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40. Inside Dallas’ Rising Contemporary Ballet Company with Diana Crowder
119 Plays14 days ago
In this episode, I was joined by Diana Crowder, the Founder and Artistic Director of Pegasus Contemporary Ballet.
Diana shares her journey from dancing with companies like Tulsa Ballet and Texas Ballet Theater to creating a company that reflects her artistic vision. We dive into the journey of building a contemporary ballet company from the ground up, the challenges of entrepreneurship in the arts, and the unique vision that sets Pegasus apart.
Diana shares her experience transitioning from dancer to Director, the importance of fostering a supportive and innovative environment for artists, and how personal loss and resilience have shaped her leadership.
Key “Pointes” Covered in This Episode:
🩰Diana’s experience moving away from home at a young age to study ballet at the National Ballet School of Canada
🩰Her transition into a professional dance career and how her personal life helped color her choices
🩰How Diana’s career as a professional dancer shaped her into the Artistic Director she is today
🩰The creative risks involved in immersive and interdisciplinary performances
🩰Insights into the audition process and what Directors are truly looking for
🩰The lasting influence of Diana’s mother on her leadership and the company’s legacy
Connect with Diana:
INSTAGRAM: instagram.com/pegasuscontemporaryballet
WEBSITE: pegasusballet.org
Links and Resources:
Set up ticketing for your next event with DRT (Make sure to mention that The Brainy Ballerina sent you!)
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
Vision for Contemporary Ballet in Dallas
00:00:00
Speaker
But I was so excited about this idea of the art form of contemporary ballet really thriving in Dallas and having a company of really like talented and committed contemporary ballet dancers who wanted that feeling and of being in that space and creating work that was you know meaningful and valuable and where people were in a studio together being valued and being part of what was being built.
00:00:28
Speaker
I'm Caitlin, 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.
00:00:44
Speaker
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 to succeed in a dance career on your terms.
Diana Crowder's Dance Journey
00:01:02
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Brandy Ballerina podcast. I'm your host, Caitlin Sloan, and I am joined today by Diana Crowder. Diana is the artistic director and founder of Pegasus Contemporary Ballet, Dallas's professional contemporary ballet company founded in 2021.
00:01:18
Speaker
Prior to founding Pegasus, she danced with Tulsa Ballet, Texas Ballet Theater, and as a freelance artist. Diana, I am so thrilled to have you on today, and I want to start where I always start with my guests from the very beginning and hear why did you take your very first dance class?
00:01:35
Speaker
Yeah, well, I'm so excited to be here. Thank you so much. I think I just kind of like every little girl, my mom put me in ballet class when I was you know two or three years old.
00:01:47
Speaker
I have two older brothers that were like swimmers. And so my mom had these two boys that I think like never even occurred to her to do ballet. So i think having a little girl, she was like, oh, let's you know try the girly things. And she put me in ballet class. And then I just never wanted to leave. i just kept you know being introduced to other things and My brothers were swimmers at the time and I was okay at swimming, but I never wanted to get in the pool. i didn't want to play soccer. I just kept saying I wanted to be back in the ballet studio. So I guess the rest is history.
00:02:18
Speaker
What was your training like growing up? So yeah, I started you know at that two-year-old studio where it was a lot of fun. And then i think when I was about six, I saw the Nutcracker and I said, oh, I want to do that. you know So my mom put me in Connecticut Ballet and they were you recruiting angels for their Nutcracker. And so I got to be in the Nutcracker and I switched to that school. That was like from the time I was six until I was about 10. And they actually had a lot of different dance styles there. So in those like really, really early years, I was exposed to like a lot of different things. I remember actually really loving Irish step dancing.
00:02:54
Speaker
which I have no Irish heritage whatsoever at all. I think I just had a really good teacher. and so I loved her class and I really liked the rhythm of it But around the time that I was 10, or 11, really knew that I wanted to be a ballet dancer and I wanted to do ballet a little bit more seriously. I moved to a different school that was a little bit more professional ballet focused when I was about 10 or 11. And that was the ballet school of Stanford. If I recall correctly, the director of that school was like a former Boston ballet soloist. And um we had some really good teachers and it was a really nice group of dancers. there some other girls in that group that went on to have careers.
00:03:29
Speaker
So I grew up in Connecticut, about 45 minutes to an hour out outside Manhattan. And I knew that if I wanted to take ballet really seriously and go on the professional track and become a professional ballerina, would probably have to go to a big professional school.
00:03:43
Speaker
And what that looked like for a lot of the girls in my area was commuting to the city every day. And so that was something that we thought about. A lot of the girls that did that, were doing homeschooling at the time. and this was, you know, at a time where online schooling wasn't really what it is today. i think there's like a lot more programs and more robust programs today, but back then it just wasn't
Challenges and Triumphs at Canada's National Ballet School
00:04:04
Speaker
as much. And it wasn't really the kind of education that I wanted. i wanted to be in a classroom.
00:04:08
Speaker
And so when I was in eighth grade, my parents started kind of looking at other options and found Canada's National Ballet School. The sort of appeal for that at the time was that it was one institution, which was much more like the European model, where you would go to ballet and you'd go to school and it's one, you know, building, it's the same teachers, you're not commuting. When you have exams in school, your ballet teachers know that it's going on. And when you have spring showcase, your academic teachers know that it's happening.
00:04:37
Speaker
All those things were really appealing. And then of course, it's Some of the best training in North America, really, really just huge opportunity to be a part of a school like that. And so I auditioned at National Ballet School. You actually auditioned for the summer program. And then the summer program is a five week audition for the year. They're very open about it. I feel like in the States sometimes, or at least back then it was like, come for the summer. And it was sort of an unofficial, you know, audition for the year. But in Canada, they literally called us in the summer. We were the auditioning students. And so I went for the summer.
00:05:10
Speaker
i really liked it. And I was fortunate to be accepted for the year round program going into high school. So I left home 13, almost 14, and went to Toronto. And I trained at the National Ballet School of Canada all through high school. I graduated high school and then I spent one year there in the post-secondary program.
00:05:28
Speaker
How did you do with moving away from home 13 years old? was never like a really homesick kid. Like when I had done some summer intensives before high school, I went to Chautauqua for five weeks.
00:05:42
Speaker
Actually, i think I was nine years old. Before I did ah ballet summer intensive, I went to just like regular sleepaway camp for the first time. i left home when I was nine and i think I went for nine weeks by choice. Wow. If I remember correctly, there were three three-week sessions at that sleepaway camp.
00:06:01
Speaker
It was like a performing arts-focused sleepaway camp. I took ballet there and I took dance, but of course, you know, did all the other activities. We like jumped in the lake and, you know, all those things stayed in the cabin. And I think I just told my parents, if I'm going to go, I want to go for the whole time. And I like hardly called home. It was before cell phones.
00:06:18
Speaker
I think the camp had a computer lab, you know, that you could like email home once a week. And I didn't even do that. i just... was never really a homesick kid. I kind of liked that independence, I guess.
00:06:28
Speaker
So going away from home at 13 was at the time, the the leaving home aspect was okay. And my parents being from the New York area, it's like an hour flight or like a eight to 10 hour drive. So it it still didn't feel like too, too far. I wasn't moving like across the country, even though I was moving to a different country.
00:06:47
Speaker
My mom used to like to say my my daughter goes to school in a foreign country. And was like, mom, it's Canada. but So I think I really dove in. I embraced it and I loved it, but it was definitely ah overall really big, challenging, overwhelming experience. Just being there was such an opportunity and I got to work with some really incredible teachers, but it's definitely a very intense environment.
00:07:12
Speaker
The first few years, actually, i felt like were really fun. And like, I remember making so many friends and just like being in this new environment and yeah, just diving right in and embracing it.
00:07:24
Speaker
And, you know, I think as we all got older, like being a teenage girl is really, really hard. Like anyone that's listening, you're a girl, like we see you, it is a hard time in life when you're navigating these things. And then you put on top of that, you know, this pursuit of a really,
00:07:43
Speaker
challenging career, a really competitive career. And then you kind of take 18 to 20 of those people and put them in one classroom together. And you're going to school together, you're eating together, you're living together, you're in the dorms, you're in class, in ballet class, in rehearsal, in conditioning class, just every single thing you do is with the same really small, close-knit group.
00:08:07
Speaker
It can breed some really beautiful friendships and relationships, but it can also breed some really challenging dynamics. And so i think I dealt with a little bit of that as I got older, kind of into my teenage years.
00:08:20
Speaker
I had some really incredible training. i think I also had some teachers that weren't right for me at that time. And so i dealt with a little bit of bullying and also a little bit of just kind of challenge with my own sort of self-confidence in the studio that was sort of exacerbated by some bullying that was happening outside of the studio.
00:08:41
Speaker
and So the last couple years were really challenging, but i don't sort of regret my time there in any way. It's such a fantastic institution and opportunities to work with, you know, people from all over the world. My post-secondary year was the first Assemblée Internationale.
00:09:01
Speaker
I think that's what they're still calling it um at the National Ballet School, where they brought in exchange students from literally all over the world. So all over Europe, Cuba, all over the States, like San Francisco Ballet School, Hamburg Ballet School, Stuttgart, Royal Ballet School, Paris Opera, Australia. Like it was incredible.
00:09:20
Speaker
All of these students came to Toronto for a week of like classes and workshops and we all took classes together and we took classes with the teachers from all these different schools and then there was a big student choreography festival where students from each of the schools choreographed a piece and then it was performed with students from each of the other schools so I was like dancing in a piece by a student from the Royal Winnipeg Ballet.
00:09:49
Speaker
And my partner was from the Royal Ballet in London. Like it was insane. That's really cool. It was a really cool experience. So there are just some, you know, fantastic experiences there. But by the time that I was sort of ready to leave, I also dealt with an injury going into my senior year. So that was a real setback in terms of Again, i think my confidence and just progress in the studio and also any like casting opportunities that were happening senior year.
