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My most recent article for Pointe magazine, published this past week, has nothing to do with predicting springtime, but does look at the uncertainty of summer. As usual, the topic's premise is specific to pre-professional ballet students, but to me, it more broadly applies to just about any (or all) of us.
This particular story addresses the confused and unhappy emotions that set in when a dance student has, for any of a variety of reasons, a negative experience at a summer ballet intensive.
These programs are hyped-up, highly anticipated events for serious dance students. They're important, offering the chance to amp up your training, get exposure, be seen and make connections. They are also slickly and heavily marketed, promising fabulous opportunities, great extras, fun activities, and either world-class faculty and/or the benefit of individual attention. Summer training is an important part of moving along the road of being a dancer-- whether a professional career is your final destination or not-- and for most young dancers, the thought of spending weeks on end immersed in dance alongside other similarly enthusiastic kids is just thrilling.
So it's no wonder that students start planning where they'll go for the summer months in advance. Right about now, in the dark of winter audition season has already begun and continues through March or April. It's a both tense and exciting time.
This all makes it understandable why dancers would feel a lot riding on their summer study, and go into their program with high expectations. But it's not at all uncommon for those expectations to not be met. There are countless reasons why a dancer might come home disappointed, disillusioned, demoralized, or so rattled by the experience that they question the role of dance in their lives at all.
This article aims to address how dancers who do not have a summer experience that lives up to their vision can identify what went wrong, why it happened, and what to do next. How can you get back on the horse for another round of auditions? Should you even try again? If last summer was such a bummer, why will this year be any different?
Parallels to life outside of dance are everywhere. The advice given by the professionals I spoke to centered around the key points of honestly addressing your emotions, turning to trusted people for perspective and guidance, looking inwards to determine what YOU really want to do, how you would, ideally, like your future to look, and what practical steps you can take to get there-- plus, acknowledging what factors in your control and which ones are not. And for some people, that might mean getting right back into the game with skin made thicker by the battles they've been through, for others, it means discovering that they'll thrive in a different setting and, then, seeking that out (instead of following what their pals might be chatting about.) And for a few, it really could be a catalyst for asking and answering bigger questions about your life's direction.
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