Intensive ballet courses aid student in preparing for future

When asked “what do you want to be when you grow up?”, most kids and teenagers would respond that they didn’t know yet or that they’re still figuring it out, but not me. I could’ve been asked at five, fifteen, or now and my answer would still be a dancer.

Though I have always wanted to pursue dance professionally, I didn’t realize what the preparation for that career path entailed until I went to high school. Around that age, a lot of ballet dancers move away from home to attend professional training programs or conservatories across the country. Once I realized that I was somewhat behind by still only taking a few classes a week at my local studio, I changed how I trained. I began to take almost every single class offered during the week and started doing my own additional workouts and stretches at home. Even then, I wanted more. To gain the type of intense training that I wanted, I decided to look into what dancers call “summer intensives”.

A summer intensive is a ballet program that can be anywhere from one week to eight weeks where dancers go to a professional company’s school to train for the summer. As the name implies, the programs are extremely rigorous and intense. The dancers typically dance from 9-5 and take classes such as modern, jazz and contemporary in addition to ballet classes. There is an audition process in order to attend a summer intensive, and most are pretty competitive to be accepted into. After extensive research, I chose the programs that I wanted to attend and auditioned.

After my auditions, I was fortunate enough to be accepted and given talent based scholarships to several schools, so I just had to choose where I wanted to go. After spending a few weeks brooding over my options, I chose to go to Kansas City Ballet’s five week intensive and Ballet Chicago’s two week advanced intensive. To me it was the perfect balance as Kansas City Ballet had a long program where I would be taking several different genres of dance and Ballet Chicago was a strictly ballet only program. It was around March when I chose the programs, and despite my partial scholarship to Kansas City Ballet, I still did not have nearly enough funds to attend one program, let alone two.

Because I already had a jam packed schedule due to ballet classes here in Omaha, I couldn’t get a job to pay for my intensives. I tried not to be discouraged even though I knew there was no way my family could afford to send me to these very expensive programs. Therefore, I made a GoFundMe to raise money, but I wasn’t hopeful that it would get me all the money that I needed to cover my dorms, travel, and tuition. But after posting the GoFundMe on my social media and spreading it through family and friends’ pages as well, my fundraiser took off. I was able to raise $7000 dollars in two months! I was absolutely amazed and extremely grateful for the various donors that aided me in covering the costs of my programs.

With my programs paid off, I headed to Kansas City Ballet mid June. There, I took classes from former and current principal dancers of major ballet companies such as Houston Ballet, Cincinnati Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, Miami City Ballet, and of course Kansas City Ballet. I gained so much knowledge about my art form and learned more than I ever could if I stayed home for the summer. I worked harder than I ever have in my life, and gained a ton of strength and stamina. Not only did I take amazing ballet classes, but I also took classes that were completely new to me, such as hip hop. This really helped to broaden my horizons.

After my intensive at Kansas City Ballet, I went home for a week then went to Ballet Chicago at the end of July. At this program, I took classes with world renowned teachers from the largest ballet company in the country, New York City Ballet. This company is stylized in a technique called “Balanchine” which few dancers are fortunate enough to train in. Not only did I learn a new ballet technique, but I also can add it to my resume as Balanchine is copyrighted and only a few schools in the country use that training. At Ballet Chicago I performed a ballet that is very famous and coveted in the ballet world, called “Stars and Stripes”. I wouldn’t have gotten this experience anywhere else, and I had the time of my life.

This summer really helped me hone in on my technique and develop as a pre-professional dancer. Not only that, but knowing that other people funded my programs and were rooting for me kept me going whenever my intensives felt tough or I was exhausted from the day. After the most amazing summer of my life, I am excited to continue my journey as a dancer headed into the world of professional ballet.