00:10:15
Speaker
So that was also a real challenge. By the time that I was ready to leave the National Ballet School, i was really ready to leave, but I had some incredible experiences there. Can you talk more about how you dealt with those challenges with your peers?
00:10:29
Speaker
I work with a lot of dancers who are around that age. And they tell me this time a year always comes up, people are acting weird. You know, they're in year-round programs and they're just like, everyone is getting weird. And I'm like, yeah, you know, you're all young, you're all driven, you're all trying to get a job. And everyone just starts getting a little bit in their heads and they're just doing things that – Or maybe out of character. And I'm like, weird is the right word for it. You know, i don't even know i more eloquent words, but it is just like they're noticing around them that dynamics have just shifted.
00:11:04
Speaker
and I think that is, like you said, very common for teenagers at a driven profession who are all trying to accomplish the same thing and really feeling like there's a lack of jobs and they're feeling like this competitive nature of the industry and they're worried.
00:11:20
Speaker
i would just love to hear how you dealt with that, how you would deal with that now looking back even. and Yeah, I think that at the time i didn't deal with it very well. Honestly, I think I didn't have the tools. So I think if I was going to tell somebody looking back, I think exactly what you said. First and foremost, to know that it's normal.
00:11:39
Speaker
Like you're not crazy. It's not in your head. This is really hard. It's really challenging. And I think having someone just sort of validate that for you is is also a really big step. You know, like I remember at the time dealing with some of that bullying and i that age too, you just don't know what's normal and acceptable sometimes. Not that you're stupid or anything, but you're just sort of navigating all these things for the first time.
00:12:04
Speaker
And so I remember telling somebody something that had happened that I thought I was just supposed to accept as normal. And they were like, no, that's really mean. And just having that validation made me realize that I was actually going through something and that it wasn't in my head. So I think first of all, that this was where being away from my parents was really challenging. We had cell phones at that time. I'm not that old.
00:12:27
Speaker
Just being kind of isolated from them in an environment where if I really wanted to have a conversation with them, like I would go to like a park or something, you know, because you're just in a dorm with all of these people. So I think finding that support system, whether it's your parents or siblings or somebody else, a friend of yours who's maybe a little bit older and has gone through this before,
00:12:49
Speaker
I also think that some of my friendships shifted and that that is also okay to find other people that you do sort of connect with better or who you don't have those kind of weird feelings with. Finding those people either in your class or in your life, or, you know, if it's possible, making friends outside of dance and having, you know, other hobbies and things going on. Just having a support system so that you can kind of just stay on your track.
00:13:17
Speaker
and really focus on who you are and what you're doing and thinking, focusing less about everybody else and how everybody else is treating you and how the dynamics are shifting. it was what I would tell somebody, somebody now. But I think first and foremost to know like, no, you're not crazy. This, it happens and it's really hard and it's really challenging. And all you can do is be true to yourself.
00:13:41
Speaker
And continue to look for the people who really support you versus the people who suck it out of you. Yes, exactly. i love that. Moving from the National Ballet School of Canada, how was your transition into your first professional job?
Entering the Professional Ballet World During Recession
00:13:55
Speaker
It was challenging. Yeah. I'll date myself. It was 2009. so the recession had really like decimated ballet jobs.
00:14:05
Speaker
Companies were, if I remember correctly, like we're just in a little bit of a hiring freeze. And it was also a time where second companies were new. and so the companies were all really trying to like navigate that. There was really no such thing as like a traineeship per se Second companies were popping up amongst some of the bigger companies, but they were only like three or four years old. So when I was graduating high school, like I said, I came off of that injury. And so I didn't really do a lot of auditions my senior year of high school. The staff at National Ballet School and I, you know, together sort of decided that I wasn't really ready for company auditions at that point. I think both due to the injury and also due to some of the like confidence, you know, really deep confidence issues that I had been struggling with.
00:14:51
Speaker
And the National Ballet School had, at the time they called it PSP, don't know if they still do, but post-secondary program, which is basically just that year of post-high school training where we didn't have to go to school anymore. we didn't have to wear a uniform.
00:15:03
Speaker
we had like kilts and knee socks and everything. You didn't have to wear a uniform in ballet class. You could wear whatever you want and kind of have that bridge year between student-student and professional and and really focus on auditions and training.
00:15:17
Speaker
And so I did that. And i think that year I did, gosh, I don't even know how many auditions, probably low twenty s But I also did a European audition tour that year, which, you know, in Canada, they had a lot of relationships with European companies and things like that as well. And so... There was a group of us that went off to Europe and it was an incredible experience.
00:15:40
Speaker
I didn't get anything from any of the auditions. One of the feedback that we kept getting at that time was, you're just so green, you know, you're so young. And companies, I think especially over there, hadn't really started the second company thing as much.
00:15:54
Speaker
And they weren't looking to hire 18, 19 year olds And so some of that kind of shifted, but actually just going to Europe, it was a ton of work. Looking back, I don't even know how I did it. I mean, booking all the flights and the trains and foreign currency and just being in foreign places and having to navigate in different languages. And I stayed in hostels. I stayed in hotels. I stayed on couches of National Valley School graduates that were dancing at these companies.
00:16:24
Speaker
But I think I was in Europe for maybe two weeks and I auditioned for something like five or six companies while I was there. i was just really fortunate to have that experience, I think, at that age. So I did that.
00:16:36
Speaker
i remember my very first audition. Again, if I remember correctly, I think this was my first audition ever was for English National Ballet. I think. Oh my gosh. what Not a great idea. And they were having, they were like in theater week. So they were having class on stage and,
00:16:56
Speaker
I don't even remember what happened. I remember like I went to this audition and I like blacked out and came out of it. Like what just happened? I was so overwhelmed. I was so just like, had no idea what's going on. Had never been in a company class before, let alone a company class on stage in a theater. It was just kind of crazy. So I think I would definitely recommend like as you kind of start your audition tour to do a couple of like, I don't want to warm up auditions, but Some auditions for companies that you might not even be interested in or might not go to or that might be local or nearby or see if you can get some company classes somewhere or something like that.
00:17:36
Speaker
Because I just remember that first audition was like really hot out the gate and I had no idea what was going on. I did that. I did a whole U.S. audition tour, of course. It was really, really challenging, and i somehow got my first job ah at Tulsa Ballet in the second company. i remember after that audition, i was asked to stay and do a couple of extra things, and...
00:18:00
Speaker
I think they emailed me a few weeks later and said that I had gotten a contract for the second company. And I remember emailing my teachers in Canada with like all caps, subject line, like I got a contract.
00:18:13
Speaker
So yeah, so that was really exciting. i was moving from Canada to Tulsa, Oklahoma. I remember one of my teachers saying like, it's pretty warm there, isn't it? Because it was so cold in Canada.
00:18:24
Speaker
I made that transition and started in the second company. And that was amazing. Just a really wild ride. I learned so much in those first two years. Can you elaborate? ah Yeah. so Tulsa Ballet is a really, like, it's a really fantastic company. They have some really incredible dancers and they do amazing rep, kind of like in the middle of Oklahoma. Tulsa is a really interesting city. Like they really... support their arts. It's sort of a tight-knit community since it's kind of a small city.
00:18:52
Speaker
It was a really like tough and competitive environment. The second company, we sort of had our own group and we would take company class, I think, like two or three times a week. I was really lucky that when I got there, the company was doing Swan Lake and there was a dancer who was injured. There was like two second company members that were in the core. And then I think I was like third in line or something. And then one girl got injured and I got to go in and do Swan Lake, which was just a really great experience. I had done Swan Lake at the National Ballet School. So I sort of had a little bit of an idea, but it really, and helped me
00:19:28
Speaker
make that transition in a way. But Tulsa Ballet was a really tough environment. It was really competitive. The dancers were really good. the classes were really hard, like lots of tricks and things like that, that you don't normally see actually in company class.
00:19:43
Speaker
I think I just learned a lot. I had a real weakness in my jumps. I hate to use this word, but I was just a bad jumper. I had a really hard time getting off the ground. It was something that I had been told and been working on like my entire time at National Ballet School.
00:20:00
Speaker
I actually had a teacher tell me like, you're not going to get a job because you can't jump. And that kind of mindset is really devastating. And I just knew that this was something that I needed to breakthrough.
00:20:13
Speaker
And when I got to Tulsa Ballet, of course, and they told me that too, you know, your jumps, your jumps. And there were so many great dancers in the company but I remember in some ways, learning to jump by just watching them. Like I would study these dancers. I would watch them do petite allegro and just see how buoyant they were and how bouncy and like figure out if I could somehow emulate that feeling.
00:20:34
Speaker
I also started doing just really basic chair exercises. Like I was like jumping up on chairs everywhere I could. Like, Like after class every day, I remember just being really regimented about it There was like, you know, just a chair on the side of the studio for like visitors or the director or something. And I would do just an exercise where I would like put one foot on the chair and like jump up onto it, kind of like a a step up, but like a jumping step.
00:20:59
Speaker
up And I would religiously do three sets of 16 on each side or something like that. i also started going to the gym and working on more explosive movements at the gym and not just doing like my 30 minutes of elliptical, but doing like wall balls and box jumps and like strengthening my upper body and things like that.
00:21:18
Speaker
And my jump improved. And like, I was never a great jumper, but I think I finally got myself to a point where I had made some progress in this area that had really been hard for me. And I think that being in that company environment just made me realize that taking a more professional attitude towards it.
00:21:37
Speaker
um So I just learned a lot of things like that in those first two years. I think, again, you're in this really small, tight-knit, competitive environment. I was in the second company for two years. My second season, i remember casting went up for Nutcracker, and I was just, like, not on it.
00:21:54
Speaker
um I was not set to learn anything. And I knew exactly in that moment, like, I'm not going to be in this Like, I'm not going to get a job here, you know? And so that was really devastating. i remember casting went up right before we were actually set to do a second company show.
