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Day-To-Day Life As A Professional Ballerina

April 9, 2017 by 4dancers

black swan
Sharon Wehner as the black swan in Swan Lake. Photo by David Andrews.

by Sharon Wehner

As a professional ballet dancer, I often get questions from non-dancers about what a work day/week/month looks like. This is usually followed by a look of surprise when I say that I dance 6-9 hours a day, 5-6 days per week, an average of 45 weeks a year. b35 of those weeks are as a member of the Colorado Ballet. The others involve guesting and contract work. The 8 weeks of “off-time” are scattered throughout the year, and spent taking class and cross-training.

So what does a typical day look like? That all depends on the week. During my season with Colorado Ballet, there are two basic time periods: Rehearsal and Performance. Rehearsal weeks consist of a 4-6 week period of learning and rehearsing repertory. Performance weeks involve both rehearsals and performances, including stage, tech, and dress rehearsals in the theatre, as well as “maintenance” rehearsals at the studio.

Rehearsal Period

During a rehearsal week, we begin every day with an hour and 15 minute Company Class. As a dancer who also teaches, I’m always amazed at how much the ballet mistress/master can squeeze into 75 minutes with 50 dancers in the room! Barre is usually only about 30 minutes, but we still get in every necessary component: plies, several tendus and dégagé combinations, ronde de jambe, fondue, frappe, adagio, and grande battement. Center combinations vary depending on the teachers, but we alway do a center tendu, adagio, pirouettes, small jumps, assemble, petit allegro, sisones, grande allegro, and sometimes a coda combination. One teacher manages to squeeze in additional center fondues, grande battement, and an assemble jump combination.

As one can see, company class has to run like a super efficient well-oiled machine. There is little time for corrections or individual attention. But even some of that does happen. Professionals are expected to pick up combinations quickly, transition from one group to the next seamlessly, and apply corrections without interrupting the flow of class.   There is also an etiquette amongst professionals which enables the class to churn along. Every company has their own unique unspoken rules about barre space, mirror space, groupings, and “territory”. I always smile when I see the new “kids” trying to navigate these rules when they first enter the company. Luckily, most dancers are fairly intuitive, and masters at reading body language. Ideally, the less-than-aware dancers are taken aside and given a little guidance. But, I have also witnessed a senior principle chew out a young oblivious pup, and it can be quite the spectacle.

Class is followed by a fifteen minute break. Three hours of rehearsal follow this, then a one hour lunch break, and another three hours of rehearsals. Depending on the person and the productions being rehearsed, a dancer may only have one hour of rehearsal, but could just as easily have six hours. Generally, we rehearse more than one ballet at a time. We may be preparing the most immediate production (Swan Lake, for example), as well as learning repertory for later in the season, and working on the creation of new choreography for another season, all at the same time. As we get closer to production week, rehearsals are increasingly distilled down to focus only on the most immediate production.

Performance Period

Tech week involves a mix of technical, orchestra, and dress rehearsals twice a day in the theatre leading up to Opening Night. Our company usually performs a student matinee the morning before opening night. In the past few years, this performance has been live-cast locally and internationally to schools in ten different countries. Thus, even though it is technically considered a dress rehearsal, the student matinee is actually treated like a live show. Dancers and orchestra are expected to carry on in the face of mistakes and mis-cues.

The following weeks consist of a mix of rehearsals at the studio during the day and performances in the evening.   During a performance day, our rehearsal time is limited to three hours, with a minimum of two hour break before being called to the theatre. We always have formal class before rehearsal, and then are responsible for warming ourselves back up at the theatre before the show.

After a run of performances, we return to a rehearsal period schedule, and the cycle starts all over again. Sometimes there will be a week or two layoff in between. This is usually a welcome recovery time for both the body and the mind (not so much the bank account, but that’s another story).

