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60. Building New Narratives: Autumn Klein’s Unconventional Path Back to Ballet
197 Plays1 month ago
In this candid conversation, I’m joined by Autumn Klein, a principal dancer and accomplished artist whose career includes performing with Texas Ballet Theater, Oklahoma City Ballet, Ballet Frontier, and Ballet North Texas. Autumn, who is also the co-founder of New Narratives Dance, shares her unconventional journey through the dance world - from overcoming gaps in her classical training, stepping away from dance to attend college, and rising to the rank of principal after returning to her professional ballet career.
Key “Pointes” in this Episode
🩰The culture shock of transitioning from competition dance to full-time ballet training at Houston Ballet
🩰Her experiences dancing with renowned companies and eventually becoming a principal dancer at Oklahoma City Ballet
🩰The challenges of burnout, stepping away from dance to attend college and join AmeriCorps and how she found her way back to the stage
🩰Building a massive social media presence (3M+ followers on TikTok) and pioneering her popular pointe painting
🩰The creation of New Narratives Dance, a contemporary ballet company focused on bold storytelling
Autumn also shares valuable advice on balancing a multifaceted career, finding the right company fit, and building an authentic social media community.
Connect with Autumn:
YOUTUBE: https://youtube.com/@autumnsklein
TIKTOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@autumnsklein
INSTAGRAM: instagram.com/autumnsklein
Links and Resources:
Visit the Ballet Help Desk: https://ballethelpdesk.com/
Get your copy of The Intentional Career Handbook
1-1 Career Mentoring: book your complimentary career call
Let’s connect!
My WEBSITE: thebrainyballerina.com
INSTAGRAM: instagram.com/thebrainyballerina
Questions/comments? Email me at caitlin@thebrainyballerina.com
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Transcript
Self-Assessment and Environment Evaluation
00:00:00
Speaker
As you go along, evaluate, is this what I want? Is this company serving me? Is this environment good for me? And don't just get swept along with the tide. If it's no longer good, then go somewhere else.
00:00:13
Speaker
There are so many different places to dance and ways to dance. And it's okay to change your mind, to think this is what I really wanted from when I was young.
00:00:23
Speaker
And then to get there and realize this isn't a good fit. You don't always need to fit yourself into the company. Sometimes you just need to find the place where you fit.
Introduction and Focus on Aspiring Ballerinas
00:00:34
Speaker
I'm Kaitlin, a former professional ballerina turned dance educator and career mentor. And this is the Brand New Ballerina podcast. I am here for the aspiring professional ballerina who wants to learn what it really takes to build a smart and sustainable career in the dance industry. I'm peeling back the curtain of professional dance world with open and honest conversations about the realities of becoming a professional dancer. Come along to gain the knowledge and inspiration you need succeed in a dance career on your terms.
00:01:08
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Brainy Ballerina podcast. I'm your host, Caitlin Sloan, and I am joined today by Autumn Klein.
Autumn Klein's Dance Journey
00:01:15
Speaker
Autumn has danced professionally with Texas Ballet Theater, Oklahoma City Ballet, Ballet Frontier, and Ballet North Texas.
00:01:23
Speaker
She is also the co-founder of the contemporary dance company, New Narratives Dance. Autumn, I'm so excited to chat with you today. have so many questions, but I want to start from the very beginning and hear why you took your very first dance class.
00:01:36
Speaker
Thank you so much for having me. I am super excited to chat with you today. I had my first dance class when I was two, and which is difficult for me to remember. But according to my family story, I watched the entire multi-hour Swan Lake Ballet on TV and was transfixed as a two-year-old. So my mom thought, huh, maybe she's gonna like this ballet thing.
00:02:00
Speaker
And of course my older sister had been taking, she was so bored by dance. She dropped out and my mom put me in and the rest is history. What was your training like growing up?
00:02:12
Speaker
Not ideal for ballet dancers, for sure. The first studio I went to was, I was taking baby ballet and tap. Then I moved to Nebraska and started in a competition studio.
00:02:25
Speaker
I stayed at different competition studios until I was 16. And that's when I graduated high school and i was like, I'm going to be a ballet dancer. I get ballet twice a week. I was not as prepared as I expected it to be. I somehow, only by the grace of God, got into the Houston Ballet year round.
00:02:44
Speaker
Claudio Munoz saw something in me and Clara Cravey at the time. even though I was really behind technically. i couldn't even see ballet line at that age, which was really late because that's not what I grew up in.
00:02:57
Speaker
So I just had to learn, start over with everything. And it was a huge culture shock. Ballet versus competition. Totally different world where I went from, can do five pirouettes.
00:03:08
Speaker
I'm the best person in the room to, you actually have to look good when you do those pirouettes and your legs don't straighten. So that's not, that's not a pass. It was definitely...
00:03:19
Speaker
Not what I would recommend, but because of the time when I was going through, there wasn't a lot of contemporary training for ballet dancers. It actually helped me to get into Houston Ballet too. And that's what kind of set my whole career was being able to get those names on my resume and get that training.