00:22:10
Speaker
So we had a performance and that was another big thing that i learned and that I had to do is I took this really devastating news and I just said, okay, I got to get on stage and I got to smile and I got to do this performance. They were um school shows and connect with these children and just remind myself that these kids are here to see dance and maybe they've never seen dance before and it's a really special day for them. So that's my job right now. I'm going to get on stage and
Transitioning to Texas Ballet Theater and Personal Life
00:22:35
Speaker
do that. And so having those experiences where you have to deal with and face the realities of being in the work was something that i really learned at Tulsa Ballet. And I also got to do some other really great rap. I got to do a Twyla Tharp piece there, Push Comes to Shove. And in that like school student show, i did like a little excerpt of a pas de deux from Four T's. And so it was definitely a really big growth and learning experience. I feel like I like cut my teeth there in a lot of ways.
00:23:03
Speaker
I knew that I was not going to get a contract with the main company and that for, you know, variety of few reasons I wasn't going to be a fit for that. And so I just started a kind of diving myself back into audition season, you know, and I auditioned a whole bunch of places.
00:23:18
Speaker
This is kind of where like a little bit of my personal story comes into the ballet story as well. Like I mentioned, I was injured my senior year of high school. I bruised my talus bone and I had to take that entire summer off to let it heal.
00:23:32
Speaker
And that was really devastating because that summer I was supposed to go PNB summer program and I was really excited to do that, but I couldn't. So like I had also mentioned, I've been to the Chautauqua summer program for a couple of summers when I was younger. and Chautauqua is just a really incredible place.
00:23:48
Speaker
If anybody listening has ever had the chance to go, it's a really just beautiful. beautiful place beyond the dance program even. It's like a summer festival of art and culture. and so when my parents took me that first year, they dropped me off and they said, this place is amazing. We're coming back. So they started going back every summer and it became where we would go as a family on our summer vacation every year. And so that year that I was injured and I couldn't go PMB, I had to go on vacation with my parents to Chautauqua And I was really young, but I actually met what would become my husband that summer.
00:24:21
Speaker
He's not a dancer, just ah met him through mutual friends from people that go back to Chautauqua every summer. And so we were kind of two kids on the lake and we met and we started dating when I was going into my senior year of high school.
00:24:33
Speaker
We dated long distance. He came to visit Toronto a few times. Then when I went to Tulsa Ballet, we dated long distance in Tulsa and he was actually from Dallas. So Dallas to Tulsa wasn't as bad. And then when I was leaving Tulsa, I did the whole U.S. audition tour. I auditioned everywhere.
00:24:50
Speaker
And the job that I got was at Texas Ballet Theater here in Dallas. People ask me, you know, like, what brought you to Dallas? And I say, well, it was kind of work and life. So I i got the job with Texas Ballet Theater and I also...
00:25:02
Speaker
At the same time, got to move to the same city as my, at the time, boyfriend of like four years. And then two years later, we got engaged. It all worked out how it was supposed to. Yeah. I joined Texas Ballet Theater in the company. So I got a company contract.
00:25:20
Speaker
and was there for five seasons. i again, had some really, really great experiences at Texas Ballet Theater. I was finally full company member. i was still pretty young. I think I turned 21 right after i joined the company.
00:25:36
Speaker
I love like big ballets and I love story ballets. I always love like telling stories through ballet. And so, you know, I got to do all the big story ballets with Ben Stevenson. My first year we did Pure Gint, which is actually like a very dramatic story ballet that is not done that often, but it was really cool to be a part of that. Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake. We did some Balanchine Rev. We did a little bit of new work, Cinderella, you know, all the big ballets.
00:25:59
Speaker
When I was going into, what was it? I think it was my fourth season. i'm going to get some of the timeline mixed up because it was so long ago. My second to last season with the company, I had another pretty severe injury. So feel like my career in some ways, i didn't have a lot of little injuries. I had like some big injuries that like had an impact.
00:26:20
Speaker
I was in the core. I, like I said, got to do some great things. I did feel a little bit stuck at times. I felt like I wasn't really getting a lot of like further opportunities, but it was only my fourth season. And then leading up to the end of that season, i was one of the eight dancers in the core in Rubies, which was really, really fun and got to be cast in some of the new rep that was being created. i started having this really bad pain in my hip and it was like leading into my back.
00:26:49
Speaker
And it went undiagnosed for a while because i presented a little bit differently. So I had a torn labrum in my left hip. And oftentimes with the torn labrum, the pain presents in the front of the hip. but I think around 15 to 20% of the time pain presents in the back of the hip.
00:27:05
Speaker
And so i had that and the PTs at the company it just kind of didn't diagnose it for a while correctly because of that. But I finally had an the MRI and it turned out that I had a pretty big tear in my labrum and I was going to need surgery.
00:27:17
Speaker
And it was just the perfect storm of bad timing. The season that I went out, I had actually got married that summer. I went from my honeymoon into the OR.
00:27:30
Speaker
but and Yeah, I had surgery over the summer. And then I was sort of out the whole beginning of that season. and then I came back like after Nutcracker. But it was a perfect storm of bad events because also that time, it just happened to be that a lot of the senior soloist and principal women were also out for various reasons. So I think we're One of them was pregnant. It was the year that Betsy McBride moved to American Ballet Theater.
00:27:57
Speaker
There were, I think, a couple of others that retired, and there was one that was also injured. This was like all of sort of the more senior soloist group of dancers.
00:28:08
Speaker
And so it was a huge opportunity for the core dancers to kind of come up and take some of those roles, not take, but step into some of those roles and have those opportunities. And I was out also.
00:28:19
Speaker
On top of that, it was a year where a lot of the rep that was being done in the spring was actually being rehearsed and set in the fall. And like, they never did that, but that season they did.
00:28:31
Speaker
Val Canabaroli came and created a new piece on the company in the fall. that was actually to be premiered in the spring, but I was out in the fall, even though I was back in the spring. So it was just kind of this like perfect storm of bad timing that when I came back, I just was sort of like left out of all of that opportunity. At the same time, I think that I didn't realize or anticipate the mental and emotional impact that the injury would have on me.
00:29:00
Speaker
I had never had surgery before. i was you know also at this really big place in my life. I had just gotten married and it felt like this huge part of who I was and who I had always been.
00:29:13
Speaker
Being a dancer is such a part of your identity to go from being 23-year-old shape almost feels like it you're approaching the height of your career, dancer, to being on crutches for five weeks, like overnight.
00:29:28
Speaker
It just really felt like the rug was just pulled out from underneath. And I think that I had really prepared myself for all of the physical challenges of it. I interviewed like two different physical therapists to make sure that i had the right one. and i and was really committed to doing all the PT and getting back to dancing. And I had an incredible surgeon, actually went to Houston for the surgery, who was like, you know, you will recover from this. You will dance again. This is absolutely recoverable.
Rediscovering Passion and Career Planning
00:29:55
Speaker
And so I was really ready for all of the physical challenges, but I think I just completely didn't anticipate the mental and emotional challenges. And when I came back, I was dancing again and i missed out on a lot of those casting opportunities. So I felt like I was a little bit brushed to the side It was almost sort of this feeling of like, oh, you're back.
00:30:15
Speaker
And I lived in Dallas. The company's in Fort Worth. It's about a 45-minute commute. And I was commuting every day. But while I was recovering, I was just sort of, I was in Dallas. I had a physical therapist in Dallas. I was going to the gym. I was doing all my work. I was doing bar at my apartment complex, like all of that.
00:30:32
Speaker
But I wasn't really... in the studio until I was like coming back. And so I think I was just a little bit out of sight, out of mind for the company. Kind of all of that combined with just the mental emotional toll of having this rug ripped out from under me, I became really depressed.
00:30:48
Speaker
I think I sort of recognized it in myself. I was back at the studio dancing a little bit in some of the like core roles that I could be cast in in some of the works. And i remember just being so unhappy. And I was like, what is going on? Like, I'm back in the studio. I made it through the injury. I made it through the surgery.
00:31:07
Speaker
Like, I am miserable. And I remember like going to get lunch on the lunch break and just being like, I don't even want to go to the studio. Like dancing isn't making me happy right now. And that was a really scary place to be.
00:31:22
Speaker
I recognized it as depression. at least I thought maybe it was. And so I sought help and I started seeing a therapist and that was amazing. That was really helpful. I love her. I still see her. I totally recommend it for like, literally, i think that Therapy is being destigmatized, but I think like, especially for dancers, I like to think of therapy as like a maintenance thing. Like, even if you just go once a month, just someone to talk to.
00:31:45
Speaker
i also found out that I was like severely anemic. Like I had really low... red blood cell count, I was so tired and i was also vitamin D deficient. And I just found this out at like my regular annual checkup. From what I understand medically, those deficiencies can go hand in hand with depression too.
00:32:01
Speaker
And so I just was kind of in this place where I didn't realize what was happening to me. Then I started to realize what was happening to me and I was trying to kind of take care of it while also trying to make it at the studio and get cast and be in the things. And I came back for the next season and Texas Ballet Theater And i just sort of felt like things were a bit of an uphill battle for me still.
00:32:24
Speaker
That season I was let go um or my contract wasn't renewed. That was a moment where, well, what I can say is that it was so devastating. It was my worst fear. You know, it was like everything that you like don't want to happen and it comes crashing down. And it was like a really, really hard moment. And i was devastated and Then I remember also within maybe a week, all of a sudden it was like this huge weight was lifted from my shoulders.
00:32:54
Speaker
I just felt so relieved. Texas Ballet Theater is a fantastic company. i had some really great experiences there, but kind of all of those things sort of compiling at the end, I just wasn't happy and wasn't really accepting that until it was kind of told upon me.
00:33:10
Speaker
And then that started this whole journey into kind of rediscovering who I was as a dancer and why I want to dance and led me into that freelance thing.
00:33:21
Speaker
There is so much dancers need to learn as they pursue a professional dance career. 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.
00:33:37
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.
00:33:52
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.
00:34:07
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.
