Today on the show, I chat with Hannah, the creator of the Wonder of Ballet blog for recreational dancers.

We talk about so many topics, about how to feel like you belong in the ballet world, getting en pointe as an adult, and how we hope the world of adult and recreational ballet will continue to change and grow.

Enjoy!

Find Hannah on Instagram @myballetsteps & @wonderfoballet

Or online at Wonder of Ballet

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Intro and starting ballet at 15

Julie: Welcome to the show. Hannah. I'm so excited to get to chat with you today.

Hannah: Thank you. I'm excited to be here. Thanks for having me.

Julie: So fun. So you have created such a magical presence on Instagram and on the whole internet for not only just adult dancers, but really everyone who has a love for ballet. I mean, it started in the adult world, but you've really kind of expanded it to just anyone who might feel like they're trying to get into the world of ballet and trying to find their place in the world of ballet. How exciting.

Hannah: Thank you. Yeah,

Julie: When did you start your blog and your Instagram account and your whole vision?

Hannah: So I had kind of a personal ballet account for a few years. And then two years ago, I started the .. it was originally Adult Ballet Hub, which I changed the name just this year. And now it's Wonder of Ballet.

And it's still very primarily focused on Adult recreational dancers. But it is a bit broader. Now I wanted to be able to create more of a variety of content and not just focus on that one specific topic.

And also, you know, just the label adult ballet I feel can be overused as adult ballet dancers or just dancers. But anyway, so it was two years ago. It was originally Adult Ballet Hub.

I've been surprised by the response on Instagram, it's been more than I would have expected, which has been nice. I mean, I'm not like a huge account, but it's just more than what I expected, which has been exciting to see. And so yeah, it's been two years I actually just counted up last night. I've written 21 blog post. So that was kind of exciting. And I was like “hey that's a pretty good number!” So I'm hoping to amp that up and do a lot more with it this year.

Julie: When did you start ballet yourself?

Hannah: I was 15 years old when I took my first class. And I had always kind of wanted to do it. But neither my parents were dancers and it wasn't really on their radar and I didn't like beg them for lessons or anything until I was 15. And then I for some reason just became very determined to convince them and they finally did.

Julie: Where did you go from there? So at 15 you started Did you drop into teen classes? Did you drop into kid classes?

Hannah: I actually took kid classes. And I think you know, at the time, I wasn't embarrassed by it, well maybe a little, but I just wanted to do badly so badly that I was willing to go to class with eight and nine year olds. It was just worth it to me. I didn't care what other people thought. I mean, on some level I guess I did, but I just didn't let it stop me, I guess.

Julie: Did you dance all the way through the rest of high school? Did you dance through college? How did it progress from there?

Hannah: Okay, that's an interesting topic for me. Because I'd like to say that after my first play, I just hit the ground running and never stopped. But I think you know, one reason with Wonder of Ballet I'm always trying to encourage people that “Ballet is for you. You're perfectly right for ballet, don't worry about that…” it's because I really struggled to feel that way for so long. I actually stopped and started ballet many, many times.

So after high school, I didn't dance a lot in college. But I thought about it all the time. I took a couple of electives, but just like nothing really consistent or serious. And then once college was done, and I had my degree and was done with all that I was just like, “I have to get back to this and I have to do more with it.“ Then I did for a couple years.

And then I had kids, and then I had to take a break again, not because of kids, but because of it, well that was part of it, but some financial struggles and things. So I very much advocate for the idea that it's okay to stop and start and take some time to find your footing and find your confidence. And that ballet is always there for you. No matter what you've gone through, you can always come back to it.

Julie: And are you back to it now.

Hannah: Yes, I mean, the pandemic has definitely slowed things down for all of us. I dance at home, I kind of just do my own thing. So it hasn't been as consistent. Pre-pandemic, I was probably taking like four classes a week, which was good I'd like to do when the studio is open up again, I think I'm just going to be like so excited and just appreciate it so much. I'm hoping to get up to five classes a week once everything is going again. But we'll see what happens.

Julie: Definitely, I feel like there's so much pent up excitement for it, that the classes are going to be exploding once we can get back to a little bit more normal class sizes and all that stuff.

Hannah: Yeah, I miss it so much like because.. Okay, it's weird, because in ballet, you're just kind of like doing your own thing, right? You're not necessarily engaging with everyone. But just that presence of having your teacher and your classmates and doing everything together. It's really motivating and inspiring and such a good feeling. And I think we all just really miss that.

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Feeling like you don’t belong in ballet & why the ballet world should love us adult dancers

Julie: So you talk so much on wonder ballet about this idea of you know, belonging and that you're already good enough for ballet, you don't have to be a certain type of person to start ballet or to continue ballet. A lot of this must have come from these feelings from from what you've experienced, right? Where you maybe you didn't feel some of these things. Is that is that the case?

Hannah: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it took me a long time to really feel comfortable with the concept of myself as a ballet dancer. And it's still a struggle sometimes. A lot of the content I post on wonder of ballet is therapeutic like for me, it's not just for anybody else.

The ballet world can just be just so closed off. I've been told so many times that my body is wrong, I'm not that good. I've been told that like point blank several times.

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“The ballet world can just be just so closed off. I’ve been told so many times that my body is wrong, I’m not that good. I’ve been told that like point-blank several times.”

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The fact that I have continued to dance is kind of amazing, because I'm usually pretty shaken by that kind of stuff. So the fact that I've continued to dance just goes to show you how important it really is to me.

Julie: it's truly incredible to me that that's still that sort of thing happens. Obviously, My mission is to make a place where people can feel like they're able to improve and able to get better and able to continue reaching their goals no matter what their situation is. And I went through that same thing as well in my …. I started a little later but I did spend a little bit of time in some youth programs or even in some programs that are drop-in with kind of intense teachers and have had a lot of really negative experiences.

When you compare it right, like now as a business owner, you think, “why are you turning people away?” As a business owner… you picture yourself as a gym owner? Let's take it out of the world of ballet. I picture myself owning a gym. Am I going to make people feel like garbage every time they come to my aerobics class? I mean, what in the world other thing is there that's like the whole goal is to I mean, that's not literally ballet’s whole goal, but like there's so much of an undertone of that? What the heck?

Hannah: Yeah, I was actually thinking about that, just like this morning, about the ballet world is missing out on so much by trying to keep it so exclusive and so elitist. There are so many people like me who just want to like spend all of our disposable income on ballet. I want to buy all the classes, I want to go to all the intensives, I want to buy all the dancewear. I will buy your merch, I'll be at the studio every day, I will go to your intensive. This is all I want to do.

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