Inspiration and Transition to Ballet
00:03:37
Speaker
So growing up, did you always think I want to go into ballet or did you still kind of think, well, I'm exploring all these styles? I'm not sure. I was exploring until I was about 11 or 12. Houston Ballet came to Nebraska and they performed Ben Stevenson's Dracula.
00:03:55
Speaker
And I saw that and I was like, ah that's what I want to do. i want to dance this ballet for that man. And i was in one of the best dance schools in Lincoln, Nebraska at that time. There weren't any ballet schools in that city.
00:04:08
Speaker
There was one in Omaha, but because my dance teacher was telling me I'm getting great training, my parents didn't necessarily... think it was necessary to drive me over an hour away every day and back to get ballet training.
00:04:21
Speaker
It wasn't like it is now. You can look on the internet and see, okay, this isn't how a ballet dancer trains. You don't take turns and leaps most of the time and then two ballet classes a week.
00:04:32
Speaker
They did their best. They did a great job. But yeah, that definitely wasn't setting me up for what I thought it was. And I think a lot of dance school's They tell their parents that their kids are getting ready for things they're not getting ready for. I don't think I'm unique in that.
00:04:49
Speaker
hu Well, I mean, there's really no – what's the word I'm looking for? Anyone can open a dance school, right? Like you don't have to have specific backgrounds or training in so many different areas. Yeah.
00:05:02
Speaker
to be able to open a school. So you might have great technique, but not have a lot of childhood development experience, or you might have that area and not really know the technical nickle background. So it is hard to find a school that has all of those things.
00:05:15
Speaker
For sure. The fact that there's really no standard for having a ballet school and calling it whatever you want is wild to me. It is wild. So when you went to Houston, was that your first time training in that kind of environment? Had you gone to any summer intensives or that kind of thing before?
Summer Intensives Experience
00:05:32
Speaker
I did go to some summer intensives. I went to the ABT, Orange County, and New York summer intensives. I had gone to the Houston summer intensive the year before I left Nebraska. And that's kind of when I started to understand when I was 15.
00:05:49
Speaker
But when I was 13 and 14 going to ABT, it was just kind of fun. And I was still in that competition mindset of I can do all these tricks. So I must be keeping up, you know.
00:06:00
Speaker
I you had to really be in it day after day to really understand the difference between the quality of what classical ballet expects and the quantity that is often the focus of a competition school.
00:06:13
Speaker
who Being at Houston, how did that prepare you for your professional career? Houston was hard. That's when I first learned to look at my body in a negative way.
00:06:24
Speaker
So that was mentally a challenge, but I also was able to take class from 9 a.m. until 8 p.m. at night. I took class with HB2. I took class with my level seven when I first got there and adult class. And then I would take men's class at night.
00:06:41
Speaker
And so I was really able to sort of accelerate the catch-up process in a way I wouldn't have been able to at a smaller school that didn't have classes going all day. And again, Claudio really did push me even though from the outside, maybe it would be hard to see the potential.
00:07:00
Speaker
ah He really did invest in me. That made a huge difference. What was your transition from the student to professional dancer?
Professional Growth at Houston Ballet
00:07:08
Speaker
So after my first five months or something that I was at Houston, they started moving me into training with the HB2s and with my school level. And then after that years evaluations completed, they moved me up to HB2. So I was dancing with, I did my full two seasons with them. I got to perform with the company.
00:07:26
Speaker
That was amazing. Even just getting to do things like Snow and Flowers with the Corde Valley, their standard is so high. You just feel like you're a part of something really great.
00:07:37
Speaker
I love that. But I knew i didn't love the big company experience. It felt really overwhelming and so competitive in a way that It just wasn't what I was used to growing up and it wasn't what I enjoyed.
00:07:51
Speaker
And I also always had the dream of dancing with Ben Stevenson, dancing his Dracula for his company. So auditioned for TBT my last season and as an HB2 dancer and i got a contract.
00:08:06
Speaker
I got pulled forward at the end of their auditions. They hire most of their younger dancers from in-person and Fort Worth auditions. I went to that. got my number called at the end. And then a few days later, I got an email with an offer.
00:08:19
Speaker
So wow it was, yeah, it just kind of fell into place. How did that first year go dancing in a professional company? Obviously, you had been doing that in some sense, but like in your first full contract.
00:08:32
Speaker
So I would say i remember thinking, wow, I have so much time off because was and was brutal. There was, I remember there was like four or five months when I didn't have a day off.
00:08:46
Speaker
And then when my first day off came, they had us go into the studios to do in-service training, which for me was shredding papers all day. It was just a grind. I don't know why they did that kind of thing, but oh my gosh.
00:08:59
Speaker
So going to TBT where we danced, unless there was a show, only five days a week. We didn't even work six days a week. We got paid. We got five minute breaks every hour. So I remember thinking, wow, this is fantastic. I love this, but I just didn't really flourish at TBT.