00:34:24
Speaker
Tap the link in the show notes to download your copy today and start pursuing your dance career with intention. I'm sitting here listening to your story and like tearing up because there's so many things you're saying are taking me back to moments in my career and like having injuries like that and being in such a deep depression and not being able to physically recover the way I want to because mentally I'm so low and yeah, that feeling of losing the community not feeling a part of it.
00:34:54
Speaker
Because that's one of the biggest things when I retired, even when I miss the most to this day is the community, is the dressing room. you know like And I miss performing. I miss class. I miss all of it. But it's like, that's the thing that really shocked me.
00:35:10
Speaker
I remember even going, and I think I've talked about this before, but I remember even going to like class after I retired and I was still working on the administrative side But I'd go take class. Everyone would be talking about things that were going on in rehearsal or an inside joke. And I was like, oh, I'm not part of this anymore.
00:35:28
Speaker
Like this is my community and these are still my great friends. And they care about me. I care about them. But I'm just not a part of this. That was more jarring than anything else. And i I stopped taking class or even going in that part of the environment for a while because it was just – too hard emotionally. There's so much that resonates with what you're saying.
00:35:51
Speaker
Yeah. All of that just kind of gets like pulled out from under you when you have an injury or you're out for some reason like that. And, you know, it's hard because you can say like surround yourself with a support system. And I i really was like I was with my husband.
00:36:06
Speaker
My family was so supportive. My friends were supportive. It's not that I didn't have a support system. I think I just didn't anticipate those changes. Not blaming them necessarily, but I think the staff at the company also just had no idea what I was going through. The fact that i was had this like pretty significant red blood cell deficiency and I was really low iron, like I didn't know what was going on. I didn't even know why. i could not get through the left side and petite leg rope.
00:36:37
Speaker
Like yeah I remember doing Nutcracker. so Ben Stevenson's snow is a pretty puffy, challenging snow because you don't go off the whole time. So it's one of those things that you yeah do every year and you just get back into it. And it takes like a few weeks of running it through every day to maintain it. And then by the time you get to the theater, you're like, okay, it's puffy, but like, okay, I got it.
00:36:59
Speaker
And I just never got to that point. All my friends were like, okay, you know, it's just snow. Like we can do it at this point. And I was like, I'm just not there yet. Like I was still so puffy. My feet were cramping.
00:37:11
Speaker
And I just had no idea why until a couple months later, I went to the doctor. I'll definitely talk a little bit more about this later too. But I think this has also informed a lot of my leadership as an artistic director of understanding that there are so many things going on in a dancer's life or so many things that you just might not even be aware of or see that if somebody is struggling or it seems like maybe they're not as quick today or not as strong today as they were last week, like checking in and saying like, Hey, is everything okay?
00:37:39
Speaker
Like, you know, just checking in what's going on. Is there something that I can do to support you more? And that was just something that i hadn't really had in any environment. It was very much just kind of the way that things are in the way that things were. And listening to some of the other podcasts, I feel like a lot of dancers have sort of said a similar thing of just knowing when a place isn't right for you and it's time to move on.
00:38:01
Speaker
And because of kind of where I was in my life, I was in sort of a ah unique situation because I was married and I had really settled my life in Dallas. And so picking up and moving to another company was like either really daunting or just like not really an option for the priorities that I had in my life. And so when that happened, it felt like an even worse thing because it felt like, well, how am I even going to dance? There's no other big dance company here. And my husband, he at the time was kind of starting a company. He's not a dancer, but with a colleague of his and we like had bought a house and we were we settled. And so I knew that I wanted to to stay in Dallas, but he was like, Diana, maybe like,
00:38:40
Speaker
You just need to take a breath and kind of like see you what else is out there. Like see what other options you have. Texas Valley Theater is a beautiful company and they are in this area, but they might not be the be all and end all of dance period for you. Which is hard to see when you're in it It's so hard to see that. You need that perspective from someone who's totally outside of the industry sometimes because even your friends within were all just so in this ballet world, but talking to someone who's like,
00:39:09
Speaker
not a dancer, totally removed from that, they can just see it in a different light than you can. This is something that I think was really powerful for me at that time, coming out of this place where I was like, didn't recognize myself for dance not really making me happy anymore.
00:39:26
Speaker
You know, like I said, I was talking to a therapist and she also just had some great perspectives because I remember there was one piece that I was cast in second cast and I was like really devastated by this because All of my other peers, it felt like in the company who had kind of been there around the same length of time as me were in the first cast.
00:39:46
Speaker
And I was like devastated by this. and I was telling her about it and she was like, wait, but you're going to perform the ballet. Right. And I was like, well, yeah, but I'm in the second cast. And she was like, so? She was like, that doesn't make any sense. You're going to do it on stage for an audience? And I was like, yeah.
00:40:02
Speaker
And she was like, okay, so why don't you do that? Isn't that funny? Yeah. She sort of said to me one time, like, it shouldn't really matter, or like, if you're doing it in second cast, or if you're doing it in a broom closet, like, why do you want to be doing and I felt like at that moment in time, i really had to reconnect with like, why do I love dancing so much in the first place?
00:40:26
Speaker
Why am I doing this? What matters to me about dancing? Because I knew I didn't want to quit. I wasn't at a place where I was like, I don't like dancing anymore. i was like, I love dancing, but it's not bringing me joy. That doesn't make sense.
00:40:39
Speaker
I really had to reconnect. And then through that process and That's when I say like there was this weight lifted from my shoulders that I all of a sudden started to sort of see things kind of in a different light and that maybe I could have a career that just serves me a little bit differently and that I could maybe try to design it for who I am and what I want.
00:40:59
Speaker
I started looking around. Texas Ballet Theatre is the big ballet company here. Again, this isn't a criticism, but it's insulated. I think in the company, a lot of the dancers aren't really aware of some of the other dance that might be happening in the city because we're so focused on, you know, making the work that we do.
00:41:14
Speaker
And so I started to kind of look into what other dance opportunities or options there were in Dallas. And I actually found a lot was going on here. This was 2017. So what I started to do is just, I dove headfirst into finding freelance opportunities, small companies that were doing things here in Dallas. I also really pursued trying to find short-term contracts that maybe I would travel for, but that wouldn't have me like moving or leaving, but like guestings maybe in other cities or things like that. And I just like dove headfirst into it with this like completely new reinvigorated energy of, like I am going to make a career. I'm not going to stop.
00:41:57
Speaker
I'm not going to move cities, but I'm going to keep dancing. And that became a really exciting thing for me, actually. Dallas, Texas, isn't like a hub of freelance dancing. Like it's not New York or LA, but there were some little companies here that were sort of like bubbling under the surface that were doing some interesting projects here and there. And there were two of them at the time. It was Dallas Neoclassical Ballet and Ballet Dallas.
00:42:21
Speaker
I joined those too, and I did some guestings for some schools in the area. I did some guesting for a company here called Avant Chamber Ballet. I started taking class every day at like the open class studio and just like met a lot of people through that and teachers through that. I kind of like had this...
00:42:39
Speaker
I think sort of like big headed goal and like looking back, it sort of seems a little bit big headed, but I think it was also necessary to like go after it in the way that I wanted. But I was like, I want to be like the go-to freelance ballerina in Dallas.
00:42:52
Speaker
Yeah. So I did that and I kind of dove first into this freelance career. I also got an opportunity in Seattle with Arc Dance that had like an eight to 10 week summer season.
00:43:04
Speaker
And I got that opportunity right away. And so that was lined up like my first summer. That was just such an incredible opportunity and such an amazing experience. It's a really cool like summer season company.
00:43:17
Speaker
i think it was 10 weeks. My brother lived in Seattle, so I got to go out and i lived with my brother. was like, hey, I'm moving in. Spend time with him and my sister-in-law. This was before they had kids too.
00:43:28
Speaker
and ah spend 10 weeks in Seattle, which was like tough with me my husband, but it was something that he was really supportive of me building this career. And it's a very mixed rep company, so we got to do all kinds of different things. And there were dancers from kind of all over the country. There were several dancers from Boise, Idaho, from Ballet, Idaho, that came to do this for the summer.
00:43:49
Speaker
And I just kind of felt like, oh, I've like found my people a little bit more. Some of the work was creation-based, so I got to be... in sort of a small group of dancers that were having work created on us.
00:44:02
Speaker
And so we each had like a little bit more of a voice. It felt in some ways for the first time, like I was really valued for what I brought to the table. Like I was picked to be there and it was only a 10 person company. So everybody was there for a reason and there because they were contributing something. And that was an incredible feeling.
00:44:19
Speaker
And I think just kind of being in some of the small companies, that's just, that's how it felt as a freelancer that you're like, I'm in this contract because they picked me to be here. And so therefore i have something to contribute.
00:44:32
Speaker
And in that, I felt like there was so much space to grow and to say, okay, what do I have to contribute actually? How can I take this? How can I take everything that I've learned and like be an artist with it and bring more to it? Or it wasn't,
00:44:46
Speaker
sort of trying to fit into the mold for lack of better way of putting it. Cause I don't think in a, in a big company, you're always fitting into a mold, but there is a little bit of, there's a casting hierarchy and there's this and there's that. And all of a sudden all of that goes away. I just found that to be a really incredible experience.
00:45:02
Speaker
I love that. And I think it's so true because in a larger company, i mean, there's just more people, there's more core work, there's more of, we have to dance the the same in these parts. It feels like there's less time, like you're trying to get everyone together, whereas in a smaller company, I felt also that I had more freedom and also that you're going in as a soloist.
00:45:22
Speaker
Everyone has to have that level of performance quality right away because you're going to be dancing alone. You're going be dancing in small groups. I brought out confidence in me that I didn't have before because it was like, okay, yeah.