Off Season

Once the season winds down, usually in April for my company, we enter into a four month lay-off period. This time is utilized differently amongst various dancers. Many, like myself, pick-up contract “gigs” either performing or teaching, which often requires being free to travel. For example, I have been to Japan about 10 times, working with choreographers and performing as a guest artist. I have also worked with various pick-up companies. This involves a pretty serious commitment of daily rehearsals and performances, much like the work I do during the season with Colorado Ballet. I have also utilized the time to take college courses. Other dancers prefer to pick up non-dancing work, such as waiting tables or nanny-ing. It’s always a tricky thing—balancing rest and work and play during a lay-off. By the end of the rigorous season, the body and spirit are usually craving time on the beach eating copious amounts of ice cream.   Sometimes this is possible, but not usually my style. The closest thing was last spring, when, after a very difficult year personally and professionally, I did a yoga teacher-training in Costa Rica. Even though the schedule was packed—a 200 hour training in 21 days—being immersed in nature and learning a new skill steeped in wisdom teachings, was extremely nourishing for me.

In terms of staying in shape and cross-training, this also looks differently for every dancer. Some dancers thrive on doing “normal-people” stuff—hiking, swimming, going to the gym. I admit, I love a great non-dance cardio workout with a set of headphones and a good pod cast.   At the same time, I strongly believe that there is nothing like doing ballet class if you really want to be in dancer-shape. Yet, age and experience has also taught me that most bodies need some form of constructive rest, in which more body-friendly exercise is necessary. Yoga, pilates, and Gyrotonics are my go-to sources of conditioning in this arena. And then, every once in a while, I let myself totally veg out on the beach with a good book and an iced latte.

So, that’s it in a nutshell—the various faces of being a professional ballerina in a mid-sized company with a 35-week season. At least, in my world…


What’s coming up for Colorado Ballet? Keep track of their performance schedule here.


Ballerina
Colorado Ballet’s Sharon Wehner. Photo by Allen Birnbach

Contributing writer Sharon Wehner is originally from San Jose, California. She trained with Jody White and David Roxander, San Jose Dance Theatre, San Francisco Ballet and San Jose/Cleveland Ballet. Ms. Wehner joined Colorado Ballet in 1995 and was promoted to Principal in 1999, and in the last 20 years, has performed many lead roles with the Company. These include Kitri in Don Quixote, Giselle in Giselle, Odette/Odile in Swan Lake, Medora in Le Corsaire, Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty, Swanilda in Coppelia, Mina in Dracula, Juliet in Romeo & Juliet, the Cowgirl in Rodeo, the Sugarplum Fairy in The Nutcracker, Cinderella in Cinderella, Esmerelda in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Titania and Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Second Violin in Balanchine’s Concerto Barocco, the Principal couple in Balanchine’s Stars and Stripes, Rubies, and Theme and Variations, Antony Tudor’s Leaves are Fading, and Twyla Tharp’s In The Upper Room. She has been honored to have solos and pas de deuxs created on her by choreographers Val Caniparoli, Edwaard Liang, Mathew Neenan, Christopher Wheeldon, Darrel Grand Moultrie, Dwight Rhoden, Jessica Lang, Brian Reeder and Toru Shimazaki.

In addition to Colorado Ballet, Ms. Wehner has also performed with The Washington Ballet, Oakland Ballet and Amy Seiwert’s Imagery. She has also been a guest artist at the Vail International Dance Festival, in Japan in the Aoyama Ballet Festival, and the National Ballet of Japan’s Golden Ballet Co-star.  Sharon enjoys teaching dance to all ages and abilities, particularly Dance for Parkinson’s Disease.

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Filed Under: 4dancers Tagged With: ballerina, ballet performance, Ballet Rehearsal, barre, colorado ballet, company class, Sharon Wehner

A Ballerina’s 8 Top Tips For Dancers

February 25, 2016 by 4dancers

Alice in Wonderland ballet, leap
Sharon Wehner and artists of Colorado Ballet. Photo by Mike Watson.

