Today, I chat with Alyssa about her experiences finding her way back to ballet as an adult.

She shares her love of dance and her winding journey to find a ballet studio to call home. She hopes that by sharing some of her struggles with different levels, teachers, and studio situations will help you feel less alone with challenges you might face, and help you keep pushing to find the right environment for you to blossom into the dancer of your dreams.

Follow her story on Instagram @backtotheballetbarre!

Enjoy!

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Julie: Welcome to the show. It's so great to be able to chat with you today.

Alyssa: It's so great to be here. I'm so glad to be on the show because I've enjoyed listening to it so much.

Julie: Awesome. Let's get started with a quick overview of your journey with ballet. Where are you at? Where did you start, give me a little bit of an overview of where you're at.

Alyssa: So I am from New Hampshire. So I believe that's a good context to start with. So nothing there is all that large, because as a state, we're not very big. And so I got my start in ballet at three years old, my older sister did ballet, and she's seven years older. So she was very into the process already. And she started at five. And so I started in a studio that was in a converted garage. And so just one singular room with benches on one wall, where parents could watch with just barres on two walls, wood floors, nothing crazy. And that was my ballet home for the entirety of my time doing ballet as a child, all the way through age 11.

And so we weren't your best studio out there or anything like that. We didn't do competitions. Just your classic hometown, very basic studio, but with good hearts. And our ballet teacher always just wanted us to love ballet, and love ourselves. And she was never trying to push us to be something that we weren't. And so I was never the best in the class by far. But I always had fun. And that's what my mom wanted.

I did that all the way up until age 11, when I moved to a different city. And the studio also got passed down to a student of my teacher’s, who also taught there, because my teacher got cancer, and so she could no longer teach. She had to go through chemo and everything. So it moved farther away and it was an in-commutable distance to be able to go to anymore. And so I had a big break from ballet for about 10 years.

And then I came back in college as an escape from school because it was just an unhealthy situation that I was in at my college. It was a little too small, and everyone knew a little too much, and they asked a little too much. Also being on staff with the school. So I came back because I was like, I'm always at school, I'm always working at the school, I need another outlet. I need other people in my life. Because the same ones I'm around, it's not working.

And so I had just googled local dance studios in the area, and there wasn't very many because I was in Virginia, in another smaller area. And so I found one and I was like, Well, I'm going to go to ballet. Let's start there, because that's probably the one I know the best. And so I went, and it was terrible. And I did terrible. And I was like, wow, I’d forgotten a lot.

And luckily, it was a guest teacher that day who was filling in. And so it turned out not to be my actual teacher, which I was incredibly grateful for, because I was like it was a train wreck, but it was fine.

And I found an amazing community of adults of all ages doing ballet, and people in all professions. And I had people in the class who I could aspire to be that good. And then I people who are just at my level too. And so it was a good mix of people. And everyone was so encouraging. And I was like, “wow, I really love being here because it's like the rest of the world doesn't exist. And everyone here is not trying to be better than each other. They're just trying to be our best and enjoy what we're doing at the present moment.”

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“I found an amazing community of adults of all ages doing ballet, and people in all professions.

I thought, ‘Wow, I really love being here because it’s like the rest of the world doesn’t exist. And everyone here is not trying to be better than each other. They’re just trying to be our best and enjoy what we’re doing at the present moment.”

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And so I began adding more and more classes to my schedule, taking two ballet classes a week, a modern class, a contemporary class and a tap class. And so I got a little addicted. I got the ballet bug, as we call it, or the dance bug. And so I was at that studio from… I started in September there and I moved back home at the end of November, because the situation wasn't great, and I could finish my schooling online, and so I moved back. Again went on Google and Googled adult ballet classes in that area and found my studio home there. And it was not nearly as many adults as I was used to. And definitely not as vibrant as the program but still a tight knit group of 20 something women who love to do ballet. Our classes are actually mixed teen adult age and enjoy doing that and would supplement with other classes and other cities around the area that were between 30 minutes and an hour drive away to get in more classes. I actually just returned back to my original studio this week as I made the journey back down here to take a job almost two weeks ago.

Julie: Wow. So full circle!

Alyssa: Yes. Full Circle. Literally.

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Julie: You had reached out to me about a how to make a home floor. So how do you know how to do that? What's what's your profession? What's your background outside of ballet.

Alyssa: So I have three, almost four degrees. I just love school. And so I have a culinary arts degree, a Biblical Studies degree, an organizational management degree, and almost at a Pastry Arts degree. And so I was actually working at my church back home doing admin-everything, as that happens, and I just moved down here to take a position originally as a coffee shop consultant for a project here. But then I got asked to become the manager of the project. It's not open yet. But that's what I will be doing. We're starting a coffee shop called brew-to-bean. And it is a New Orleans-style coffee shop. But and the New River Valley of Virginia.

Julie: Wow, that's exciting.

Alyssa: Yes, it will definitely be a learning process. But I'm excited. So basically more of a food background. But the home floor just came about because of COVID, and wanting something in my room also, to be able to dance at home, because you can't always make it to the number of classes that you always want to attend. Or you don't always have the space in other parts of your home to be able to do it. And so I had a pretty large bedroom. And I was like, Well, I have all this extra space that I'm not using. I might as well build a ballet floor. So it started out with just four panels. So it was four foot by four foot. But I found because I'm so tall, I'm almost 5’10” that I couldn't do a full like rond de jambe around because it just wasn't quite enough space. And so at the beginning of quarantine, I bought all the supplies to make it six foot by six foot so that I could actually do like full turns and such on the floor without landing on the carpet, because that's not always fun. And got a piece of Marley for it. So.

Julie: Exciting, upgrading!

Alyssa: Yes, definitely.

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On Open Adult Ballet Programs, Levels & Teachers

Julie: You've had a very varied background in terms of going to different studios and working with different dance teachers. You've also had the experience as both a kid and as an adult. So talk to me about the experience that you've had with, with your ballet teachers, what do you want to learn? What are they giving you? What are they not giving you that you wish that they were giving you… tell me about that experience?

Alyssa: Yeah, I think the hardest thing I've been met with as an adult is when you're a child, there's either age-level of classes or skill-level classes, but as an adult, you kind of just get this mixed bag of you have to show up to know what you're going to get at a studio because what they tell you is not always what they're giving you.

And so they can say it's intermediate ballet, but it's really more like beginner-intermediate ballet, or they can be telling you it's just like open ballet, but it turns out to be this incredibly hard class or all these girls who are basically in their pre-professional program are taking the class and you're like, hmm