00:09:17
Speaker
It's a lovely company. The dancers are nice. It's kind of got that family environment, but I think I had so much I was still struggling with from Houston. I really got pretty burnt out there and I was falling out of love with dance.
00:09:28
Speaker
So even though I had some really nice highlights, nice moments, I got to dance Clara. I got to do the lead in a brand new contemporary ballet that we did.
00:09:38
Speaker
I got to Dance Dracula. But a lot of that period is kind of a blur because I just wasn't in the best place mentally from what I had been doing before. So from there, what was your next step?
Leaving and Returning to Dance
00:09:50
Speaker
So my next step was to quit dance and go to, well, first I went to the AmeriCorps. I think I'm not uncommon in this. I had a point where I realized I am no longer loving this.
00:10:04
Speaker
I'm not going to make a lot of money from it. Everybody in my family is sort of in some sort of science. Maybe I just chose wrong. Maybe this just isn't meant for me.
00:10:16
Speaker
So i was really searching for something big and important to fill that space that dance always had. I think that's something a lot of us can relate to when we step back, that dance feels so important.
00:10:29
Speaker
And sometimes life outside of ballet, it doesn't feel as loud. So my first thing was, going to join the AmeriCorps. It's going to be just like the Peace Corps, but in the United States, it's going to be amazing. I'm going volunteer. I'm going to change the world.
00:10:43
Speaker
And then I joined the AmeriCorps. And one of our projects, we were canvassing communities that had been hit by a hurricane. And we had ah huge van with 10 people in it.
00:10:56
Speaker
We drive to the people's houses, you know, like a trade fall on their house. And one person would have to get their personal information and review them about it. It wasn't a job of 10 people.
00:11:06
Speaker
So we'd take maps in the van. We'd take turns. Be like, can I go and talk to them this time? And I felt, again, sort of disillusioned by this big idea I had of what this was going to be. And then the reality of what it was, they didn't line up.
00:11:22
Speaker
and So after AmeriCorps, was like, well, that was another fail. Maybe I'm going to be a scientist. So then I went to school and I hit it hard. I was taking like 20, 21 credits an hour.
00:11:35
Speaker
like If I just fill up my hours, if I am constantly doing school and when I'm not in school, I'm working in the lab, I'm going to feel like this is fulfilling and this is what I'm meant to do.
00:11:47
Speaker
That absolutely didn't work out. My last semester was when I really started to pray and think, you know, think I can go back.
00:11:58
Speaker
There was no reason for me to think I could go back after taking a considerable break, but I really felt like I was going to go back. I was going to dance at Oklahoma City Ballet. And against all odds, that did work out. It sounds so crazy now saying it again because I didn't have a backup plan. That was just my plan.
00:12:15
Speaker
And I danced there for 11 years. So that worked out. So during this time ah you were in school and doing AmeriCorps, were you still taking class or were you just like, I'm done? So no class at all when I was in AmeriCorps. My last two years of school, I started doing this hip hop dance team called Fade to Black, which is just a recreational student group. But at A&M, that group has have some clout.
00:12:44
Speaker
It's prestigious to be in it, even though there's a ton of people. And I only we got in by the skin of my teeth. I think I had like two callbacks to get in. So that was sort of first getting back into looking at myself as a dancer, I had really completely shut the door on that. I was like, nope, I'm never going to do that. That's not for me. And that cracked the door a little bit.
00:13:04
Speaker
And then the following year, i was able to get in and take a class with the newly formed dance majors, a ballet class twice a week.
00:13:15
Speaker
One of the professors, she let me take class, even though technically I wasn't allowed to, and really pushed me in that. really is when I thought, I can maybe do this.
00:13:26
Speaker
So why Oklahoma City Ballet? So my husband's an air traffic controller, and the only training center for air traffic controllers in the United States is in Oklahoma City. When he was training, and this was actually years before that, I came up to visit him. we weren't married yet. I came to visit him, and we saw a poster for Oklahoma City Ballet on a door.
00:13:46
Speaker
And Mike knew I was not really loving everything I was doing. He's like, why don't you just dance here? And I said, I never danced there. Back then, it didn't have the best reputation.
00:13:58
Speaker
and just wasn't what it is now. And I was like, no, i you know I gave up on dance. I can't go back to that. That's silly. not going to audition and go somewhere just because you saw a poster.
00:14:09
Speaker
Well, I did that like three years later. And I just felt so convicted about it. I actually didn't get in right away. So I went to the audition very out of shape.
00:14:20
Speaker
I just wasn't the dancer I had once been. I was wearing Gator Mendons, which do not compliment my feet just because I could not afford to wear freeds anymore. I wasn't in a company. I got a scholarship to the summer. I think at that point, they probably gave a scholarship to the summer for anyone who had a decent resume.
00:14:37
Speaker
Went to the summer. The summer intensive, I kid you not, had seven girls in the top level. So i was like, I'm definitely getting seen by the director because he's teaching class for seven people.
00:14:48
Speaker
And at the end of the summer, I knew there was going there going to be some spots, apprenticeship spots given out. And I actually didn't originally get one of them. He gave one to ah couple of girls that were there. i think two girls that were there.
