Broche Banter #40 -- Marieke | Meditation, Ego, and Adult Ballet Opportunities
Today on the show, I chat with Marieke, who lives in the Netherlands and dances ballet.
We talk about her winding journey as a ballet dancer, but also about mindfulness, ego, and how she has learned to quiet the judgemental mind and love to dance.
I hope you love this episode as much as I do.
Enjoy!
Connect with Marieke
Twitter: @mvugt
Instagram: @mkvanvugt
On getting started in ballet
Julie: Welcome, Marieke, to the show. I'm so excited to be able to chat with you today.
Marieke: Yeah, I'm excited to I love listening to this podcast. So I'm also happy to be to contribute to it.
Julie: And where are you calling me from today?
Marieke: From Groningen in the Netherlands. It's all the way in the north.
Julie: Of all the countries. We've had two guests from the Netherlands. How funny.
Marike: Yeah, well, there's lots of ballet happening in the Netherlands. Clearly,
Julie: The Dutch National Ballet is just amazing.
Marieke: Yeah. And love it too. And then, of course, we have Netherlands Dance Theater as well.
Julie: Yeah, amazing.
Julie: So let's just get started with a little bit of your background. How did you get into ballet? How did you get from the beginning to where you are now?
Marieke: Yeah, so that's a really funny story in a way because when I grew up, I started with gymnastics. My mom thought that I was kind of stiff, so I needed to be put in something so gymnastics. I kind of enjoyed it. But I actually especially enjoyed the parts where you do all these exercises just on the mat? Not all the stuff where you had to fly around. It was like that's too scary.
But then somehow, when I was about 11, I read this book in the library that was about ballet. And I was like, “Wow, that looks amazing. All these girls in pink leotards,” and then I wanted to check it out. So I went to ballet school. And I was like, “Yeah, cool. This is it. I just want to do this.”
So, of course, I wanted to become a ballet dancer. And, sadly, I never auditioned. Because my teacher at the time said, “Yeah, she's just not talented enough.” So I at that time, I wasn't so sure of myself. So I didn't even dare to audition. And I think my parents also weren't too excited about me auditioning anyway, so.
And so I kept dancing just once a week. And then I moved and I went to a different studio and did twice a week and three times a week … gave up and did gymnastics and all kinds of other stuff.
And then, at age 16, or so I realized I read this magazine because by that time I’d become quite crazy about ballet. And so I read this magazine and saw an ad for The Royal Ballet School. I had no idea. Where they auditioned people at 16, 17. So I was like, “Okay, why not? I'm gonna go for it.”
I really tried to organize a whole schedule for myself in different ballet schools. So I could train like four or five times a week, traveled from where I live to Amsterdam, like 45 minutes by bus and all of that stuff, and I went for it. I didn't make it in, which is very sad. But the good thing, maybe in a way afterward is that I still continued dancing. And in a way, it was freedom, because now there was no longer this pressure that I needed to be something and I needed to be good enough to make it and I could just dance.
And in that time, I also got to participate in…. I just somehow always managed to create my own performance opportunities. So I got into various competitions, where I choreographed my own solos, and I made up performances with my friends where I choreographed the thing, and you know that that kind of stuff. So over the years, I've kept dancing.
When I moved to the US for my Ph.D., I was very, very happy that there, adult ballet was way more serious than in the Netherlands, because in the Netherlands, you have the professionals on the one side, and there you have to audition, and as a mere mortal, you can’t get close to it. And then you have the amateurs and they just, you know hop around with some music. And well, I mean, not completely all schools, but most of the schools like they maybe have one adult ballet class a week. And it's more like just a social thing.
Julie: Yeah. Yeah.
Marieke: So then I in the US, I really, there were so many more serious adult ballet schools, I really got into it. And now I'm very glad that having moved back to the Netherlands, I found also a school where I dance, where I can dance every day of the week, almost if I wanted to as an adult. And yeah, just do it at a pretty decent level. So that's pretty fun.
Julie: That's awesome. I love how many opportunities you've created for yourself over this period of time. Like it's one of those things where it's definitely very easy to think there are no opportunities, and maybe there aren't any opportunities, but you can make them, you can seek them out, you can sit all your friends down and perform for them. You can make it happen if you really want it.
Marieke: Yeah, that's totally literally what I did. When I did. The last year in the US, I worked at Princeton, and there I collaborated with Princeton ballet, that's a student dance company. And I just said, “Okay, I'm gonna do a couple of numbers, and you guys do some things. And then we have a performance” and then we just invite people to studio. It was actually a pretty awesome way to celebrate my leaving Princeton going to the Netherlands. So yeah.
Julie: That's amazing.
On Mindfulness & Ballet
Julie: So we've talked, we had an episode about mindfulness A while back, and you and I talked a while about that. You've even published a paper about mindfulness and ballet. When did that come into the equation? What is when did that enter your world?
Marieke: Right? So so for the longest time, those are separate things. So even as a little girl, I remember being fascinated by meditation and I wanted to meditate even having no idea of what it was. Like I was maybe about eight or so at that time, I started to get curious into it.
Julie: How did you even know about it being an eight? Who knows about meditation at age 8? Do you read it in a book? How did you even know that was a thing you could do?
Marieke: Yeah, no, it was a mother of a friend of mine, she would practice meditation. And somehow I found that really fascinating.
So yeah, and I started really learning about it from books, as I do, and then I eventually went to a meditation center at age 17, 18, and learns it more properly. And then it was just a part of my life, which I really felt was very helpful for me to gain sanity. And also, to have something to….
Well, I think my first motivation was really well, we always are talking about, you know, you need to be nice, you need to pay attention. But you don't get to learn how you do these things, how you cultivate kindness and compassion, how you learn to pay attention. Because those are all skills and you can develop those, but you don't actually learn how to do that you just get rules. But yeah, that doesn't really help. So that's how I got fascinated by meditation, which, in the way I practice is part of a Tibetan Buddhist tradition that really helped me to cultivate those things. And then eventually also went more into the whole Tibetan Buddhist worldview, and it made a lot of sense to me.
But then, eventually, I also started to see parallels in especially also when I as a neuroscientist, so I study the human mind, which then also as a separate path, like went into this. And then I started to realize there were parallels between the way you are training your mind and body as a ballet dancer and the way I was training my mind, in my meditation practice. And I was like, “Oh, that's interesting.” Because I feel like for me ballet is, it's really interesting to try to figure out how your body works, which is part of ballet, of course.
But it's also really interesting to see how it changes your mind. How when you move with a certain intention, it makes you feel different. And also, in a way, your body can't lie. Your teacher can often tell how you're feeling from just the way you're moving. And on the other hand, this is really interesting…. it just happened yesterday... So when we were having this rehearsal, I had just taken an exam from my students. And it was very stressful because all the students were very stressed, and they were sending me all these panicky messages. And so I was completely stressed because of this. And then I went to the class and I was stressed. And then slowly, as I progress through the class, you move your mind to a completely different place. And there's even if you wanted to, you couldn't just focus on all the stress and the other stuff that's happening and that you have to deal with. And you're just there at that moment and trying to figure out how to best move your muscles and remember the combination, and also have some amount of expressiveness to the extent possible. And then I felt so much better afterward. And yeah, that's really, for me one of the interesting insights is that I start to think about that a little bit more.
And I've even developed a kind of a workshop on mindful ballet at some point where I really brought those two together. So yeah, somehow those two strands are starting to merge, where we would do pliés and tendus, and the whole normal ballet sequence, but we would really, more … Well, there would be no mirrors there would be no lines, there would be really more going inside and thinking how does this make me feel.
For example, with a tendu, I would plant the image of like, we're actually caressing the earth and with the rond de jambe, we'd be thinking feeling about moving outwards and moving inwards. And how does that make your mind sort of feel sort of really exploring the feeling dimension of ballet a lot more than the way it looks.
Julie: So fascinating on so many levels, because first of all, ballet is it's very odd to think of ballet as a feeling thing, even though it is very expressive, but when it comes to classical ballet it, it doesn't feel like it should be feeling-based because there is a standard of perfection and there is something you're trying to achieve. And it doesn't seem like it matters how you feel, if it looks a certain way, whereas you know, yoga is all about how it feels, not how it looks.
Ballet feels like the opposite end of that spectrum. Although, as meditation has come into my life, I've come to understand much more about how you should integrate how it feels into it. Because really, when you're on stage, you can't look at it, you need to be able to feel it at a certain point in your body. But it's very fascinating. And interesting how they can come together. I like that you even think about some concepts of yoga, they talk about the earth and of the energy lines and trying to overlay that onto something that seems so cut and dry. I don't know. It's very interesting.
Marieke: Yeah, and it's interesting because for me, ballet has been primarily always about that I've always been somehow naturally really focusing on the expression part. Maybe that's also the thing I find easiest. Because the part where I focus too much on the lines, I get totally frustrated. I look at myself in the mirror, I'm like, “No, this is horrible.”
Julie: Yeah, ain’t that the truth.
Marieke: Exactly.
On Perfectionism and accepting yourself on the journey
Julie: So as a ballet dancer, personally, I definitely have a lot of perfectionism going on. And many of our fellow dancers have perfectionism going on. So it became very odd to me to enter into the meditation world, where you're talking about accepting yourself and accepting who you are right now, while at the same time trying to improve.
Whereas I felt like I originally had taken ballet as all about like, “you're wrong, you're bad, you need to be corrected, you need to be fixed. There's nothing good about what you're doing.” And that was like how I entered the ballet world, and then over time, came to discover that the more you accept where you are now, the more amenable you are going to be to change it over time. But if you're only just denying everything about what you're doing right now that it actually makes it very difficult in your mind to even be open to receiving information.
Marieke: Yeah. And I think also it makes your body very tense when you're just in the overcritical mode, and it makes you probably also not a nice student for the teacher to work.
For me, it's also really, in a way it's the other way around. So I feel like my meditation practice really helps me to cope with that judgmental mind a little bit more and to be like, “Oh, wait a minute, we're getting we're going into judgmental mind now.” So okay, “Can I can I let this go?” and see it as an experiment? And I'm still like, of course struggling with it. And then with especially seeing certain parts of my body, then I'm like “oh my legs they're horrible, my feet even worse.” But then at the same time, “Well, can we do an experiment? Can I actually try to love my legs? Because in the end, they still allow me to move right. And still, even sometimes people say that they love my dancing. So there is something that's good, that's working. So it's also for me a challenge to try to widen my circle of kindness to even the parts of me that maybe I don't like.
“So it’s also for me a challenge to try to widen my circle of kindness to even the parts of me that maybe I don’t like”
Yeah, and that's actually a Buddhist practice very much as well, which is you start with kindness towards yourself, and then you widen that circle further and further out. And some parts of yourself maybe are already likable, and other parts, maybe not. But then you can slowly, slowly by practicing again, and again, you can widen it. And of course, if you don't like yourself, then there's no way you can really like others. So you got to start where you are.
On Ego & Ballet
Julie: Yeah. You know, one question I have for you. That's just a genuine question that I don't have, like even my own I'm still trying to understand it is this…. In the beginning, when I was learning ballet, and still, the word “ego” comes into it sometimes and you know, a teacher will say, “don't have an ego, take your legs lower to practice turning it out.” And I think to myself, “how can I have an ego? I'm terrible at everything. I feel like I'm terrible at everything.” What is this “ego” sense? And then, I don't know I'm sort of kind of trying to re-understand the word ego and re-understand maybe it's a side of insecurity can also be ego, what is it? Is that can you do you have any thoughts on that? What is your thoughts on that? I'm very curious to know how it fits.
Marieke: That’s a fascinating question. And for sure, also the feelings of from a Buddhist perspective, I'm now speaking, the feelings of “I'm worthless” are also very much ego, because ego… from a Buddhist perspective again, so this is not necessarily the psychological perspective… but it would be like over-emphasis on yourself, rather than being completely self-centered. And being self-centered can be “I’m the greatest ever.” But it could also be “I’m the worst ever.” Whereas if you're able to step outside does narrow self-focus and being much more open.
So I had this realization, I think this summer somehow that I was like, “I'm way too much focusing on myself. And either I'm good or that I'm bad or something. Can I actually just practice ballet, remembering whenever I remember to just practice it for whoever is watching just as a gift.”
“I’m way too much focusing on myself, that I’m either I’m good or that I’m bad or something. Can I actually just practice ballet for whoever is watching, just as a gift?”
That idea really worked for me. And I still have to remember to practice doing that. But it really felt so much better, because I was not... By that way, I was stepping outside my own bubble and going to the bigger bubble.
Julie: Yeah, that's a fascinating. That's a fascinating way to think about ego that it can be either side of that coin, because you think of ego as boastful or overly confident. And I've never ever identified as that side of things, right? The people who are very boastful and think they're good at everything. I'm like, “How could I possibly be having ego?” Right? But I don't know, it's very interesting to actually think about it as that you just are overly thoughtful about your own shortcomings or your own greatness. It could be either.
Marieke: Yeah, because then the thing is that, again, from the Buddhist perspective, is that you, because you're so busy with yourself, you're not open to the needs of the others, and therefore you can be there for the others. And you closed yourself off, basically.
Julie: Yeah, fascinating. Awesome, that that definitely puts several more pieces in the puzzle to sort of noodle around on this concept.
Marieke: Awesome. It was a great question.
It's fascinating. I mean, obviously, as both a teacher and I'm still a student, I feel like it's, I'm still obsessed with ballet as a student as well as helping other people with their technique. Understanding the reasons why someone would or wouldn't be able to apply a correction are very, very important, to myself and others, because sometimes you have to be open to the fact that you need that correction. And sometimes if you're too scared to admit that you need that correction, or admitting that you needed to work on that thing would admit that you weren't as good as you might not have thought you were or would mean that maybe you're a failure, or it could mean that you're never going to get it. Any of those admissions or like little pieces, you might totally close off the door to hearing that information, because you're afraid of what it's going to mean to you.
Marieke: Yeah, totally so recognizable.
Julie: We're all sort of plagued with these things. Although our you know, our weaknesses are sometimes our strengths as well, they push us to greatness if we can kind of learn how to keep them contained.
Adult Ballet in the US
Julie: You talked a little bit about, when it comes to adult ballet in the U.S. finding some more opportunities for it. Where were you in the US when you were living here?
Marieke: Well, I started out near Boston in Waltham and that well, in Boston itself at Cambridge. There's fantastic dance studios over there, although in Waltham, itself was the university which had a gym class, like twice a week or so. And then I moved to Philadelphia, which was awesome. It had so many places, and also definitely studios dedicated to adult ballet, which is great, because that makes a lot of difference whether the adults are just the front and center or whether they're just the afterthoughts and yet mostly kids classes. You do notice a difference. And then I moved to Princeton. So and then you're close to New York, which is great. So yeah,
Julie: Yeah, definitely. That over there. East Coast is like mecca for anything arts, really. But especially adult ballet. Yeah. That's exciting.
Lockdown in the Netherlands?
Julie: And so how, what are you doing now? Right, so we're in lockdown times and you're in Europe. So you're probably very locked down. What has your life been like this past? I guess it's been almost a year, which is insane to believe. What has this last period of time been like for you?
Marieke: Yeah, it was crazy. So in March, we had our first lockdown, which lasted until I think the first of July, is when the event was in terms of ballet. The lockdown was from mid-March until the first of July, I think. And then it was summer and studios were opening, at least the ones that didn't have a summer break because some have a summer break with the school kids. So I would go to Amsterdam once a week to do ballet there. And then for the rest do stuff online, which well actually one of the great things of COVID is that we suddenly have access to so many classes online. I mean, I'm used to doing classes online because I travel a lot for my work. And then I would be doing Kathryn Morgan's ballet classes in my hotel room in India or in the US, or somewhere in a gym. I provide probably a lot of entertainment to many gym-goers in many countries. They're like, “What are you doing, is it a kind of yoga?” and I’m like “well, it’s something like that, yeah”
Anyway, and so then the, from the beginning of September, then also the school by train here reopened. So we had classes until mid-December, and then we went into our second serious lockdown, and we're locking down more. But for ballet, it doesn't matter. It's basically locked down until, well, for now, the ninth of February, we'll see what that's like.
So, then now I'm mostly doing well, pretty much just doing ballet classes online. But while the good thing of all of that was that I reconnected with my teachers in various places. So I'm regularly training with my ballet teacher in India. And like this morning, also, I try now several, several days a week I dance with their local dance company, which are all online, they've been since March basically not be meeting in person. But it's awesome. He is really good classes.
And then I also reconnected with a teacher from my time in Princeton, and they started offering online classes. And he's very, very much focused also on the expression aspect. So he has very good technique tips, but then sometimes he will also just say something like, “really tell the story with your body” or “really follow that hand and really move with an arabesque.” And then it's really so inspiring. So that makes me very happy.
And he always is like, “Oh, how is it in the Netherlands?” So it's really nice to have these cross-country connections in dance. I find that extra special. So yeah, that's what it's been like.
So I actually add the advice of my Indian ballet teacher who was actually from Argentina, but he's been living in India for like 20 years or 15 years. He's was like “well in, you know, in the West, you can actually buy a ballet floor.” And I was like, well, you got a point there. So I searched online and I got my own ballet floor, which is not even that expensive to buy, like some ballet… just without the whole sprung wooden thing. I mean, that's the complicated part. But just the surface is not too bad. And now I have my own…. Well, I'm might my desk is my kitchen table. And next to my kitchen table is my ballet floor. Then, in my bedroom, I have a barre, which I've had already since forever. So yeah, and then big mirror as well. So I'm just really lucky to have a pretty decent home studio situation.