One of our goals at 4dancers is to provide you with solid advice that you can put to use in your dance life. We asked Colorado Ballet ballerina Sharon Wehner if she would share some of her best advice for dancers, and she compiled a great list for us to share with you here…enjoy!


by Sharon Wehner

Listen to your teachers, but use your brains too!

This might seem like an obvious piece of advice, but because dance, particularly some techniques like Graham or classical ballet come steeped in tradition, there is always an aspect of “shut-up and dance” when it comes to being in the studio. This is both good, and bad.

As a student of anything, whether math, Spanish, or dance, it’s crucial that you be able to trust your teachers. Once this trust is established, a student’s job is to listen and absorb the teacher’s information, and then apply it. The more trust and respect established, the more a dancer can get past their own limits, fears or hesitations and improve technically and artistically. But unlike your academic teachers, there are no standards set for who can teach dance. Anybody can open a dance studio. Of course there are a myriad of training courses and degrees with testing and accreditation, which certainly lends credibility to a teacher’s qualifications, but a piece of paper does not necessarily guarantee a great teacher. There are amazing teachers who have no degrees. On the other hand, there are also amazing former professional dancers with years of experience who are not the greatest teachers.

So as a young dancer goes through his or her training years, it is a good idea for both parents and students to evaluate teachers based not only on their experience and credentials, but also on what makes sense for that student. As mentioned above, the best teacher-student relationship consists of inherent trust and respect. Because dancers are often asked to work through feelings of discomfort and fatigue, both emotionally and physically, it falls upon the shoulders of a teacher to gauge when this push is necessary for a dancer to improve, and when it crosses the line into “too much.” And again…every dancer and student is different. Some people thrive on stern discipline, while others need a softer hand. But either way, it is important that a dancer be able to balance listening to their teachers with complete trust, while simultaneously being able to think for themselves, and pay attention if they feel that a teacher is crossing that line.

Know your learning style.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Career Tagged With: advice for dancers, ALICE (in wonderland), colorado ballet, dance career advice, professional dance advice, Sharon Wehner, tips for dancers

Two Decades At Colorado Ballet

December 17, 2015 by 4dancers

Sharon Wehner
Colorado Ballet’s Sharon Wehner. Photo by Allen Birnbach.

by Sharon Wehner

“What does it mean to you to be celebrating your 20th season with the Colorado Ballet?”

This is a question I have been asked over and over again since our season started this past July—a question asked by my colleagues, by board members, by our marketing department, and by numerous members of the media. I have spent hours pondering it, and each time I am asked, it seems I have a different answer.

It is a big question, and quite honestly, I dread it, because it sends me spinning into a myriad of memories and growth periods—both beautiful ones, and those that were, well, more challenging. My first response is to say that it feels like any milestone birthday. On the one hand, it’s could be viewed as just another number. From a pessimistic perspective, it could be seen as the inevitable passing of time—one year closer to the end. Dancers love to bemoan how old they are getting and how old their bodies feel, a tendency that starts about the age of puberty. But from another perspective, a milestone birthday could be an opportunity to feel blessed—one more year to be able to be and do what I love.

What does it mean to dance for twenty years in the same company? As every dancer knows, choosing this as one’s profession means accepting some unique parameters:

  • Dancing is a career with a limited lifespan—retirement does not mean turning 65.5 and collecting a pension. Longevity in one company may earn a small amount of seniority, but nothing like the retirement benefits of a company in the corporate world.
  • Being a professional dancer requires a particular lifestyle commitment. Because our body is our bread and butter, what we do outside the “office” affects our ability to be at the top of our game. Simple things like food, sleep, rest, exercise, and play are all intimately connected to our performance. And as the years pass, maintenance on the body becomes an increasingly refined and conscientious balance of these elements.
  • Dancing can be a very transient kind of lifestyle. Those who freelance must weave together a patchwork of gigs, supplemented by other kinds of work to pay the bills. They must be able to adapt quickly to new bosses, colleagues, an environments. Even those dancers who want the stability of a company, will often switch companies several times during the span of their careers, for a number of reasons.

