancing with Houston Ballet. I had an interesting year working as one of Stanton Welch's first hires as an Artistic Director. At contract time, Stanton doesn't typically offer re-engagement to any apprentice across the board. AGMA states that dancers can only spend one year with the company as an apprentice, so they either need to be promoted to corps or let go. Typically, the director waits to see amongst the corps who will stay or leave and, only then, starts to promote the apprentices into the corps. When we all were"let go," I didn't feel comfortable waiting around to find out if I would get hired or not. I quickly obtained a contract with Pacific Northwest Ballet and Boston Ballet and signed with PNB. I still wonder to this day if I would have been offered a corps contract, but I was ready to move on to a more positive environment in a more metropolitan city.

My time at PNB has been well-documented in this blog. It had it's mix of highs and lows. While I was secure in my position and well-respected as a union delegate, I was itching to experience something new. I risked all of this security and seniority to try my hand at working with a fledgling, start-up company. After a great first few months, I injured myself and the company didn't support me. I was eventually fired by that company, which I consider one of my greatest failures. It wasn't so great only because I had moved my life to Philadelphia, but more so because I had given up so much to take such a huge risk.

Taking risks daily

While I gave up all of my security and lifestyle to expand my reach and possibilities as an artist, I was now stuck in Philadelphia, burgeoning on poverty, and injured. In these dark circumstances, I had to find a way to survive. This brought me into freelancing, choreographing, writing, teaching, and traveling. If I hadn't experienced the failure that I did, I don't know if I would ever have traveled the country to dance, written articles that have been published in periodicals, been featured in dance publications, or directed an organization 4,000 miles away from home. If I had stayed at PNB, I would probably be stuck in similar circumstances that I was in nearly four years ago.

As I begin to close the chapter on my most recent risk-taking failure, I am curious where life will lead me next. I took a chance to do something that I wasn't sure if it would be a great or poor decision. While I could look at the whole experience as an utter failure, what I am realizing is that my life is much like a dance studio. I spend each day of my life exploring different ways of experiencing this wild career and testing out ways of achieving my best through trial-and-error, or failure. Some things have worked out perfectly on the first try and some things have failed immediately. But in the end, the knowledge that I have gained and the growth I have had will only make my future experiences more successful. Failure can have such a negative connotation in our culture. But I just don't really see it that way. It takes practicing a pirouette ten-thousand times to finally achieve the perfect one. And, sometimes, right after that perfect pirouette, you fall hard on your ass, get back up, and try to make it perfect again.

My greatest success at Alaska Dance Theatre

Is it ever appropriate to burn a bridge?

A beautiful bridge I found while freelancing in Rochester, NY

Growing up in a small local school, I gained a different perspective than what I may have gotten had I been part of a large institution. Being the only male at my studio over the age of 10 meant that I got a lot more push and direct advice than most dancers get during their training. While I received multitudes of direction throughout the years I spent honing my passion for dance at the Chester Valley Dance Academy, the most repetitious guidance I received was from the director of the studio. "Barry, you must never burn a bridge. The dance world is small and you never know who knows who."

This advice is greatly true, and I fully agree with it. Yet, I disagree, as well. Before I get to my point, let me put myself on the line. Hello. My name is Barry Kerollis and I may be one of the more controversial dancers you have ever met. This statement will take some explaining. While I have always relied on the above advice, I haven't necessarily followed it, albeit unintentionally. Avoiding burning bridges is a priority and fear of mine. Yet, I have done it more than many other dancers. Each time it has happened, it was never my intention. Perhaps, a misunderstanding, hunger for maximum achievement, or out of self preservation. I want to share my honest story openly to explore this subject objectively and help others understand and learn from my experiences. And, is it even possible to never burn one bridge in this dance world?

Perhaps, the first time I ever burnt a bridge, I was a mere 18 years old. I was on the verge of graduating from the Kirov Academy of Ballet. I was kind of an underdog. Upon entering the school, I was technically behind everybody and my body lacked the beautiful classical line of every other male in the school. It came as a surprise when the director of Colorado Ballet came to watch class and offered me a full company, corps de ballet, position for the upcoming season. At the same time, I had finally made it into my dream school, the School of American Ballet, for their summer intensive. Gaining acceptance into SAB is actually what inspired me to focus on ballet at the age of 15. Three years later, it finally happened and I was set on getting the full experience.

