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CM: Can you tell me about your dance journey and how you got to Ballet Idaho?
AB: Yes! I am from North Carolina and I trained at International Ballet Academy in Cary. When I was 18 years old, I was trying to find my next step and where to go. That next step was joining PNB’s professional division in Seattle. It was a two-year program during which artistic directors from around the US were brought in to hold audition classes exclusively for us. My first year in the program, Peter Anastos, the former director of Ballet Idaho, came to watch. He said he was interested in me, didn't have a contract available that season, but was foreseeing he might have a contract available the following season. I had one more year at PNB and during that final year, I sent my audition material to Peter resulting in a contract offer with Ballet Idaho. To be honest, I didn't know much about Ballet Idaho going into the company. I knew Peter was only going to be there for one year because it was already announced he was retiring and a new director would be coming in. Garrett [Anderson] and Anne [Mueller] took over my second season. I've really enjoyed the progression of the company and their leadership. I love the Ballet Idaho they have cultivated!
CM: When you say that you were trying to figure out the next step, did you always know you wanted to dance, or were you wavering?
AB: I’ve wanted to be a professional dancer for as long as I can remember. I started dancing when I was about four years old. But I also did many other activities. My mom put me in swimming, soccer and gymnastics, which I loved. And very briefly, basketball, which I was not good at. For a while, ballet and gymnastics stuck. Then I got to a point where I had to choose one or the other. Ultimately, I chose ballet. When I was younger, I had this youthful thought of “I want to be a dancer when I grow up!” and as I got older, I realized this was actually a possibility as a career. I don’t think there was ever a specific moment when I thought “yep, this is it”. It was just always there and intensified throughout my training.
CM: Speaking of training, you are teaching in the Ballet Idaho Academy Summer Intensive this year. Can you talk a little bit about why you think summer intensives are important for young dancers?
AB: I think summer intensives are so important because these dancers are out of school, so their days are open and they can come in for a longer time of ballet and dance training. The training is more compact and intense and it's an opportunity to progress at a faster pace. It’s also a great way to explore other places, studios, and programs to get a different style of training or maybe a different style of dance that you don't normally receive at the school where you’re currently training. I also feel that it is a perfect time to connect with other dancers. It's amazing that in my professional career, I will still run into people who I met at summer intensives when I was 16 years old. It’s so special, to meet in training, end up becoming professional dancers and cross paths again. Summer intensives are an incredible way to start networking.
CM: What would you say is your greatest strength as a dancer?
AB: (laughing) It’s tough answering these questions because I feel as dancers, we are naturally perfectionists and when we start thinking about strengths, there is this part of us that’s always thinking “well, I can continue to work on this.” I would say that one of my greatest strengths is my ability to emote on stage. I feel I can naturally express emotions when performing and dancing. It’s something that has always come easy to me, even as a young kid. Oftentimes, I feel like I can’t fully express myself with words alone; I get nervous and have a bit of social anxiety. Dance provided an outlet for me to fully express myself without fear and without words. It is an internal feeling. For me, that’s where my expression comes from when I am dancing. It feels very therapeutic to be able to find that release. I love an opportunity to dance a role that is very expressive on stage. It adds another layer and more depth to the dancing. It's not just about the steps. It's like, where is this step coming from? Why are you moving your arm this way? It's not just moving it to the side, but has a meaning behind it. I love dissecting the meaning behind the movement and finding the impetus for why and how something is done.
CM: This is the perfect lead-in for my next question because I have wanted to ask you this for quite a while. Can we talk about Duck for a second? Duck, (in Anne Mueller’s Peter and the Wolf) was such a scene-stealing role, you had such an over-the-top, extravagant costume and you made her such an expressive and hilarious character.
AB: I loved getting to perform the role of Duck, that ballet is wonderful! When Anne Mueller choreographed it, all of the dancers had been in the company working with her for a while so she had such a good grasp of our personalities and who we were as people and dancers. She was able to match up the roles to the dancers mixing together our own personalities with her vision of the characters. I definitely have a personal attachment to Duck. Duck was a delightfully silly character who can be a bit ditsy at times but also loves to have fun soaking up the spotlight. The character and costume were inspired in part by Vegas show girls. When it comes to roles like Duck, I am going to fully commit to it because that’s what makes it exciting to watch and incredibly fun to perform.
CM: You’re also a choreographer. How has your style evolved over the years?
AB: When I first started choreographing, I was trying to focus more on movement and patterns because I knew I needed to build a foundation with my choreography. I wasn’t ready to do stories or super emotional pieces. I was just trying to focus on how to create a structure to a piece before diving into deeper topics. I want to keep exploring different movement qualities within my choreography and am excited to see where it goes. I really enjoy choreographing and it's actually something that I wish to do full time once I'm done dancing myself. That's my next step career-wise. My goal would be to have a dance career for as long as my body allows, then transition into choreographing, spend a good chunk of time as a choreographer, hopefully getting to travel around to different companies creating new works. Then after that, I would love to go into the position of rehearsal director and maybe eventually an artistic director of a company. That would be the dream!
CM: Your plan B still involves dance!
AB: It wasn’t always that way… originally, when I started pursuing a dance career, I had it in my mind that I would get into a company, slowly earn a college degree, and after retiring from dance, switch careers completely. Once I started my professional dance career, I began pursuing a chemistry degree and transferred to BSU. I’ve always been fascinated with science and how it worked my brain in a different way and yet at the same time related to what I was doing in the studio every day. I ended up having to take a break from school because all of the next classes I needed for my degree coincided with rehearsal schedules. Then teaching opportunities naturally fell in my lap. That allowed me to contemplate exactly what I want to do after dance. I don’t want to leave the dance world once I'm done dancing myself. I love it too much!
CM: Do you do any kind of cross training?
AB: I do now, but it isn’t something that I have always done, especially as a young dancer. I didn’t fully realize the importance of it until two seasons ago, when I sprained my ankle. My injury made me realize I need to do something more to protect myself and make myself stronger. Cross training is a great preventative measure when it comes to injuries. With my cross training, I also like to make it fun. I’m not really the type of person who enjoys going to the gym. I love rock climbing, hiking, Pilates, finding fun workout videos online and any entertaining physical activity. I also make sure to keep up with my physical therapy exercises. My injury really opened my mind to weaknesses and what I needed to work on.
CM: That injury happened onstage, right? During Nutcracker?
AB: Yes, during Spanish Hot Chocolate. Honestly, it was a really tough time in my career. I hit a low point during that season but really, the season before, I was struggling with bad anxiety and panic attacks. I actually had a panic attack onstage during Serenade. That was terrifying. It was one of the worst experiences of my life. And then spraining my ankle the next season made me realize that I needed to not just work on my mental health, but my physical health, too.
CM: Panic attacks are horrendous. I can’t imagine having one onstage in front of an audience.
AB: I’m getting emotional thinking about it because it was such an intense time. And that wasn’t my first panic attack. I started having them in Seattle at PNB when I was in the professional division. At the time, I didn’t fully commit to seeing a therapist and once I joined Ballet Idaho, they kind of went away. But then I think I got to the point where after Covid, I came back and did not feel strong. I felt this combination of physical weakness and mental weakness. The panic attack caught me off guard. I was onstage, and for me, panic attacks start with heat through my spine and back, my head feels fuzzy, sound becomes muffled and then my legs kind of go numb, and that’s terrifying…
CM: Because you need your legs…!
AB: Yeah, like how am I supposed to get on pointe? It was the hardest performance of my life. I wanted to run offstage and never come back. But I finished the show and did another the next day. And so the rest of that season was really difficult for me because every time I would get to a show, I would get nervous that I would have a panic attack again. It was the fear of having another one that prevented me from fully feeling present on stage and in the studio. And honestly, I was also very angry. I was so angry with my brain for taking away this thing that I loved. I loved performing on stage and this felt like a betrayal. Like, why is this happening to me? After the panic attack and then the injury, I committed to seeing a therapist regularly to actively work on my mental health. Over time things have gotten so much better. And the reason I want to talk openly about this is because I know other dancers deal with this, too. I don’t want it to be a taboo subject.
CM: I think there’s a tendency to see dancers as almost superhuman, and it’s wonderful that you have opened up about this. I think it's great for the next generation of dancers and really, youth in general right now.
AB: Looking back, I realize that I would have benefited from a therapist in my younger days when I was still training. It took me a while to finally seek help and I want this to be something for other dancers to not feel weird about. I also want to say that my friends have been so supportive through all of this. I’m so thankful for their help and I want to be there for other people if they are dealing with these things too. And, a big shout out to my mother who has helped me tremendously with my anxiety and panic attacks. My mom is my rock. She has been there through every high and low of my life providing support and guidance. I am incredibly thankful for her and her love. My mom is the reason I have been so fortunate to pursue a career in dance. I am lucky to have a great support system which is needed because ballet… dance.. it’s hard. It is a tough career and we need to give ourselves a break and be more forgiving. As a teacher too, I want my students to feel comfortable talking to me if they are dealing with similar issues.
CM: How do you feel going into this upcoming season, your eighth? You’ve been promoted to soloist!
AB: I am so excited! I have this new perspective on physical and mental health. It’s always been my goal to move up the ranks in a company. I knew I wanted to be a soloist and maybe even a principal someday. I also understand that there are certain things I need to work on to get there. Going into last season, I wasn’t feeling super confident of where I was, and wondered if a promotion was a possibility for me. Would I ever get promoted to soloist? I decided to put that aside and focus my mindset on getting stronger and improving my mental health. I applied myself more in class honing and improving my technique, took time outside of the studio for cross training, and attended regular therapy sessions. Slowly I began finding my love for dance again and it felt so good. I'm proud of myself and the work I put in. So when Garrett told me he was promoting me to soloist for the next season, that was the cherry on top. I just want to keep going. I don’t want to stop. And that’s something I love about ballet and dance… there’s never a finish line. There is always something to work on, something to improve. And that excites me.
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