Why ballet is amazing and everyone should do it

On making adult ballet mainstream

Hey dancers, welcome to show. I’m Julie, and I’m your host today on this episode of Broche Banter. In this season, we’re talking all about ballet training, specifically for grown-ups. 

I’ll be sharing my philosophy on why ballet should be for everyone, how to train in order to reach a high level in ballet, how adults can actually learn classical ballet technique with fully-formed bodies and busy lives, and how we can make amazing changes to the ballet world to open its doors to more adults like us.

Together, we’re on the path to making ballet mainstream, making it normal to learn ballet as an adult, making it a part of the fabric of our society like cycling, rock climbing, yoga, and martial arts. 

So come along this ride with me and let’s dance.

This season, we’ll be focusing on the question of what is ballet training? What progress means and how to achieve it. What are the different kinds of goals you can have, and how would you go about achieving them?

• Can you learn pointe? 

• Pirouettes? 

• Get more flexible? 

• Get your extensions higher? 

• Perform? 

• Learn ballets? 

• Partner and dance pas de deux? 

• Dance gracefully and easefully across your living room?

• Can you make ballet a big part of your life? Get paid for it even?

If you’ve been listening to the show or following me online for any length of time, you can pretty well guess by now that my answer is YES to all of the above. 

So, in this season of Broche Banter, we’ll peel back the curtain on the big lingering and unanswered question for adults: “how to do it”

It’s often not obvious how to get where you want to go. If you’re at A, how do you get to Z? And, what do you even want Z to look like for you?

Much of ballet training is counterintuitive and unexpected. Often what feels advanced is actually not advanced, and what feels “beginner” is not often beginner. How to get your legs high starts with your legs low. And how to turn starts with standing still.

For someone still on the journey, it would be impossible to see the bigger picture without being handed a map. So let’s draw a map, break down the facets of ballet, and help you see which pieces of the puzzle that you need to collect for any given facet that you dream of. 

Each week, we’ll dive into a different facet of ballet, from turns, to flexibility, to pointe, to artistry and musicality, turnout, mindset, extensions, and more. 

We’ll also get into the philosophy of how to teach ballet to adults. What order to things go in? How do you take different adult bodies with different life experiences and train them into classical ballet dancers?

So today, let’s start the season with why ballet is amazing and everyone should do it.

I receive messages daily that go like this.

I’ve dreamed of ballet my whole life but couldn’t dance when I was young because my parents couldn’t afford it or there wasn’t a studio near me. Is it too late for me to come back? 

I am not flexible and have bad feet. I danced when I was young, but my teacher told me I wouldn’t make it as a pro because I didn’t have the body for it, so I haven’t been back for 20 years. Is it too late for me to dance again?

I have been taking in my local adult program for years now, but I still can’t do pirouettes or remember combinations or get my legs high, and I’m not sure the point of continuing. I’m feeling bored and unmotivated to continue because I don’t see any progress. Am I too old to get any better? Is this as good as I can get? 

I had no idea you could even learn ballet as an adult! I’ve always wanted to!

Well, I’m here to tell you it’s not too late and you’re not too old. Yes, it might be too late to be a principal at NYCB. But that’s only available to a very small percentage of the population in the first place. 

However, a very high level of skill in ballet, including performing, or making ballet a huge (even professional) part of your life is achievable at any age, and any background. 

We’ll talk about how in this season, but the question still lingers: Why don’t adults have these opportunities now? Why am I receiving so many messages that people are feeling so excluded from the ballet world? Is it because adults can’t learn classical ballet? Don’t want to learn real ballet technique? Aren’t interested in such an old artform? Don’t want to learn something so detailed and technical and just want to have a fun fitness class instead? 

I don’t buy it. Not at all. I believe that classical ballet is for everyone. Not just the few. I have heard countless stories of people who were kept away from ballet for any number of reasons, living their whole life on the outside looking in. And those who finally do make their way to ballet cling to it with an intensity and a passion that tell me that classical ballet is deep in the fabric of our humanity. For those who make it into the world of classical ballet, it’s more than a hobby, a pastime, or a way to get fit. It’s an identity. It’s who we are. And we can’t “be” without it.

Classical ballet has the power to transform lives, to help you believe that the impossible is possible, . To help you reach goals and new heights you never thought possible, and to allow that confidence to permeate your life. If I could land that double pirouette, could I find the confidence to ask for my next raise? The courage to start on a side project? The calm strength of mind to handle anything my kids will throw at me today. Who else could I become that I never thought possible.

The way I see it: if barre, yoga, and martial arts can be mainstream in every shopping mall, and people can get really good at those things as adults, why not ballet? So I’m here to say ballet can be mainstream. It will. We are making it so. You are making it so, with your passion, dedication, and every person you speak to about your ballet passion. You are on the cutting edge of the change and the movement. 

In the same way as pro wrestling didn’t become a cultural phenomenon for the masses until Vince McMahon made it so, ballet, too, has the potential to move from a niche art form available to only some to something widely and universally available. 

The world of ballet continues to perpetuate the beliefs that ballet is for the young, thin, flexible, and naturally talented, and that anyone other than that can’t, won’t, or wouldn’t want to learn classical ballet technique.

So come along this ride with me and let’s open up the world of ballet to adults like us. The more of us there are, the more opportunities there are for us all. 

So this week, tell one new adult about ballet. When you’re met with the reply “I could never do that,” tell them why they can. Tell them how ballet is for everyone, and that ballet itself will teach them what they need to know. Plant a seed, because you never know how it will grow.

Next episode, we’ll dive into the challenges with the adult ballet world, how beginner adults are currently introduced to class, and how intermediate adults can so easily get stuck a few years into their journey. 

But, until then, happy dancing :)