As soon as I received my letter of acceptance, I called SAB and mentioned that I had been offered a contract with Colorado Ballet. I told the school that I had dreamed about spending the year there and would turn down the offer to become a professional to have that chance. They told me that acceptance into the summer program didn't guarantee a spot in the year-round program. They suggested I not risk losing my job offer and to sign the contract to ensure that I had something to do the following season. So, I signed my contract, sent it in, and started searching for an apartment in what I thought to be my new home, Denver.

At the end of June, I moved into my summer home in the dorms at Lincoln Center. After the first few days of the program, Jock Soto pulled me into a conference room with Michael Breeden, current Miami City Ballet dancer, and Peter Boal. They told us how much they enjoyed seeing us in class and offered both of us to stay for the year to study with them. These talks usually didn't happen for a few weeks, so the two of us were extremely excited to get "the talk" so soon. For me, I was filled with mixed feelings. Excitement that I had finally achieved a dream and goal of mine, mixed with fear and confusion that I had to choose between my dream of training at SAB or starting my career as a professional. I spent a few days mulling over this decision and determined that I couldn't turn away from what inspired me to focus on ballet in the first place. I called up the director of Colorado Ballet and, as apologetically as I could, broke my contract for the upcoming season. The director told me that he understood my decision, but was very disappointed

Puss & Boots w/ Cassia Phillips - SAB workshop 2003

that I was breaking a promise that I had put in writing. I still feel awful that it had to happen this way, but I couldn't live with the regret that I would have if I had missed this opportunity. In the end, I believe it was one of the best career decisions that I have made. Not only did I get a great school to add to my training experience, but I learned a completely different style of ballet and made new connections that wouldn't have been available to me in a classical company that was more isolated than many other companies.

The second time I burnt a bridge was less complicated than my first. After a very productive year training at the School of American Ballet and doing 14 auditions for companies, I had been offered a handful of contracts. The offer that most piqued my interest was to join Pennsylvania Ballet's 2nd company, as it was the best company I had been offered to dance with and close to home. I emailed the director of the 2nd company and stated that I accepted their offer and asked that they send a contract to me. The day that my contract arrived, I received a call from Stanton Welch offering me an apprenticeship with Houston Ballet. Not only was this a more substantial company, but the position they offered was with the company and not a smaller training arm of a company. I promptly called Pennsylvania Ballet and told them that I was going to accept the offer with Houston Ballet because I had not yet signed the contract to dance with their 2nd company. The response was not the understanding that I expected. I expected there to be disappointment when I called, but I didn't expect to be told that they weren't pleased that I had made the decision and fully expected me to follow through with my word. Being a naive teenager, I thought they would understand why I would take a higher position with a better company. Alas, they didn't. While they didn't completely put me off in the years to come, after auditioning again for the company years later, they eventually stopped allowing me to take company class. Essentially, the term many of us have heard, I am blacklisted.

A few years ago, I had the unfortunate experience where I didn't realize a bridge was being burnt until it had already burnt, collapsed, and fallen into a deep lake of despair. I had experienced an injury with the company that I was dancing with in Philly. They had kept information secret from me that prevented me from getting assistance to recover from this injury. After working through a freelancing opportunity in pain with assistance from that company to get therapy, I returned for the next program still in pain. I made the mistake of remaining quiet and trying to dance through it. I knew I couldn't afford to take care of it and I had already put myself out there asking for assistance. I was put off and learned to stay quiet. At the same time, a less experienced choreographer was creating a piece on us to be performed at a major dance venue in New York City.