00:45:35
Speaker
Like you said, I was picked to be here. i feel like I know exactly what I have to offer, what my role is, and that feels really exciting for a dancer. Yeah, that's exactly it. And i think you also get to work with different choreographers and directors. So it's like, if one place isn't really working or one choreographer like doesn't really gravitate towards you, then another one might and isn't the same like sort of existential, like if the choreographer doesn't gravitate toward me, then I'm not going to get to perform in this triple bill. And then I'm not going to, you know, get to rise in the ranks and I'm not going to be seen and blah, blah. It's just like, yeah, if this one doesn't work out, there's another one. Or if I'm not the soloist in this piece, then like, cool, I'm glad that my friend is and I'll, you know, I'll catch the next one, like allows for a lot more flow and flexibility and therefore confidence. And I think within that, you can just find yourself a little bit more.
00:46:31
Speaker
or a lot more. And so, yeah, I also think that in that time, I got to work with teachers who were really incredible and influential on me.
00:46:42
Speaker
One of the companies that I was dancing for here in Dallas was called, it was called Contemporary Ballet Dallas. And kind of at the point that I was getting there, they were transitioning the name to Ballet Dallas. That's somewhere that I got to, you know do some more of these like featured roles and be in just a smaller group where we were all kind of seen it was at that point that Carter Alexander, who I think some of your other guests have talked about, he's an incredible teacher that has just touched the lives of so many dancers across this country. He's here in Dallas.
00:47:12
Speaker
I met him there and he choreographed on that company and i he featured me in his work and was just such an incredible teacher. And so I met him there and he became kind of a ah teacher and mentor of mine through some of those years.
00:47:26
Speaker
actually in some ways completely changed the way that I even thought about my technique. Here I am 27 or something, completely learning new things about not just like who I am as an artist, but about my technique and how I can use my body and growing in those ways too. And even my husband, who I said is not a dancer, but has known me, you know, this whole time and has seen me on stage since I was like 17, was like, wow, you are such a better dancer now than you ever were at Texas Halle Cater.
00:47:58
Speaker
I think that that time, this like incredibly devastating thing that I thought was the worst thing that could ever happen to me in my life ended up being maybe one of the best things that ever happened to me as a as a dancer and as an artist.
00:48:10
Speaker
I think that's powerful for our dancers to hear you say because at the time it's hard to see anything else. Exactly. Just knowing that there is something else out there better for you, even if you can't see it right now.
00:48:24
Speaker
Absolutely. And it takes the hard work. As dancers, that's what we're trained for. We're trained for hard work, you know? And so you go after it. You have to be super organized and on top of it. And I had Nutcracker spreadsheets of, you know, places that I had reached out to or, you know, whatever. but yeah, I think that that was just a really formative time for me in my life and in my career.
00:48:47
Speaker
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00:48:58
Speaker
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00:49:12
Speaker
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00:49:25
Speaker
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00:49:36
Speaker
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Founding Pegasus Contemporary Ballet and Its Vision
00:49:42
Speaker
I want to talk about Pegasus. Yeah. So how did you found Pegasus Contemporary Ballet? Did you always see yourself directing the company?
00:49:51
Speaker
Absolutely not. I never sort of like had a dream or a goal to be an artistic director. So kind of picking up from where I left off with my story, i was... dancing for you know these small companies that were doing a lot of different things.
00:50:05
Speaker
And I should say too, not all of it was fantastic. I think that that's another thing to know about freelance life and time and especially that transition is I was just grabbing on to every opportunity that came my way. I was just like being super open.
00:50:22
Speaker
But like I did some shows that were not that good. No judgment, no, you know, projects that like sounded cool, but like didn't really get pulled off in the way that they would be or whatever. But I was on stage, you know, and I was on stage for maybe like 30 people. But it was one of those things where I got to a point where I was like,
00:50:37
Speaker
Who cares how many people are in the audience? That's not why I'm doing it necessarily anymore. Kind of through that time, because I you know didn't want to travel as much and I was wanting to focus little bit more in Dallas, I was dancing for this company Ballet Dallas.
00:50:50
Speaker
Carter Alexander came on, he choreographed a little bit, and then he became co-artistic director of that company. And it was really kind of in transition. It was a company that had been around for a really long time, but had gone through like several phases and was now kind of in a place where there were more talented dancers coming to Dallas and looking for work in Dallas. And there had been some really you know talented choreographers that were interested in creating work. And so the company was kind of trying to pivot into a little bit more of a professionalized company and season and Carter work.
00:51:23
Speaker
was instrumental in that and a huge mentor for all of us in the company. So that was all kind of happening through that time. I also became really interested in business and entrepreneurship and arts management.
00:51:37
Speaker
As a freelancer, you kind of have to be your own business a little bit. But I also saw some of these little companies like struggling to make it and they didn't really have great websites or social media because there was nobody doing that kind of stuff. So I became really interested in like what makes this art form thrive.
00:51:53
Speaker
What makes it flourish? How do we market? How do we get audiences to come to the show? And I started to become really interested and passionate about that. i started managing the social media for one of those companies and helping to put together marketing events and things like that. And then the pandemic hit and everything just like came to a crashing halt, you know, as it did.
00:52:12
Speaker
I was at that point 23. twenty 8, 29, think it went into the pandemic feeling like I was like at the height of my career and um being like, I am not going to, you know, stop. We're going to make it through this. We were doing classes in the living room, like all that good stuff. We did some live Facebook performances where we'd like choreographed solos and perform them live on Facebook. And, you know, everybody was just trying to do something during that time and figure out and navigate it But as time went on,
00:52:42
Speaker
And on and on and on a year and a half later, and was like, you know, my back really hurts from jumping and trying to, like you know, take mini classes in my living room. It just kind of got to a point where it was a little bit unsustainable.
00:52:58
Speaker
Carter, unfortunately, had to step back from the company because things were just really difficult to manage. And he has an incredible full time job at SMU. The companies that I was sort of dancing with during that time kind of didn't have the infrastructure to make it through the pandemic.
00:53:14
Speaker
But I had really been so passionate about that vision of having a strong contemporary ballet company in Dallas. And so there was a little bit of time that another dancer and I stepped in to kind of steer the ship a little bit for that company.
00:53:33
Speaker
We partnered with a school and did a nutcracker. We produced a little like nutcracker film that we made around Dallas. I did sort of all the like site procurement for that and kind of like acted a little bit as like the executive director. I was sort of interim executive director trying to keep things going and make budgets and seeing how we could get things organized and marketed. And I was calling, you know, sites that we wanted to film and pitching the idea and trying to get sponsorships and stuff like that. And eventually,
00:54:02
Speaker
It kind of became clear that again, the infrastructure wasn't really there for that company to move forward. But I was so excited about this idea of the art form of contemporary ballet really thriving in Dallas and having a company of really like talented and committed contemporary ballet dancers who wanted that feeling and of being in that space and creating work that was, you know, meaningful and valuable and where people were in a studio together being valued and being part of what was being built. And so i did a lot of market research. I put together like a 15 page business plan. Like I spent a lot of time on the research side. I looked at 990s of other contemporary companies that are here in Dallas. There's some fantastic ones here, Bruce Wood Dan's, There's, of course, Dallas Black Dance Theater.
00:54:49
Speaker
And at the time between like 2017 and 2019, their budgets and revenue had grown. And there's Titus here, too, which is a presenting company and presents all of the big companies that tour the country and tour the world. So like i just saw Ballet Hispanico here in Dallas through them.
00:55:06
Speaker
They had all grown before the pandemic. And so I saw that audiences in Dallas, there was a hunger for innovative dance, but there was nobody creating here in Dallas in the contemporary ballet space specifically. There was no contemporary ballet company that was solely focused on that genre.
00:55:21
Speaker
And that was what I was really passionate about. And I really dove headfirst into the executive director side of things and I incorporated the company, i filed for a 501c3, and that was the birth of Pegasus Contemporary Ballet in a very small nutshell.
00:55:38
Speaker
We talk so much about your experiences in the studio with different companies, and so I'm curious what type of environment are you aiming to create for your dancers in the company? My time as a dancer does inform how I think as an artistic director.
00:55:56
Speaker
You know, I really started the company with this desire to create an environment where dancers really feel supported and happy and where they can thrive. It sounds sort of cliche and simple, but I just really strongly believe that unhappy dancers don't make good art.
00:56:12
Speaker
And especially in a contemporary ballet company, we're very creation-based. So we are creating all the time and creation takes an incredible amount of vulnerability. I also have seen so consistently throughout my time as a dancer in my career that the most successful dancers are the ones that have opportunity and are supported.
00:56:31
Speaker
You don't become a better dancer by sitting on the sidelines or by not learning the variation or you know, by not getting cast. And I just saw over and over the dancers that would get cast in soloist roles and principal roles were the ones that obviously it became better dancers because they had the opportunity and the experience. And you have to be able to mess up and make mistakes. You have to have bad shows. You have to have bad rehearsals in order to become better at what you're doing. You know, that was something that i just kind of felt when I was a dancer, like if I wasn't cast in something or if I wasn't cast to even understudy it or learn it, I was like, well, I guess I'll just go to the gym.
00:57:09
Speaker
but I'm not becoming a better dancer on the elliptical. I'm becoming a better dancer if I'm in the back of that studio working on the turning sequence that I'm struggling with. I believe really strongly in that.
00:57:20
Speaker
I think a lot is lost in communication between dancers and staff and dancers and directors. I also really believe in transparency. you know, I will tell my dancers everything that I can. Of course, there are some things that are don't involve them. And so it's not like something that I want them to be thinking about or concerned about. Like, I always tell them, you know, you can look at our budget if you want to. i was like, it's not your job, though.
00:57:42
Speaker
You don't have to concern yourself with it. But if you're ever curious, like, how much are we spending on XYZ? Like, I'll tell you, I think that there's so much that can be just so much tension that can be eliminated just with open communication and so that's something I also really try to maintain like if there's an issue or a problem i think the worst thing that it can do is fester we always tell the dancers like if there's anything going on like please just come to us and talk to us about it and our rehearsal director Allison Schuster is also incredible and we're just like really in step on both of these things and We've had some tough conversations with the dancers where they'll bring something to us and we're like, okay, like we hear you. And sometimes we're like, that is totally reasonable. Let us see what we can do. And we make a change and we change it.