Given all of these tendencies, why would someone commit the bulk of their dance career to one ballet company for 20-plus years? When I ask myself this question, there are a multitude of answers, which brings up the question “What are the advantages of such a commitment?” [Read more…]

Filed Under: 4dancers, Career Tagged With: ballet career, colorado ballet, dance career, giselle, Koichi Kubo, nutcracker, professional dancer, Sharon Wehner, sugar plum fairy

Dancers: Let’s Talk “Core Control”

August 5, 2015 by 4dancers

Henry Vandyke Carter [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Henry Vandyke Carter [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
by Jan Dunn, MS

Aloha! — Happy August! The posting below is one I’ve wanted to bring you for a long time–discussing “core control” (alias “center” in dance).  It’s something that’s very important, yet not that many people – dancers included – really understand what it’s all about.  (And thanks to Denver Dance Medicine
Associate Sarah Graham, PT, provider for Colorado Ballet and many Broadway touring companies, for her help in clarifying the information from a medical perspective).

I hope that after reading it (along with Part Two, coming in a few weeks!), you’ll have a better idea of what all this “core” talk is, and how to best incorporate it into your dance life.  My best to all –
Jan


For some time I’ve been wanting to bring you an article on “core control”. I put it in quotation marks because it’s a term that conveys different things to different people, and not everyone really understands what it means. In the dance world, we often refer to “center”, as in “find your center”–but many dancers do not really understand what that means, either.

The term “core control” is everywhere in the media / fitness world, and many people think it means “abs”. And abdominal muscles (one in particular) are very much involved in “core”– but there’s much more to it than that. From reading this post, I hope you come away with a better understanding of exactly what it means, and hopefully get some hints and cues on how better to incorporate it into your life–both in dance and in everyday movement, because it is important in everything our body does!

So much has been written / so much could be said–it could be the topic of several different posts. But over the years, teaching dance / Pilates / Franklin, I’ve evolved a specific way of teaching it to people, using a fairly short version that makes sense to everyone.

In the medical field, it is the same as back stabilization–in other words, when your back and torso are strong and able to provide support for your entire spine and limbs—because your arms and legs are going to be more fully able to move and be supported by your torso, to do all of those gorgeous extensions and powerful movements we love to do and see in dance, when your “core” musculature is strong.

So with that said, from here on out, I’m going to use the term “back stabilization”, which you now know means “core”.

This post is going to be in two-parts: In this first segment, I’ll do a lot of explaining. For the second one, I want to show to you some specific exercises and things you can do at home or in the studio to help increase the strength of all the muscles we’re talking about here–i.e, ways to help improve your back stabilization / “Core Control” / “center”.

The Four-Legged Stool

There are a good number of muscles / muscle groups involved in back stabilization, but we’re going to simplify it and talk about the 4 primary ones. When teaching, I like to use the analogy of a 4-legged stool.

Think of it this way:

You have a 4-legged stool made up of 4 main parts, all of which are necessary to keep the stool (your torso) upright and strong, and in balance.

1–One leg of the stool is the Transverse Abdominal muscle, or TA for short.

This is the deepest of the 4 abdominal muscles–on top of it is the Rectus Abdominus (RA), or the “6-pack” muscle (whose main function is to flex – bend forward – the torso, not to provide back stabilization). Under the RA are the obliques, running in two different directions. They help stabilize the torso, but they are often over-used, and then the really important one, the TA, is not working in the most beneficial way.

By modified by Uwe Gille (Gray397.png) [Public domain, Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
By modified by Uwe Gille (Gray397.png) [Public domain, Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
The TA is right next to the abdominal cavity (and one of its jobs is to help keep the abdominal organs in place). Its fibers run horizontally, across the torso, all the way from the lower ribs down to the pubic area. It wraps around the body and integrates into a large fascia (connective tissue) in the back (see illustration above). So it’s literally almost like a corset around the torso. