The Casual Ballet Student: A Journey of Rediscovery

By Kate Feinberg Robins

My rediscovery of ballet after retiring from a pre-professional performance career at age 18 has been gradual, to say the least.

During my last couple years of high school, I was dancing lead roles with the Cuyahoga Valley Youth Ballet and preparing to audition for professional companies, or to continue my training at professional schools if I wasn’t yet good enough to be hired. At 5’ 1”, good enough to be hired meant good enough to be a soloist. No one would hire a dancer my height for the corps.

I auditioned for American Ballet Theatre’s Studio Company, and unsurprisingly, didn’t make it. I made the second cut at Julliard, but didn’t quite get in. I finished high school prepared to enter Butler University’s ballet program on a merit scholarship. There I would stay, perfecting my skills until I could finally get paid to do what I loved—or so I thought.

But during that summer between high school and college, I discovered that I no longer loved it enough to give up everything else. I wanted to reach beyond the walls of the dance studios and theatres, to do all those things I had always had to say no to. I wanted to study philosophy and travel the world.

It would be another ten years before I could enjoy a ballet class again. I was afraid to set foot in a studio and see how terrible my dancing had surely become. I was embarrassed to be seen at less than my prime. I feared that a ballet class would only bring frustration over what I could no longer do.

In the years after I stopped performing, I was occasionally asked to teach ballet—first to young gymnasts in Indiana, and later to professional flamenco dancers and amateur folk dancers in Chile. Eventually, I began seeking out opportunities to work with students who didn’t see ballet as a serious career option, but enjoyed and appreciated it alongside their main interests and pursuits.

I taught middle and high school students who cared more about orchestra, drama, academics, and athletics than ballet. I taught children who were enjoying their childhoods. I taught adults who were finishing their PhDs, building their careers, and raising their children. Through these students, I rediscovered my own love for ballet and discovered that it could be part of my life—and so many other people’s lives—without giving up everything else.

Ballet study as a casual pursuit has traditionally not been taken seriously by professionals. No one likes to see their profession cheapened by amateurs claiming to know it all. Yet, like with all fields, I think there is a happy medium. Students with a passing interest in a subject can learn from professionals with the awareness that their growing knowledge and skills will only ever scratch the surface.