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The Women's Page
Tales from the adult dance student avant garde

Canadian Finds Ballet is for Tall Women, Too
My first experience with a dance class was at the age of six. I hated it! It was a ballet class offered by the local parks and recreation department. The class was in a large gymnasium and we had more that one level of class being taught at the same time. My initial impressions were that it was boring. Within three months, my teacher asked my mother to take me out of the class, as I was obviously not interested in ballet and very interested in bothering other people!

Why did my mother enroll me in ballet in the first place? As a child I LOVED music and I loved to dance. On my way home from school, I would sing songs to myself in my head and dance. Whenever a song came on the radio that I knew, I would also dance. Music caused a large swell of joy to roll throughout my body and the only way that I could express it was through dance.

After that first ballet experience it was 21 years before I took another dance class. But, in the meantime, I was a competitive swimmer. I learned discipline, how to love my body, and how to learn physical skills. I also developed a lot of strength (especially abdominal and back strength, which are so important to dancing) and above-average flexibility. I stretched before and after every swim practice my whole life, which averaged about ten practices per week.

I loved my 15-year career in swimming, but even before I was done swimming, I knew that I would go back to ballet and dancing. Looking back, my swimming career also gave me low inhibition about my body. Even though I had gained 30 pounds after I finished swimming, I was never self-conscious about showing my body. (A body suit and tights shows a lot less than the two-piece training swim suits that I lived in for over 15 years.) This really helped my dancing, because I could never understand why people would want to cover up their beautiful bodies that could move and dance and do such beautiful things!

At 27, I began calling around to dance schools in my area to find one that would take beginner adults. My first question was always, "Will you teach adult beginners?" My second one was, "Am I too tall to dance?" (I am 6'0'' in bare feet.) I found a school and signed up for one class per week.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, for it turned out well for me), the class was not a beginner class -- it was a Grade 5 Cecchetti Exam class. Needless to say, I was pretty much lost the whole first year. But I was in LOVE. Even though the classes were confusing and difficult, while I was concentrating with the music and could actually feel even one small thing that my teacher was explaining to me, I felt beautiful and relaxed -- more so than during anything else I had done in my life. I was hooked.

During my second year, I started two classes per week, even though in one of them I was the only person above the age of 15. Taking two classes a week at the same level is tremendous for improving your memory and remembering from class to class what happened. That year, I was able to learn quite a bit and was dancing at the same level as my class. I did my first exam -- Standard 4 -- but after that, the rules changed and an age limit was imposed. As a adult, I was not allowed to do another exam until I reached the Elementary level.

The following year, I went all out -- dancing every night of the week. I also take jazz, modern, and tap, but ballet is my favourite. I have been on pointe for three years and currently take a pointe-only class. Pointe has enabled me to learn a lot faster about balance and my sense of energy throughout my body. I feel so light and tall when on pointe -- it truly is the beautiful sensation that I always dreamed that dancing (and specifically ballet) would be.

Our dance school has a year-end performance the entire school. I have performed in each one of the shows: Yes, even in the first year when I didn't know what I was doing! Last year I had 10 dances total, all in groups. It was a BLAST.

Currently I am working on my Cecchetti Elementary Exam (the first one that I am allowed to take as an adult). It is pretty advanced, as the whole exam must be done in soft pointe shoes, and there is pointe on the exam as well. Not too bad for only four years of dancing!

Probably by next year I will be ready to expand beyond what my current dance school offers. But it will be exciting and fun. I am looking forward to it. I don't know yet where it will take me, but every dance class along the way will be filled with love and fun and learning new things! -- Kira Leskew