Julie: Oh my gosh, that's so funny. I feel like in some ways, it's like the dream to have a home studio where you can do all this stuff. I mean, the sprung wood would just be over the top amazing.
Marieke: Yeah, but that was totally my dream. And now I'm like, “Well, you know, it's a bit different than I would have imagined. But it's not bad.” Yeah.
Julie: So I feel like in this period of time, there's like, basically two general senses with online ballet: You kind of love it. Or you just hate it because it reminds you of everything you miss about real life. Do you have any of that sense with it as well? Or do you are you really just kind of like all in?
Marieke: I would say, well, I definitely love being in the studio even more. I was so excited when I got back into the studio this summer and this fall. But it's great, whether it the ballet class online works or not depends a lot on how it's done. Whether the music is horrible, which sometimes can be horrible with the music, I'm sure you're an expert on that by now.
And whether the teacher actually pays attention to the people on zoom, and there's a large variability in that as well. So if the teacher is engaging with me as a student online, if they're watching and giving correction sometimes and sometimes actually, the zoom ballet classes are nice. And then sometimes actually even just an Instagram Live class or a class where you get no feedback is also really nice because sometimes it's nice to have a bit of a chance to not get too distracted by the whole social thing, or where you feel like you have to please this teacher. Sometimes it's really nice to just work on something and be able to go back if you don't get an exercise.
I started to appreciate those dimensions as well. And also now because I have so much choice in where it can take the ballet classes online with this or that teacher, or choose something from YouTube or Instagram Live. I can also really say, “well, for now I'm going to focus on this a little bit or work on that a little bit” and then have a bit more agency there, which obviously you normally don't have when you're working with a teacher because they have not just me, but maybe eight or 10 other students as well. So I find that an attractive part of it as well.
I would say it has both good sides, but I'm very much looking forward to getting back into the studio sometime in the hopefully not too distant future we'll see.
Julie: Definitely, yeah.
Last parting wisdom
Julie: When we close out, I like to ask for any last words of advice you have for our listeners who may be adult dancers, either like you or anyone out there, what are your last words that you want to make sure you get out into the world today?
Marieke: That's a beautiful question. I would say the main thing is don't forget to enjoy ballet because it's so easy in ballet to get a bit caught up in this, well, when you're dancing with other people in the studio, I think this dynamic is especially true that you're comparing yourself so much with others. And I find that I have that a little bit less with zoom ballet because these other people are such small squares, you don't really see them very much, depending on how you set up your screen, of course.
“Don’t forget to enjoy ballet because it’s so easy in ballet to get a bit caught up in comparing yourself with others.”
But yes, and at the same time when you're doing it for yourself and I think also one of the beautiful things of ballet is we're all good at something different. And we have all something to give and something to share and we can enjoy that as well.
“One of the beautiful things about ballet is we’re all good at something different. And we all have something to give and something to share and we can enjoy that as well.”
Julie: Yeah, that's really beautiful. It's definitely easy to forget that you're actually here to still enjoy it and to share with the world and to do all of those things and not just to get the perfect fifth.
Marieke: Yeah, because in the end, I mean realistically, as an adult dancer. I'm way too old to even compare myself to professional dancers and I'm never going to be as good as a professional dancer. But that's okay because I don't have to be. They gave their whole life to ballet and I can do it just for fun.
Julie: Yep, it can be a part of your life. It doesn't have to be your whole life.
Marieke: Yeah, exactly. And, and that way, I can also do ballet and not wreck my whole body, which many of our professional dancers, unfortunately, they do. I mean, I have the good fortune to also dance in a studio in Amsterdam, which is run by former dancers or current dancers of Dutch National Ballet, and then you get to see and they're like, “yeah, my back is terrible, and my knees are hurting.” And then at age 35, or so they have to just completely give up, and I can just dance and I'm 40. And actually my body is working fine. It's probably working pretty good. Much better than most people of my age who don't do ballet. So that's also a good thing that when you don't do it for a job, you actually probably get to enjoy it more.
Julie: Very true. Well, wonderful. What a beautiful episode. Thank you so much for your time and for your energy and for all the wonderful things you've shared with us today. Thanks for being here.
Marieke: Well, thank you so much for having me on the podcast and for having this podcast in general because they find it really, really fun and inspiring to get to virtually meet so many dancing adults from across the globe.