00:58:24
Speaker
And sometimes we're like, look, we totally understand. We're not able to make that change, but here are the reasons why. And then hopefully you can understand where we're coming from. And that works. Of course, I'm running a company of five to six dancers. So I can't pretend to know what it's like to run a company of 40 dancers. But I do think that at scale, these kinds of leadership models work.
00:58:46
Speaker
Another thing that I did when I started the company is I like binged Brene Brown's podcast, Dare to Lead, just found it so inspirational. And, you know, she has like incredible talent.
00:58:58
Speaker
People on there from all different fields, from like sports coaches to tech entrepreneurs to I think Barack Obama was on an episode, like just hearing leadership strategies and Brene Brown's vulnerability research and how that kind of works in leadership is just, I think, really, really important. So I tell the dancers like, you can come to us with anything. We can't always guarantee that we're going to make a change, but we can at least have a conversation about it.
00:59:22
Speaker
And that makes a huge difference for a dancer because at least you know your voice is being heard because that's what people want. Exactly. is to feel heard and to feel understood and to have a reason for why things are the way they are.
00:59:37
Speaker
And potentially maybe there's something that they bring that they have an idea. one piece of advice that I heard was if you're going to bring an issue to a leader, come with a solution.
00:59:49
Speaker
Yeah. Come with some ideas, come with some possible solutions for how either you could help with this, what could be done. and again, it might not actually work in the entire infrastructure of the company.
01:00:00
Speaker
There's things that as dancers you don't know about. There are things that, like you said earlier, they don't need to be worrying about, right? They need to be able to focus on their work. That's your job to worry about those things for them so that they can do their best dancing.
01:00:13
Speaker
However, just having that ability to have a conversation, bring ideas to the table and feel like your ideas are listened to. makes a huge difference in workplace morale.
Growth and Challenges of Managing Pegasus Ballet
01:00:23
Speaker
Absolutely. i think that that's really true.
01:00:25
Speaker
You know, as far as the dancing side, i just think we know from research and leadership and from, it's not just in dancing, in every field across the board, you grow and you learn from mistakes.
01:00:37
Speaker
I'm never going to be mad at a dancer for like falling out of a turn on stage or making like a genuine mistake. In our first season, we did our last show at Moody Performance Hall. We do one show there a year at Pegasus right now. And it's this really beautiful pristine theater stage.
01:00:56
Speaker
And one of the ah work that I choreographed, one of our dancers came on stage at like the completely wrong time. It was like a dramatic moment. She came on stage and then she just like went back off. and She was like so upset. And she was like beating herself up about it. And I was like, look, it's live performance. Like it's going to happen. I'm never going to be mad at you when you're already mad at yourself for making a mistake like that.
01:01:20
Speaker
I'll be mad at you. Not mad, but I'll be frustrated or disappointed. Like if you give up, if you don't, if you make a mistake that was made out of sort of like negligence or because you like just weren't paying attention you weren't giving it your fault but I'm never going to be mad because you fall out of a turn or you come on at the wrong time which you've literally never done before in rehearsal because you just had the nerves of performance right creating an environment where dancers really feel comfortable to be vulnerable is also just so important to some of the work that we do because we do some some different kind of stuff and
01:01:57
Speaker
We can, if you want, go into like my philosophy of the company and the programming and that we do and the kind of work we do. But we do some site-specific immersive work. You know, one of the sort of inside jokes of Pegasus is like, welcome to Pegasus, you're doing something you've never done before. and the dancers really embrace that because it's it's usually really like challenging and fulfilling and different stuff. So like we just did a show at an art gallery where the dancers were dancing on large sheets of paper with charcoal on their feet, making like charcoal art as they were dancing.
01:02:30
Speaker
And it was completely immersive. So they were running from paper to paper. They were going through the audience, up and down off of these platforms. Like it was a really interactive and immersive show. And like,
01:02:41
Speaker
that can be really scary and vulnerable. And we want to set the dancers up for success as best we can. So we rehearsed the heck out of it We went to the space and we were like, how many aids is it going to take you to get from one paper to the other paper? But once you have people in the space, you just never know what's going to happen. And so giving the dancers that freedom to say, if something happens, you can do it, like you can handle it is so important also to the work that we do. We did a show last year where the dancers were talking, we gave them a script, we collaborated with a poet and a playwright, and we had danced to poetry and danced to music. And it sort of all intertwined where there were like these scenes that connected the poetry and the dance together. And they were talking about sort of
01:03:24
Speaker
what it means to be an artist. wow And so we asked a lot of them, like that was a really challenging process and a really vulnerable place to be as a dancer to all of a sudden say, hey, you're going to act for like 20 minutes in this show and and speak lines.
01:03:39
Speaker
And so, yeah, just creating an environment where we're always kind of trying to innovate and do new things that engage audiences in different ways with ballet.
01:03:50
Speaker
That's a core thing of the company that I find really fascinating and exciting about contemporary ballet is that we can engage audiences in ways that are unexpected. We do the site-specific or immersive shows, or we do shows that are narrative and tell stories. And sometimes that asks a lot of the dancers.
01:04:09
Speaker
And so it is really important to me to make sure that they're taken care of, that they're set up for success for those shows and for these experiences and that they can grow. and I've seen it work. I'm so proud of each of the dancers in the company because I've seen each of them grow so beautifully since they've joined as artists, as dancers, as people. You know, some of the things that I see them doing in rehearsal now, I'm like, there's no way that you would have done it like that to go and join. So that I think is is really like beautiful for me to see and very fulfilling.
01:04:44
Speaker
And I love that you recognize that you have to create an environment where of safety in order for dancers to go to those places because i think we've all been in environments where we're asked to be more vulnerable, where we're asked to really part ourselves out there, but we don't feel safe.
01:05:00
Speaker
We don't feel as supported. And then it's really challenging as an artist to do that. And I would say even going back to when you were talking about making mistakes, I have made way more mistakes in environments where I was scared to make a mistake. Exactly.
01:05:13
Speaker
Whereas when I have environments where I know that I can go for it, and if I make a mistake, that will actually be celebrated. You know, like if I fall on my butt going for it, they're going to clap. But I'm not making as many of the other kinds that I would do in an environment where I'm just truly scared.
01:05:30
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. What has surprised you the most about running a professional company? Well, I guess a few things. One, like the biggest challenge is just the sheer volume of it.
01:05:42
Speaker
Like we're still pretty startup company. We're in our fourth season. And so I'm just still wearing so many hats and working really, really hard to get this company from this sort of startup seed idea where it's like, we've now done some incredible shows. Like it's grant season, so I can tell you the stats because I've been writing about them, but it's like,
01:06:04
Speaker
Since we started 2021, so three and a half years, we've commissioned 20 new works of choreography. 11 of those were interdisciplinary collaborations. Something like six or seven of them had original scores. And we've done two full evening length works.
01:06:19
Speaker
And we're working on our third right now. So it's just the volume of work, of just things... into it completely outside of the studio, the PR, the marketing, the board recruiting and board management and fundraising, of course, and grant writing and just kind of trying to hold all the little pieces and keep it together and just grow the company. Even in the arts, even in nonprofit, you're a startup entrepreneur starting a business. And so there's just a lot of those kinds of things to think about, I think has been probably the most challenging thing.
01:06:50
Speaker
I don't know about surprising. i think in any entrepreneurial endeavor or in so many endeavors, like we were just talking about, people say, you know, you're going to make so many mistakes and you're going to learn from them and you're going to grow from them and you're not going to be perfect.
01:07:03
Speaker
And you're like, yeah, yeah, I know. Like, I'm going to make mistakes. Like, You know, it's going to be great. I'm going to grow from them. And then, of course, never make the mistakes that you think you're going to make. Because you've thought those through already. Yeah, exactly. the mistakes that you make are always the most surprising ones because they're the things that you didn't anticipate. And so that's why you made the mistake and you grow from it.
01:07:23
Speaker
I don't know if there'd be like one thing that's been the most surprising, but it's just the sort of sheer volume and dynamics of it. And, you know, I'm trying to find a little more work-life balance and like all these things.
01:07:33
Speaker
But yeah, I think it's hard to say one thing. Yeah. Well, we were chatting before we started recording and you were telling me you have a 19-month-old daughter. So you had your first child amidst starting company, very much overlapping. How was that experience for you? Yeah. I mean, i think...
01:07:50
Speaker
There been a lot of like personal challenges the past three and a years too. It's been a personal time of huge change and growth for me as well.
01:08:01
Speaker
Because I also went, I retired. you know I went from being a dancer to within just a couple of months being an artistic director. And that is a huge growth arc that I think I'm still on. you know I'm still learning. I'm still growing as a leader and as a director. And I think that that's a big part of my job too, is to continue growing into that role and you know finding ways both in the studio with the dancers to step into that role We have one dancer in the company who has been with us from the beginning. She was actually my first hire.
01:08:32
Speaker
And she at one point told me that I've made huge growth as a leader. That was so meaningful for me to hear from her. You know, i think that when you have these relationships with dancers, it goes both ways because we're both professionals in this field. And so, you know, like when we have meetings with our dancers, the first question we ask them is, do you have any feedback for us?
01:08:51
Speaker
That's so important. We're a very growth minded organization. We're a startup. So two way feedback from the beginning has been really important as a growth journey. So I'll also share some like personal hardship when I started the company.
01:09:06
Speaker
ah kind of went through that transition in the pandemic of being really interested in arts management and doing that research and having this really strong vision and starting the company. I tried to hire some dancers. It would actually, it was pandemic. So it was transition for so many people.
01:09:20
Speaker
And I like hired an initial group of dancers and then all but one of them ended up going in a different direction. I had to completely hire a whole other group of dancers. So like during that time, just kind of trying to get the company going,
01:09:32
Speaker
And my mom passed away, actually, in like the month that I started the company. My entire world was just like completely turned upside down. I was in Connecticut with my family for I think like two months.