00:15:02
Speaker
And one of them was my roommate for the summer intensive, but she was a Brazilian and she couldn't get a visa. So i don't know, maybe in August, When she turned it down, then I got the offer and it worked out.
00:15:16
Speaker
Looking back, I'm just like, that's so absurd. What was I thinking? I still felt like it was going to work out and it it did. i should not have thought it would, but it did. So at that point, were you like in August, it's so close to the season starting. Were you just hoping this was going to work out like you said, or were you like looking at other companies auditioning or were you just kind of like, if this is meant to be, it will be this?
00:15:36
Speaker
Yeah. If it didn't work out, I was going to try to figure out grad school or something like that. I didn't have a backup plan. There is so much dancers need to learn as they pursue a professional dance career.
00:15:47
Speaker
It can be completely overwhelming. Where do you even start? With your intention. To me, this is the first step in defining success on your terms.
00:15:59
Speaker
Once you have an intention for your career based on your core values, you can begin to hone in on a strategy to make your goals a reality. But without it, you will always feel out of alignment, out of control, and ultimately unfulfilled in your career.
00:16:14
Speaker
So how do you figure out what success means to you? With the Brainy Ballerina Intentional Career Handbook. This is not just your ordinary book. The Intentional Career Handbook walks you through it everything you need to think about as you embark on your dance career.
00:16:28
Speaker
With over 50 guided question prompts, you will dive deep into determining what really matters to see you in a dance career based on your individual core values. By the end of this handbook, you will not only be crystal clear on your goals, but in the mindset you need to make it happen.
00:16:45
Speaker
Tap the link in the show notes to download your copy today and start pursuing your dance career with intention. How was that transition back into the studio from taking all this time off? Did you feel rejuvenated, like excited to be there again, kind of not got over, but just had worse through the burnout?
00:17:04
Speaker
Yes, totally. It was, I think, the first time as a ballet dancer, I enjoyed dancing. The spark I had, the love for it had come back. That was the point at which I didn't walk into the studio and just see all the things I hated.
00:17:18
Speaker
Instead, I walked into the studio and and was just excited to move my body and try to get a little bit better today than I was the day before. There was never this feeling of, oh, by this age, I should be better at this, which I always had before because I knew I was living on borrowed time.
Opportunities for Older Dancers
00:17:35
Speaker
This was just a bonus.
00:17:36
Speaker
I shouldn't be there. And that weirdly was incredibly freeing for me. So that first year, i was just riding high. Of course, it got a little bit more challenging as I got into the grind of it, trying to climb the ranks and the politics, but it never became as oppressive and heavy as before.
00:17:53
Speaker
I personally needed that mental break to find joy in dance. And I think that's so valuable for dancers to hear because there is this idea that if you don't do it,
00:18:05
Speaker
when you're 17, 18, 19, young, you know, young for a dance. I mean, like you're still young when you're 25, but as dancers, we're like, yeah really like we're in a career. And so there's this idea that if you don't just do it, then that's your only chance. And to hear that you can take a break and you can come back to it and you will find more fulfillment and be happier. It's such a valuable lesson for a dancer to hear. Actually at OKC, we had a really high rate of people who had done that.
00:18:32
Speaker
Our first principal dancer, Miki Kawamura, she had taken a break and come back. One of our other principals, Dayoung Zhang, she graduated from Bolshoi. She couldn't find a job because she was very tiny, took a break and then came back and was very successful.
00:18:46
Speaker
There were a lot of girls that came into the company, like 24, 25, starting out as apprentices and had good careers. So it's really neat. That's one of the great things that has changed.
00:18:58
Speaker
I got my first contract at 19 and I thought I was old. yeah It is so different now. Yeah. For better or for worse, because then you do also have people at 24, 25 not getting paid, which is not great. Yep.
00:19:09
Speaker
Yeah. I've seen that a lot with a lot dancers I work with. The dancers are staying in these trainee apprentice years a lot longer than they were when we were. Way too long. yeah The second company system, it's just, it's become unethical.
00:19:23
Speaker
It's one thing when you're 16, 17, 18. It's another thing when you went to college already and now you're starting over not getting paid or maybe even paying. Like TBT, you have to pay to be in their second company, to be free labor to fill out their four. That's crazy.
00:19:37
Speaker
Right. Yeah, to do the same job as somebody who is getting paid for it or to be in the same program for four or five years, kind of strung along and never being given that next step, but also not being let go and just kind of getting in this limbo. It's very, it's really hard to see.
00:19:54
Speaker
It's just a meat grinder. And it's easy to see when you're in the company who's going to make it through and who's not. But those young students have no clue. They don't know. They're just being taken advantage of. And that is really hard.
00:20:07
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. While you're Oklahoma, can you talk about kind of your climb through the ranks, like going from – apprentice all the way to principal. Yes. So when I first got to Oklahoma City Valley, I mean, it was just meant to be.
