The Ballet Blog

Crystal Pite’s Emergence

monstrblood:

some ballerina warmups from the past few days

Artists of the Houston Ballet in “One / end / One” Photographer Amitava Sarkar

Eric Underwood, soloist with The Royal Ballet, came to ballet as a teenager, which is relatively late for a professional. He was raised in a low-income family in a suburb of Washington DC. At home, he was nurtured and loved, but says he would hear the sound of gunshots outside every day. “It stressed my mother out and she would make us lie on the ground until the shots finished.” One night, somebody was killed outside their flat.

His mother wanted him to go the nearby performing arts school, a more promising bet than mainstream school. “One day she said, ‘OK, we’re going to make you an actor.’ She got a book out of the library so I could learn an entire monologue for an audition.” But on the day, he got stage fright and forgot all his lines.

That might have been the end of it, but as he was leaving Underwood saw some girls practising ballet in the next room. “I couldn’t walk out of that building and say to my mum, ‘I didn’t get that’. That was a no-no.’” Underwood walked in, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and insisted the teacher give him a go. “I felt like I could be great at this, and that I could change my family’s destiny if I got it right.” The experience was a baptism of fire, with the teacher shouting out specialist dance terms (tombé and glissé).

“I knew nothing, but I said, ‘If you show me, I can do it.’”

Jennifer Ringer in Who Cares

Even if you weren’t born with a genetically perfect body, you can take something like a hand, where everyone has the same capabilities, and you can make it speak. You can make it speak in many different ways.

Sarah Lamb, principal with The Royal Ballet

A toe shoe is as eccentric as the ballerina who wears it: their marriage is a commitment.

-Toni Bentley-