Throughout the process, I was having difficulty with my dance partner, my pain, and the complexities of her style of choreographing that was newer to me than the other dancers in the company. Instead of supporting me through the process, the choreographer switched back and forth between ignoring me and making less than respectful comments towards me. I did my best to deal with the stress silently, as dancers are often taught and expected to do. But after a week of this situation, the pressure came to a helm. The choreographer yelled at me, claiming that I was marking a step that I had not been. The conversation went like this. Choreographer: "What is your problem? Me: "I don't understand what you are asking me." Choreographer: "You are really starting to piss me off." Me: "I really don't understand what you are talking about." Choreographer: "Why are you marking?" At this point, I lost my cool and started fighting back. The pressure of trying to be respectful and trying to respect myself became too much and I defended myself loudly in front of everybody else. After a long private conversation following the outburst, we returned to the studio with the agreement that the choreographer would be a bit more clear in her process. My efforts to ease the situation didn't work. To prove to her that I wasn't marking, I danced beyond my threshold of pain and made my injury far worse. This sped up the process of burning one bridge that eventually burnt many.

That day will always be a big day in my life. I broke dance law. I lost my cool, I lost my submission, and I created a sour relationship with a choreographer, teacher, and repetiteur of works by the very choreographer who inspired me to consider switching my focus to ballet. Not only that, the choreographer and the director of the company were close friends. Throughout all of this, I also came to realize that I really couldn't continue to dance through my injury. It was much worse than it had been prior to this argument and I feared that if I continued to dance, I would have to pull out of the program closer to the performance dates and that I could possibly incur permanent damage. I decided to take myself out of the program, which eventually led to the company unfairly, and I believe illegally, firing me. There were many complications that came out of the burning of this one bridge. But was it right for me to defend myself as a person, not a dancer? Was I valid in defending myself, effectively burning this bridge?

Dancing my own work in the Philly Fringe exploring the situation that led to me losing my job - Gated Lies (Photo: Bill Hebert)

Posing the above question brings up many more questions. When is it appropriate to burn a bridge? If you burn a bridge, how badly will it affect you? And, most importantly, in such a short, competitive career, is it impossible not to burn a bridge or two along the way? I'm still trying to figure all of these things out. When I burnt my bridge with Colorado Ballet, I felt that the company was isolated enough to avoid too much damage to my reputation. In the end, the director was fired from the company and my options grew exponentially from my decision. When I burnt my bridge with Pennsylvania Ballet, I had the chance to dance with 2 of the greatest companies in the country for 8 years. But, at the same time, I am back in Philadelphia without a company to call home, and there is no chance they would consider me to dance with their company as long as their director remains at the helm. In the last situation, I burnt a bridge protecting and defending my integrity and body as a dancer and person. But, in the end, I injured myself further (though revealing that they had been hiding workers compensation from me, which allowed me to get better), lost a potential avenue to working on choreography that inspires me, lost my job, lost some friends who didn't want to be seen associating with me, and lost a handful of opportunities to dance in Philadelphia (since the company directors are so closely tied to a handful of dance organizations in the city).

So with all of this information, I ask if it is ever appropriate to burn a bridge? And returning to the original question: Is it possible to never burn one bridge in this dance world? I feel that it is impossible to give a proper answer. If you burn a bridge for a dream opportunity, is it worth it? If you burn a bridge to protect yourself from somebody that is treating you poorly, should you defend yourself? These are more questions of character than they are definitively yes or no answers. Are we dancers or are we human? When is it right to defend yourself as a human in a dance studio? If you are offered the opportunity of a lifetime, do you let it pass you up to honor a contract that can be filled by another dancer that will value the opportunity more?

What it comes down to is that these decisions are not about a right or wrong answer. Instead, the act of burning a bridge is very personal. And it is unfortunate, that in certain circumstances, one may not be aware that they are burning a bridge until after the moment happens. I will leave my readers with this. While these unfortunate happenings are to be handled at the discretion of each individual dancer, one should not fear burning a bridge if an action is damaging to oneself physically or emotionally. We can only hope that instead of burning a bridge, it can be left damaged and open to repair. For we are only human. Tread lightly.

Experience Post - "Works & Process" @ the Guggenheim - Avi Scher & Dancers

Performing IT MAKES ME NERVOUS by Avi Scher (Photo: Matthew Murphy)

It's really hard to perform freelancing work when you are dancing on contract for 40 weeks. For this reason, I didn't do much outside work while dancing with big companies. When word started to get out that I would not be returning during my last season with Pacific Northwest Ballet, I received a few facebook messages and emails from people to see if the news was true. One of those people was an old friend of mine, Avi Scher. He checked in to see if there was the possibility that I would be available to work in October. Lucky enough for me, I was.