00:20:23
Speaker
My first rep was a triple bill and I got picked to do Lilac Garden and a Margo Sappington piece. And in the Margo Sappington piece, I actually got to do a pas de deux. It was just like a four minute pas de deux, which was a huge opportunity for a brand new apprentice.
00:20:36
Speaker
And i broke my foot in two places during a dress rehearsal. And then i performed all the shows. with my wrapped up broken foot. So I was out for Nutcracker.
00:20:48
Speaker
I came back for the second half of the year. So I got to kind of shine and then show a lot of commitment. And I think that definitely helped me. At the end of that season, me and one other apprentice got picked up to be court of ballet.
00:21:04
Speaker
So that was a big jump. Now you're a set company member in this company that has like nine or 10 court of ballet dancers at that point. So you're going to dance lot. The next three years, i just grinded it out. If I was only doing core work in a ballet, i was in the other studio perfecting every moment of that corps de ballet that I could.
00:21:26
Speaker
Filming, checking my lines, checking my movement. No matter what it was, if I was on stage, it was going to be the best I could possibly make it. Our director, I don't think he really saw me moving beyond corps de ballet in the beginning, but slowly, slowly, slowly.
00:21:42
Speaker
he was convinced. I actually had a meeting with him. you know, you have your company contract meetings. And I asked him, what do I need to do to move up in the company to get more roles? And he said, you know, Autumn, there are a lot of really good female dancers in this company right now. So I don't know if I see that for you.
00:21:57
Speaker
And I pushed a little bit more because I was like, hmm, just you wait. What are some specific things I can do to get better? And every day i was working on those specific things he gave me. And the next year he'd be like, yeah, you improved a lot. And I'd ask for more.
00:22:15
Speaker
And by my fourth year in the company, I was promoted to soloist. I got to do the big breakthrough, which I was already on that trajectory, but we did Paul Vastierling's Peter Pan.
00:22:29
Speaker
The Wendy variation is so ridiculous. She has to do hops on point and I was calm, step over into a pirouette without pli-ing. And I was the only person in the company that could do it.
00:22:42
Speaker
So I was not the director's vision for Wendy. I was a little too tall, but the stager fought for me. i remember that audition process for Wendy. We had to do the variation so many times and it was just groups. And then I kept being put with other dancers because the director was trying to get a different dancer to do it.
00:23:01
Speaker
And the stager was like, no, only she can do it right now. She thought for me, my director was like, okay, yeah, you're right. Fine. She can do it. And I got to do the principal role in that show.
00:23:12
Speaker
And then I got promoted. Do you have a favorite role that you've danced throughout your career? Yes. My favorite would be Lucy and Michael Pink's Dracula. I love that ballet. If I could do it only for the rest of my career, I would.
00:23:26
Speaker
What is it about Dracula for you? I like the dark. I love to be the sort of evil and scary characters. I've got sort of a cute look about me. So I love being able to play and a completely different side of that, that maybe will be surprising to people. But I work very hard to make work and I've been told I make it work.
00:23:51
Speaker
So hopefully that's true. Anything you get to play that is so oppositional to your own personality is a little bit more satisfying because you have to study movement and expression, i think, on a deeper level. And I love that.
00:24:07
Speaker
Yeah. Lucy is my favorite character because she gets to have this full arc of being this sweet, young ingenue. She gets bitten and then she becomes the monster herself, which You know, Sleeping Beauty, she doesn't have an arc like that.
00:24:20
Speaker
It's fun to get to do all of it. What's the most challenging role you've danced? Oof, maybe sugar. It never gets easier. Every single season, it just kicks my butt.
00:24:31
Speaker
Yeah. I haven't had to do Odette yet. We have that coming, not this season, but next season. So I'm sure once I do that, I will change my story, but... So how did you know when it was time to leave Oklahoma City Ballet?
00:24:44
Speaker
It was time to leave Oklahoma City Ballet because my husband got transferred back to Dallas-Worthworth. And so now you're with Ballet North Texas? Yes. And how long have you been dancing there? This was my first season there. I spent one season with Ballet Frontier.
00:24:57
Speaker
And Ballet Frontier, the company, they're lovely. They're lovely dancers. It just was its really strange schedule. And I could feel myself starting to get super burnt out.
00:25:08
Speaker
Like they work in the morning and then a couple of days in the week they come back at night. So it's just, you can't work other jobs. You're exhausted all the time because at that company, and we do like nine to 11 full run-throughs of the ballets every week.
00:25:23
Speaker
And at this point in my career, that just wasn't sustainable. Had a nice season with them, moved on. It's rare for dancers to be able to find a job with their spouse. Like I feel think like it's the other way around a lot of times that like the spouse might find a job where the dancer's job is because that is kind of the harder position to get. So do you need advice for like, how do you think you managed to make this all work?
00:25:47
Speaker
I think the reason it worked was i was established enough. I was far along enough in my career. So to go from midsize company like Oklahoma City Ballet, where as a principal, to be a principal at a smaller company, it wasn't that challenging.
00:26:02
Speaker
i did have a lot of trouble. So when Mike and I first got married, he actually wasn't living in Oklahoma. he was living down here working. He's an air traffic controller. He was working at the center down here.
00:26:15
Speaker
And it took him five years to get transferred up to Oklahoma. wow So we had a long distance carriage for a little while and that was hard. I will say though, I was so excited to see him. It kept us in that honeymoon phase for a very long time.
00:26:30
Speaker
So there were some nice things about it too. And for us, luckily it wasn't that far apart. And he came up to see me every weekend and could still come to my shows and I could come down on all my off season time and spend it in Dallas. And because there is a good dance community here, i could keep in shape and still do some guest things.
00:26:50
Speaker
Let's pause this episode so I can tell you about one of my favorite resources for dancers, Ballet Help Desk. If you've been loving the Brainy Ballerina podcast, you'll want to add the Ballet Help Desk pod to your list.
00:27:04
Speaker
This is the premier podcast for dance parents and hosts Brett and Jenny share weekly expert insights on supporting your students' ballet education. They cover key topics like summer intensives, ballet competitions, full-time and post-grad training, health and wellness, boys in ballet, and more to help your dancer make the most informed decisions about their unique training path.
00:27:29
Speaker
Another one of my favorite resources from Ballet Help Desk is their reviews.
Social Media Journey and TikTok Success
00:27:34
Speaker
Head to their website for over 1,400 reviews on summer intensives, want to help other dancers and their families make important decisions about the more transparency in the dance world the better head to the show notes to visit the valley help desk website today and want to talk about your social media ark because you've built this gigantic community over three million followers on tiktok
00:28:02
Speaker
how did you get started but social media So like so many things in my life, it just came out of prayer. I actually had a pretty, my one very, very serious injury.
00:28:15
Speaker
I ruptured the cartilage in my big toe joint in my left foot. I was having exploratory surgery because it had been years of it just getting more and more uncomfortable iss to the point where basically I couldn't walk without a lot of pain.
00:28:29
Speaker
So as a Hail Mary, i was getting exploratory surgery done. The doctor expected to go in, drain inflammation, shave down some bone spurs, and I would be dancing again in a couple of weeks.
00:28:43
Speaker
I woke up and the surgeon said, well, this was worst case scenario. You have the 50% chance of dancing again again because they did a complete cartilage reconstruction and I couldn't walk for four months.
00:28:54
Speaker
So that was... really intense and i was worried about just getting depressed because i was going lose momentum.
00:29:05
Speaker
I had just gotten promoted to soloist and now maybe everything's going in the wrong direction. So I went home and i was just messing with different apps, trying to figure out ways to add music to my videos to post on Instagram because at least I can edit my videos.
00:29:25
Speaker
to keep my mind going so I can like analyze and just edit them and post and maybe I can get something going. And I started using the TikTok app to add music to my videos to post them to Instagram.
00:29:39
Speaker
And then I was also posting them on that app. And those videos started to get some traction and take off. And I realized this space is super wide open. I could probably make something from this pretty quickly.
00:29:52
Speaker
think within a year i had I had 600,000 followers within second year. I had 2 point something million and it just took off. Has being active on social media opened any new opportunities for you that you didn't imagine you would have?
00:30:09
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, there's been some pretty weird stuff like TikTok flew me out to l LA with some other creators. We stayed in a house. They took us to amusement parks. That was pretty fun.
00:30:20
Speaker
I've gotten tickets to VidCon a couple of times, once from Instagram and TikTok as well. Got to meet a bunch of creatives in a completely different space than dance, collaborate with them, which is always interesting. The more you work with other artists and creatives, it changes the way you create and think about what you make.
00:30:41
Speaker
I have an entire art business from social media that i I would never have believed you if you told me about this five years ago, which has been awesome.
00:30:52
Speaker
I don't think I would be able to support new narratives if I didn't have social media as a second source of income to help support the company.
00:31:04
Speaker
So that's been awesome as well. I'd say the biggest thing is it gives me another outlet and it supports my art financially because obviously you get paid for views.
00:31:15
Speaker
If you're selling things, you can make some extra money that way too. Can you share more about the point painting videos? Those have been so popular. And I'm curious, like how did you think of this idea?
00:31:27
Speaker
So i never thought it was going to be a big thing. I thought I'd make a couple of videos and that would be that. But when I was in lockdown, I saw a video of a girl.
00:31:39
Speaker
She was dancing and there was a drone. And what was interesting about it was the drone was above her and it was a sunny day. And you can see the shadows. And I remember thinking that is so cool. The like echo of dance.
00:31:51
Speaker
It's not actually the dance. And i was like trying to figure out for a while a way to edit and sort of keep the shadow. But that's incredibly complicated. to not work.
00:32:02
Speaker
And I've also been sitting and talking with my husband about something I could do with pointe shoes. Because I have so many pointe shoes that would be interesting. But not painting them because there's a lot of more talented visual artists sitting and painting elaborate scenes on their pointe shoes.
00:32:19
Speaker
And while I was talking with him, it just sort of came together in my mind. i was like, what if I just try painting with the shoes to leave the tracks instead of doing an elaborate edit? And then it was like, is this even feasible? How could I do this?
00:32:34
Speaker
So we went to Michael's and just walked around and saw what materials we could use and how we'd have to tape it down. And okay, we'll get the cheapest paints they have.
00:32:44
Speaker
and try it on this poster board, which was the first one. And it was fun. It was slippery. I didn't dye. was like, okay, that's cool. And that video did pretty well. I got a few million views.
00:32:57
Speaker
A bunch of people were asking me to do a full ballet, which was actually my plan for the beginning. So I got a real canvas, rolled it out, taped it down. i did Carabas, which I had just performed like two weeks before.
00:33:10
Speaker
And that video blew up. That video has ah over 40 million views on YouTube and i don't know, in the team millions on TikTok. That one is my highest viewed video ever.
00:33:24
Speaker
People loved it. And I got i got immediate requests to prints and to buy the canvas itself. So cool. I love it. And I love that it just kind of evolved out of like seeing an idea and just being like, how can i make this into my own? And I feel like that's a lot of what I see on your social media is like,
00:33:40
Speaker
How can I take maybe something I see another creator kind of doing or something that I've had in my eye mind, but like make it really my own thing? That's what's so exciting about watching your your videos. Thank you. That's what makes it interesting to me is how can I do this in a creative way? How can I challenge myself to see what I have inside of me?
00:33:59
Speaker
You don't always get to do that in the ballet studio. Yes, we get to be make some creative choices, but... If you're not making the dance, there is a limit to that. So it's nice to explore. Do you have any advice for dancers who would like to build their own social community?
00:34:14
Speaker
Yes. Don't be like me. Be consistent. I only post when I'm kind of inspired, when I come up with something. Consistency is really important, particularly for Instagram and YouTube.
00:34:26
Speaker
Don't just follow the trends. That's not going to get you anywhere. I did some of that in the beginning. And what happens if you're just doing a bunch of trends is you get followers for content that you're not going to consistently make, which is useless. You want an engaged following. It's better to have 100,000 people that really care about what you're doing than million people who don't even remember who you are.
00:34:49
Speaker
So I would say, stay true to yourself, make the kind of content you want to make consistently so you're not trapped into making this kind of stuff, serving an audience. that you are so disconnected from.
00:35:01
Speaker
Don't chase the numbers. And if you are struggling to get views, try to look at your content like an outsider. If you were scrolling, would you stop and look at this? If you wouldn't, there's a problem because unless you're just making it for your mom, people aren't going to just stop and look because you made it.
00:35:20
Speaker
The most important part of any video is the first one to three seconds. The hook is what gets people interested and that's when they decide if they're going to watch the video or not. And then also try and see if maybe your video is too long.
00:35:31
Speaker
a lot of these social media algorithms really prioritize completion. So experiment, especially when you're starting out, you can take one video, one concept, make it a bunch of different ways and see which way works for you and take that information each time.
00:35:49
Speaker
When you're putting a video out, you're getting information about your content, about the kind of people that wanna see it, And try not to think of it as a reflection of your value or your worth. It's just a reflection of that video, whether it worked or it didn't.
00:36:06
Speaker
And just keep going. Don't get discouraged. So you've recently co-founded a contemporary dance Artis Dance. So want to talk about that a little bit today. what inspired you to start your own company?
Co-Founding a Contemporary Company
00:36:18
Speaker
My friend, Carrie Ruth Trumbo, is an incredibly talented choreographer, I've been working with her since she first started choreographing back in Oklahoma city, like 2020.
00:36:29
Speaker
And we have been talking for years about how we would do our shows if we could do whatever we wanted. And we both moved to Dallas Fort Worth last year. and Sort of were like, why don't we just do it?
00:36:44
Speaker
I think we were complaining about how some one of us was doing, how it would be better if it was this way. And we just realized, Hey, We can make dance. Why can't we make to dance?
00:36:55
Speaker
It's been awesome. What kinds of works are you doing? We are doing a contemporary ballet, mostly telling stories. Our first production we were so excited about is sort of a haunted house.
00:37:07
Speaker
Not like walk into a room and you get scared, but it was different dark characters. Like we had Leopold and Loeb who are famous murderers. We had jilted lover.
00:37:20
Speaker
So I was like a bride that was sort of You can interpret it as he was real or he was just in her mind. He was really, he died or he was just in her mind. There was Lizzie Borden, all of these different dark characters. And the space we had was a converted church, converted into a dance space.
00:37:39
Speaker
And you could walk through downstairs up the sort of two rooms in the more attic area, back into the sanctuary. And as you walked through, you saw a different parts of the stories of these different characters.
00:37:52
Speaker
So Lizzie Borden had a blood room where it was white canvas, white drapes, and she was trying to wash herself. And in the space when she was washing herself was blood.
