Pas de bourrée, 1-2-3, 1-2-3 — jeté and turn out, pointe more, extend the fingers and allongé, fifth position. Make it look easy. Hide the pain behind a glowing smile. These commands circled through my mind like the methodic ticking of a clock, a rhythm I lived by for years.
When I was three, my mom signed me up for ballet classes at a Russian Vaganova school, one of the most rigorous forms of classical ballet. From that moment on, I immersed myself in a world of tights and tutus, leotards and pink ballet slippers and beautifully unforgiving satin pointe shoes. My feet, constantly wrapped in tape and blister pads, often felt like they were on fire from the blisters of practice, long rehearsals and performances. But I didn’t mind. Over years of dancing, I internalized the discipline to maintain my technique while pushing my body to its limits.
The stage was my sanctuary. There was something intoxicating about stepping under the hot stage lights, the glow illuminating the cloud of rosin dust kicked up from my pointe shoes. We painted our faces with exaggerated layers of makeup to counteract the dazzling spotlights as if we were clowns performing in a circus. The energy backstage was just as thrilling. Quick changes became a performance of their own — a flurry of corset laces and ribbons being tied, hair being curled and lipstick being reapplied. It was a whole operation, made all the more special by the jokes, whispered stories and moments of laughter between the other dancers.
Ballet was more than a hobby, it was an obsession. I begged my mom for anything that could help improve my technique: a turning board to perfect my pirouettes, resistance bands that promised Gumby-level flexibility, silicone toe protectors that were about as effective as putting a Band-Aid on a broken leg and lambs wool to soften the pain of pointe shoes. My room became a shrine to ballet, littered with leotards of all colors, cracked pointe shoes lined up like battle trophies, and a jewelry box from my grandmother with a ballerina figurine inside who spun to Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake” whenever I twisted the key. I would watch her spin, imagining myself on a grand stage, performing for thousands, leaving behind something people would remember long after the curtain fell.
More than anything, I wanted to be Clara in “The Nutcracker.” Every December, I watched the chosen girl take center stage, cradling her Nutcracker with all the poise and importance of someone holding the Olympic torch. I told myself, “in a couple of years when I’m older, that’ll be me.” Clara wasn’t just a role — she was the role. The golden ticket. The ballerina’s equivalent of winning an Oscar. I wanted to be the girl younger dancers looked up to, the one who made people believe in magic.
Spoiler alert: I never did play Clara in my thirteen years as a ballerina. But looking back, I realize playing a girl who doted on a nutcracker wouldn’t have been the pinnacle of my ballet career. I participated in the Joffrey Ballet Summer Intensive in Chicago, danced in productions I’ll never forget, and built a level of discipline that still clings to me today. Even now, when I pick something up off the floor, I feel myself falling into an arabesque. A silly habit, maybe, but an undeniable part of me.
I may not be on stage anymore, but the ballet still lingers in the way I move, the way I think, the way I see the world. It taught me how to chase perfection while embracing imperfection, how to balance strength and grace, how to find beauty in discipline. I never became Clara, but that’s not to say I didn’t find something all the more worthwhile — I became someone within the ballet, and a person who navigates the world with the grace it taught me. And that, I think, is just as magical.