Avi and I first met during our final year of training at the School of American Ballet. He had been training at the school since he was a young child. He even got to perform as Fritz in New York City Ballet's Nutcracker. Since Avi grew up in New York City, he had always lived at home. Being his final year of training, he chose to really immerse himself in the SAB experience. Although he lived only a few blocks away from the school, Avi moved into the dorms and into one of the rooms in my suite. We were in the same class and we got to know each other during that time, but he left mid-year to spread his wings down at the Miami City Ballet school. Avi has had a varied dance career, dancing as a company member and freelancer with many companies across the country. Though he has enjoyed a stellar dance career, he has also received much acclaim for his skills as a choreographer. He choreographed while at SAB and while moving around the country dancing. Eventually, he slowed down his dance career to focus on choreography and start Avi Scher & Dancers. His company has become best known for bringing in stars of American companies and mixing them with excellent-quality dancers from around the country, while still offering evenings of dance at an affordable price.

Although Avi Scher & Dancers didn't produce the evening of work I would dance in, he had been asked by the Guggenheim Museum to create for their regular educational series Works & Process. This specific series was dedicated to the music of Elliott Carter. The Guggenheim had a pretty fascinating idea to procure an evening of new choreography to his music with two choreographers creating dance on the same piece of music. Emery Lecrone and Avi both offered their choreographic voice while a moderator posed questions and offered the audience to get involved in discussion prior, inbetween, and after the performances. It was a pretty great concept.

 Avi Scher's IT MAKES ME NERVOUS (Photo: Matthew Murphy)

Around the middle of September, I came up to New York to begin preparing this project. Although Avi and I stayed connected through social networking sites and word of mouth over the years, we hadn't seen each other or chatted much since we left SAB, aside from a random, awkward pass-by as he got off a plane I was about board (I had taken an anticipatory sleeping pill for the 6 hour flight and was moderately incoherent). It was great to catch up and to get to know each other as adults. But for the most part, we had to get down to business since we only had about 2 weeks to create/learn choreography to the 6 movements of music. Not only were we short on time, but the music presented challenges. Elliott Carter did not create a typical piece of orchestrated music. The composition was atonal, plucky, and extremely complex to count. This presented a few problems. Obviously, it was difficult to count. It was also difficult to choreograph to and equally difficult to listen to for extended periods of time. I enjoy choreographing as well, but I really give Avi credit for creating his work, IT MAKES ME NERVOUS, to this music. I would have a hard time finding much inspiration in this particular work. Somehow, Avi was able to make it work and created an interesting work that was quite well-received and enjoyable to dance. In fact, Oberon's Grove said, "IT MAKES ME NERVOUS made me want a second look in order to take in all the visual polyphony."

The cast of Avi Scher's IT MAKES ME NERVOUS

Aside from dancing on an important stage in the world of dance education, the best part of this entire experience was getting the opportunity to spend an extended period of time in New York. After spending 8 years away from the east coast, while living in Houston and Seattle, I felt like I had lost many of my dance connections. Aside from getting to reconnect with Avi and meeting the amazing dancers/new friends that were a part of this project, I also had the opportunity to reconnect with a great part of the dance world that I left behind when I moved across the country. I remember the first day that I returned to Steps on Broadway to get warmed up for rehearsal. I must have run into at least 10 people that I hadn't seen in anywhere from 1 to 10 years within minutes of arriving. For this reason, I call Steps the "Cheers of the ballet world." Being so far away and isolated from the core of the dance world for 8 years, I was pretty positive that most people had forgotten who I was or that I even existed. It was exhilarating, rewarding, and heartwarming to see that I still had this great connection with so many great friends and dancers even after such a long hiatus. This experience was a great homecoming. Not only did I have this wonderful dance experience, but I also had a wonderful life experience. Sometimes, living the life of a freelance dancer can be full of great surprises and rewards.