01:09:46
Speaker
She had been sick and battling breast cancer and she had been doing some like new treatments. And so the time between when it became clear that she might pass away soon. And when she passed away, it was like five weeks. It was like pretty quick.
01:10:03
Speaker
Wow. I mean, my mom was literally on my board. she was at the first board meeting. Also, because my mom was the chairman of the board for a small dance company in New York for several years. And she had been on nonprofit boards her whole life. Like she was very qualified to be on the board. And she was a huge support system for me.
01:10:21
Speaker
throughout my entire career. It was the hardest thing that's ever happened. And it's still, you know, not okay. Not a day goes by that I don't think of my mom. I remember like being in the hospital with her and showing her the two brand kits that we got for the company that I was deciding between, like which direction should our website go. And I think that that time is like such a blur.
01:10:40
Speaker
And so I don't even know how I did it. It's some ways a testament to like how passionate I was about this vision that I just completely dove myself into it after i got back to Dallas.
01:10:51
Speaker
And just went head first. Our first show was in November. She passed away in July. And our first show was in November. Which is like insane to think about. And that show was dedicated to her. And she was just like a huge reason. She is the reason that I am where I am today. I mean like.
01:11:07
Speaker
She raised me to be ah leader and a dancer, and I never really got to like do that until now. So that was a huge transition time for me, also dealing with retiring from dancing and losing some of that identity, which had sort of slowly happened throughout the pandemic. I think I sort of mourned my dancing career during that time, but it became pretty significant once i was full-time just not dancing anymore.
01:11:33
Speaker
And because I went so headfirst into everything else that it took to get the company off the ground, i like wasn't even taking class. And I like haven't really taken class anymore. Like I had, I got like a desk job.
01:11:45
Speaker
Yeah. That, that first year was a lot that July, a year later in that show that I was talking about at the Moody performance hall, the piece that I choreographed was in honor of my mom and our highest donor circle is named after her still.
01:11:59
Speaker
She's just like always going to be a very integral part of the company because she's such an integral part of me and the journey that it took to starting the company. My personal journey in doing this has also taken such leaps and bounds. I mean, it was also crazy. Like at that time, my husband and I were actually living with my in-laws because we were moving. they weren't even like settled in a house.
01:12:22
Speaker
so it was just so much change at once. It wasn't like a new chapter. It was like a new book. It was like several pages that got turned. kind of building this out of that time and out of that passion and just like really strong drive, i think is part of what's been able to help me like propel forward and also take some perspective and learn a lot of lessons and like just have a lot more perspective on how life fits into dance and how I'm sort of building not a new life, but just a very transitioned life in going from
01:12:59
Speaker
dancer to founder to director to hopefully building this company into something that can last and is sustainable for many, many years to come.
01:13:10
Speaker
Thank you for sharing that. And I think that's so beautiful that your mom is still such a big part of the company. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. What's your long term vision for the company?
01:13:21
Speaker
I really believe that Dallas, Texas, this sort of region is capable of sustaining a really thriving contemporary ballet company.
01:13:32
Speaker
And so that's what I want to build. Like I said, right now we have five dancers, but I'd like to grow. You know, I think like someday the ideal number is like 15 to
Mission and Programming of Pegasus Ballet
01:13:42
Speaker
20. So like a little bit on my vision for the company and like the work that we do,
01:13:48
Speaker
our mission statement is to use the classical foundation of ballet to express contemporary perspectives, engage diverse communities and enrich the human experience. And then our vision is sort of phrased as an invitation that we invite people to experience ballet as a living contemporary art form that resonates with the humanity of all who encounter it.
01:14:11
Speaker
And that does encapsulate my vision for the company. We do that in kind of four ways. We have four things that I refer to as like our pillars of programming. So immersive, up close, site specific, like I was talking about before, where we change the audience relationship with the performers. We perform in art galleries or maybe like a black box or spaces where the audience is like really up close with the dancers and you get to engage with dance, but particularly ballet in a way that audiences have never really thought of before, experienced before. And I think that that's just so
01:14:48
Speaker
exciting and important for like the progress of this art form. The second pillar that we talk about is narrative work. So we tell stories through dance. I think that that really connects to people and it's something that I've always sort of loved.
01:14:59
Speaker
We did that show where the dancers were acting and talking. Coming up, our next show is in collaboration with a fantastic contemporary dance company here in Dallas called Bombshell Dance Project. And it's sort of a reimagining female perspective on Swan Lake, inspired by music and kind of bringing the swans and their sort of sisterhood to the forefront of the show. i did ah one-act ballet of The Gift of the Magi in our first season. So things like that that tell stories and connect to people that way.
01:15:27
Speaker
And then the third pillar of programming is innovative work. So lights, camera, action, exciting voices in contemporary ballet. We want to bring in choreographers. We've worked with some incredible choreographers in the past. Last year, Tan Dao, Michelle Thompson created work for us. worked with Tan Dao.
01:15:43
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, beautiful. He created a piece here last year. So, you know, the contemporary ballet in a traditional proscenium theater. And I think that both are really important. I see, you know, some projects and companies doing this immersive and site-specific work, which is amazing. And then some companies do these, you know, they perform in the proscenium theater and they do this exciting, like, wow, engaging ballets.
01:16:05
Speaker
And I sort of feel like for Pegasus, both are really important. And why why choose? I think that we have been building seasons where we've done both in a season and it provides a lot of variety for the dancers.
01:16:18
Speaker
Every show is is a slightly different experience. And it also provides a lot of variety and excitement for our audiences. And then the sort of fourth pillar is collaboration. So we do a lot of interdisciplinary work. We worked with a poet and a playwright. We've worked with visual artists.
01:16:33
Speaker
We did a show in an art gallery where the artists painted the dancers costumes. And then we do this show called Synergy, which we've done now twice. And we're building it as a for lack of better word, like flagship production that we do.
01:16:47
Speaker
It's where we commissioned three new works of choreography to be created in collaboration with three Dallas-based musicians. And the musicians perform live on stage with the dancers. So we work with musicians that are like performing in like clubs and bars across the city.
01:17:03
Speaker
So not classical music, not contemporary classical music, but like DJs and jazz musicians and singer-songwriters and people from the local music scene here. Dallas actually has a really vibrant local music scene. There are so many talented musicians here and no one really knows about it. People more think of Austin for music, but there are some really incredible music programs here in Dallas. And so a lot of musicians...
01:17:29
Speaker
are here And it's kind of just starting to like come to the forefront. And we bring that together with contemporary ballet. And it's like this really exciting show that's really challenging for the dancers, but so rewarding. And so that's kind of passion.
01:17:44
Speaker
vision for programming and for the company moving forward and to just continue to build on those things. Where I'm really focused on growth right now is internal. So we need more staff. We would like more dancers. We would like to pay our dancers more.
01:17:57
Speaker
All of those things that get a company from that really exciting startup phase where we're like, oh, wow, we really have something here. People have been really excited. We've gotten incredible responses from audiences. We've received 11 grants in the past like three and a half years. That's huge. And getting that to a place where we can sustain like a bigger and more professionalized company.
01:18:17
Speaker
yeah We're only four years old. Yeah.
Audition Tips and Dancer Success
01:18:20
Speaker
When you're holding auditions and looking for dancers, draws you to a dancer? Yeah, I'm really glad you asked that because in thinking about this and listening to your podcast, auditions are so hard, right? Like I'm here to tell you that they're hard for us too. Like not minimizing how hard they are for dancers because it's definitely worse, but it's also a challenge on the artistic director side. It's a lot of people who are entrusting you with that really vulnerable experience and process and they're showing up and you don't want that tension and that bad feeling. You know, like when I'm watching an audition, I'm rooting for you. Like, I'm not sitting here being like, you know, I hope she falls out of this pirouette so I can judge her. Like, not at all. Like, I want you to do well. I want you to have a good experience in this class.
01:19:06
Speaker
And I want you to show yourself, you know, I want to see the best of you. I'm rooting for you. Yeah, I think that what stands out to us, I mean, in our company, especially versatility is just so important because we do point shoe rep and we do sock rep and we do everything in between. And there are times where we go weeks without putting our point shoes on and then we put on the boots and go full steam.
01:19:27
Speaker
So that kind of versatility and strength. is really important. The sort of like openness, being really just like ready for anything is also really important. So we're not just looking at your dancing in an audition, we're looking at, again, for lack of better word, your attitude.
01:19:42
Speaker
And I feel like that word is so loaded, but we're looking at your at the way that you approach your work. Like if you're really open about it, if you really just want to gravitate more towards something else, and that's fine, but this just might not be the place for you. So it's that kind of stuff. Performance quality, confidence, comfort in your own skin is something that I think across the board, directors really stands out.
01:20:04
Speaker
Can I give a few audition tips while here? Yes, please. Really mostly for digital auditions is what I have tips for. So first and foremost, research the company. and know what kind of work they do. So we do point to work and we do contemporary work.
01:20:21
Speaker
And when we click on an audition video and the first thing we see is plies at bar, like that isn't going to help us very much. Put your best stuff at the front of your video If you have performance footage that really shows some really beautiful dancing or some really dynamic dancing that you did, I would put that at the very front.
01:20:40
Speaker
I would put that at the front your video. I think that maybe there are some other places that really want to see your bar work. And that's nice for us to see, to like see your technique, but either put it in a separate video.
01:20:50
Speaker
That's even better. that's labeled bar work so that if we want to see your bar work, we can just click on that link. But I've seen so many dancers that have, they put the bar work in front and and then they put the classical variation in the studio, and then at the very end, they have their best work.
01:21:07
Speaker
And please don't do that. The other thing that I would say is, so this is hard because we know that you didn't choreograph your contemporary solo necessarily, or the contemporary work that you performed in or whatnot.
01:21:21
Speaker
And we're not judging the choreography, but sometimes it's a little hard to see the forest through the trees. And I have seen so many contemporary solos or contemporary works that haven't had edited out moments of like lying on the floor floor work like dancing floor work is super valuable so include that but I can't tell you how many times I've seen a dancer that's like rolling on the floor or is on the floor for like eight counts and it's like we want to see you move and sometimes in performance a like dramatic slow moment
01:21:52
Speaker
is really effective, but on video, again, we want to see you move. We don't want to see the beautiful, slow arm flap that you're going to do for the drama of it. So those kinds of things where highlight and feature your most dynamic movement right up front, at least for a company like ours, where it's a ballet company and you did your research and you know that that's the kind of work that we do.
01:22:17
Speaker
I would also say that in a online application, sometimes we see like really lengthy cover letters. That, you know, i think the dancer wants to show that they've done their research. And so they pull things from our website about, I think that I would be fantastic in this show that you did for these reasons.
01:22:35
Speaker
And it's like, that's very sweet, but a really short and sweet cover letter that just... Simply introduces yourself, says, you know, what your experience is, why you're interested in our company in one or two sentences is great because we can sort of tell that you've copy and pasted. I've even received emails where they forgot to cut and paste. So it's like.
01:22:56
Speaker
said, you know, I would just love to be a part of blank company and it wasn't ours. yeah So just being thoughtful about, yes, doing your research, but the cover letter is not the most important thing.
01:23:08
Speaker
We just want to get a sense of who you are and we want to see your best dancing first. Okay, that's actually very interesting because I do coach dancers to tell a bit of a story in their cover letter because I feel like lot of times it's helpful to hear that human side of them and kind of like, but I definitely agree that you can tell when it's a form letter versus ah genuine letter. So do you feel like getting something that you feel is really genuine is helpful or do you still just like don't put that in there?
01:23:35
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. I think that's what it is. i just didn't want to say it. Something that's genuine and says, this is why I'm interested in dancing for your company in two to three sentences, brevity is good, is wonderful. And that's great. But sort of the form letter that we can tell that it's phony, I think is what it like We can tell that you just went on our website.
01:23:54
Speaker
and cut and paste, you know, when we say, these are our values, and you say, these are my values, and right, that kind of thing. And then sometimes it's it's really long, like having it be more than ah paragraph is just like, we're probably not going to read it because we just don't have the Yeah, well that's one thing I do tell dancers a lot of times and I totally agree about researching the companies because you have to show that you actually know about them. And I do say go look at their vision, look at their values, see if they align with you to see if it's a good place for you. And then if you do feel like you're aligned, choose one specifically that you do really align with and tell us how.
01:24:30
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Or give an example of something that you have done in your career that has been aligned with that value or how you could very specifically bring that value to the company. and Yeah. As opposed to, like you said, just copy pasting the vision and saying, this is my exact vision. It's like, well, we can tell you just did that. So I like that you're saying that. And I am kind of like getting my wheels turning. Okay, maybe we need to pare down some of the things that I'm having dancers send because – Maybe it's too much, but going back and always just making sure it's that genuine voice and not just like checking the box, right?
01:25:03
Speaker
Yeah. It also will really depend on the company. And I think that exercise too of going through, doing the research, looking at the values and really understanding and articulating why your values align with those is really good because you might get an interview and then can speak to those things in your interview. So that's something that we do with all of our dancers. I actually think it's sort of insane that we hire dancers in this industry without interviewing them.
01:25:26
Speaker
It's like, yeah, we just saw your body and your abilities come move across the country and be a part of this group that doesn't know you at all. And you don't know us, we'll figure it out. and Like, especially in a company that's so small like ours, it's really important that we get to know you and who you are. And we're not just hiring a complete stranger to be a part of this really intimate environment.
01:25:50
Speaker
You know, and I can only speak to my experience, but also especially for us to do that research. And then if you do get an interview, I would love to hear about that. I would love to hear how you went on the website and saw our values and they resonated with you. That kind of thing like genuinely does move me. Like I'm still just honored that people want to be a part of what we're doing. So with everybody that emails us, I'm like, thank you for your interest in Pegasus Contemporary Ballet.
01:26:15
Speaker
We're all here like creating art creating. creating life together. So thank you for wanting to do that with us is still, I think, a really important thing. Can I also just plug that we are having auditions? Yes, please. We are doing a New York audition for the first time this year on March 29th. So we would love to see anybody there and you can find the details on our website or on our Instagram.
01:26:37
Speaker
Okay. And then you also accept video auditions? We do. If you can't link it to either of those auditions, you can email us at auditions at pegasusballet.org. Such great advice. And i love that you're giving that specific advice for your company. And I think that that's so important for dancers, again, just to do your research.
01:26:54
Speaker
I know everyone wants a job but you're trying so hard and you just want to like play the numbers game. And that is part of it. But it's also like the best auditions I had and the ones where I got the jobs were the ones where I was like, I align with this company. I want to do this rep.
01:27:10
Speaker
I feel something when I'm here, when I watch their YouTube videos or whatever. Like those are the jobs I got because they could tell that I genuinely was passionate about it. And we can tell. Yeah, definitely.
01:27:20
Speaker
Okay. Last question. What advice would you give to aspiring dancers who pursuing a career? I love that you asked this of all of your guests. I've been thinking about it. And like a couple of things come to mind. I think a big one, i was thinking about it again this morning, is that think there's this aspect of being a dancer that is kind of two sides of the same coin.
01:27:42
Speaker
And that is on the one hand, you have to take responsibility for yourself. You have to be really responsible. We all know that you have to work so hard. You have to have the drive.
01:27:54
Speaker
If you don't have the drive, You know by now if you're listening to this podcast, like you should be doing something else if you can think of anything else to do. Especially when you become a professional dancer, there really is this transition from being a student to being a professional where you have to take that responsibility.
01:28:10
Speaker
And if something isn't going the way that you hoped or the way that you want, it's like, okay, do I need to do these extra PT exercises? Do I need to adjust my sleep habits? Do I need to show up for myself better in class and and all of those things?
01:28:24
Speaker
And I think we all kind of know that, but having that drive, i think it's really also easy though, to get to a place where you sort of get into a spiral where it's either like,
01:28:37
Speaker
I am just the worst. You know, they hate me. Like i'm I'm exaggerating, but you know, my casting isn't good because I'm just such a horrible dancer. And then you're doing those PT exercises out of beating yourself up and you're going to the gym out of punishment. That's not a good place to be. At the same time, on the other side of the coin, it's also really easy to be upset and angry and say, well, I'm doing everything I can. What's wrong with them?
01:29:01
Speaker
Why aren't they doing this for me? Or why aren't they doing that for me? And that's where it comes in, and where you have to check in with yourself. Am I really honestly showing up for myself? Am I really doing the things that I know I need to do to set myself up for success?
01:29:14
Speaker
And if you are doing those things, if you are showing up for yourself in that way, having the perspective to think, okay, maybe it's not someone else's fault, but maybe this isn't the right place for me. It's a balance.
01:29:29
Speaker
It's like a constant balancing act of Figuring out who you are and being really like honest and true with yourself and also understanding that if you're not in a place where the staff or the people who you're working for, if they're not on your team,
01:29:49
Speaker
then maybe it's not a good place for you to be. And those two things are really hard. It's really hard to balance those things out. And so I think like finding that balance so you don't get into either spiral of I'm just horrible. I'm a horrible dancer. i have no confidence. I'm not doing do drop because I'm just never going to be good enough.
01:30:09
Speaker
And what's wrong with them? They're the worst staff ever. They just hate me. And how could they treat me this way? And of course, I'm talking in like hyperbole is on both sides. But does that sort of make sense?
01:30:21
Speaker
Totally. Taking that radical responsibility for yourself. And that gives you the confidence to make a very informed decision about if you are in a good place or not. Because then you're like, yeah, I'm taking responsibility for my stuff.
01:30:33
Speaker
Sometimes I feel like if you're in an environment that's wrong for you, you're you don't feel motivated to do the things you need to do because you're just like, it's not right. And so maybe if you're really feeling like, I just don't even have that motivation to do the things that I know that I'm supposed to be doing and I'm just not into it, maybe you're not in a place that is the right place and that can come from both sides, you know, and that's okay.
01:30:56
Speaker
But then also it is okay to recognize like the people here who are supposed to be teaching me or mentoring me or coaching me are not on my team.
01:31:07
Speaker
It was phrased that way to me at one point where I was kind of like struggling with this teacher and I thought it was all me, like it was all my fault, what's wrong with me? And another dancer that was having the same struggle said, I just feel like he's not on my team.
01:31:21
Speaker
a And this is, you know, and from my approach as a director, like it's my job to set my dancers up for success. That makes my whole company better. My interest is in making every dancer in my company be the best dancer that they can be.
01:31:36
Speaker
And I believe that the way to do that is by supporting them and making sure that they have what they need to set them up for success so that then they can take those responsibilities and say, okay, what do I need to do to strengthen my ankles and do the exercises or whatever it is? you know And then how can i support you in doing that? can i offer you the name of a PT that I like, or can I offer you some exercises that I thought really helped me? Like, it's my job to set you up for success so that my whole company is stronger.
01:32:04
Speaker
That's kind of my perspective. That would be sort of my advice to dancers. If you're in a place where you just feel like the people who are making the decisions about your career just really aren't interested in helping you further your career, i think that's sort of the sign.
01:32:19
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. This has been amazing. know i like trying to process the stories you've shared. I've been very pivotal and I'm going to thinking about this the rest of the day for sure. so what i on Of course.
01:32:32
Speaker
Of course. So if anyone is interested in learning more about you or about Pegasus, where can we find you? Yes, please do. Give us a follow. We're on Instagram at Pegasus Contemporary Ballet. Our website is PegasusBallet.org. I'm on Instagram at Diana Crowd, although I never post and everything I post is just Pegasus. So if you want to know what's going on in my life, just follow the Pegasus account.
01:32:55
Speaker
And our audition information is also up there. We'd love to see you. Okay, perfect. Thank you so much, Diana. This was a great conversation. and I'm really thankful for you. Thank you so much. I'm so grateful to be here and appreciate all that you do.
01:33:10
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.
01:33:23
Speaker
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01:33:36
Speaker
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