00:38:03
Speaker
So she just kept getting bloodier. Then she comes out and she has her trial in the main space. I just thought it was so cool because you could walk around or you could stay and you're going to see different stories every time, different aspects of the stories.
00:38:17
Speaker
There was narration. And also singing. Since it's a project-based company, we got to have really incredible artists. We don't have to worry about trying to give them health insurance and provide them a full contract. We can just bring them in for a show, sort of extend dancers' contracts so they can get paid in the off-season and also get The best dancers available.
00:38:40
Speaker
What is coming up next for the company? Our next show, we are hoping... Actually, i have to kind of keep that quiet. We are in talks for it, so I'm not sure if it's going to happen or not. We have one we're trying to work on for this summer.
00:38:54
Speaker
But definitely in the future, we're planning on having a residency in Florida, New Smyrna Beach, where Kiruth is from. They have some beautiful arts complexes out there.
00:39:05
Speaker
And so we'd like to have a summer... residency in Florida for dancers. Yeah. I can't give away too much information about what's coming next because yeah. How are you balancing all these different parts of your life? Dancing full-time in a company, directing a company, running your social media and just like your personal life too. You have so much going on. What's your advice for that?
00:39:29
Speaker
For me, so it was getting a little out of control, but in the last few months I just started to do a little bit better aye have my notebook that every day, the day before i write out my to-do list, everything I have to do that day.
00:39:42
Speaker
And then I scratch it out. And then the next night I write a note for the next day and scratch it out. And it helps me just to sort of look only at each day. Because if I look too far ahead, it's overwhelming.
00:39:53
Speaker
But breaking it down into manageable units, I can do that. I can get through one day 17 things I have to do. That's not that bad. I think with anything like that, it's just trial and error finding what works for you. What's next for you? Anything that you're excited about coming up in your career?
00:40:07
Speaker
I have some things that I am hoping are going to work out, but it's a little early to talk about them. I think next season is going to be a really fun season and Valley North Texas.
00:40:19
Speaker
Carrie Ruth is actually making a Sleepy Hollow for us, which I'm excited about. And we have five major productions at Ballet North Texas. We will go until June, which is pretty great. That's a long contract.
00:40:34
Speaker
One of the things I like about B&T is it's really poised to accelerate and grow kind of the way Oklahoma City Ballet was when I first got there. The director is fair and kind.
00:40:47
Speaker
The dancers are really positive and the level of the company has jumped up in the last couple of years. We now have some really talented male dancers working with us. So it's just an exciting time to be in the organization.
00:41:01
Speaker
How do you feel like you've changed as a dancer since you started your career to now? Oh, so much. You would not recognize me. think one of the big things was a student, I was, as very literal when I was younger, i would just so academic.
00:41:17
Speaker
When I got to Oklahoma City Ballet, that's where Robert Mills really pushed me to develop my fluidity and ability to portray different emotions and ideas through movement.
00:41:29
Speaker
We know that's what ballet is, but when I was younger, I didn't really think about what that meant and how dynamic is so important for communication.
00:41:40
Speaker
I just didn't appreciate that enough. Okay, last question. what advice would you give to a ah dancer who is preparing for their professional dance career?
00:41:51
Speaker
That's a hard one. i would say try to, as you go along, evaluate, is this what I want? Is this company serving me? Is this environment good for me?
00:42:02
Speaker
And don't just get swept along with the tide. If it's no longer good, then go somewhere else. There are so many different places to dance and ways to dance. And it's okay to change your mind, to think this is what i really wanted from when I was young.
00:42:19
Speaker
And then to get there and realize this isn't a good fit. You don't always need to fit yourself into the company.
Finding Happiness and the Right Fit
00:42:25
Speaker
Sometimes you just need to find the place where you fit. I was infinitely more happy at Oklahoma City Ballet than I was at Houston or Texas Ballet Theater. And sometimes I think about how I almost didn't have that And what a different story I would have with dance if I hadn't taken a chance to go to a place I didn't know that much about.
00:42:43
Speaker
Yeah. This has been so great, Autumn. Thank you so much for all of your wisdom today. If anyone listening wants to learn more about you or about new narratives, where can we find you?
Engagement and Farewell
00:42:53
Speaker
The best place is Instagram. You can find newnarrativesdance.com.
00:42:58
Speaker
is our Instagram handle. You can find me, Autumn S. Klein, on Instagram, on TikTok, and autumnmo decline on maybe Autumn S. Klein on YouTube. If you just search me, you'll find me.
00:43:09
Speaker
Thankfully, that one's really easy. Amazing. Thank you so much for all of this, Autumn. I really appreciate you. Thank you so much.
00:43:17
Speaker
Thank you for tuning into the Brainy Ballerina podcast. If you found this episode insightful, entertaining, or maybe a bit of both, I would so appreciate you taking a moment to leave a rating and hit subscribe.
00:43:30
Speaker
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00:43:43
Speaker
I'll be back with a new episode next week. In the meantime, be sure to follow along on Instagram at The Brainy Ballerina for your daily dose of dance career guidance.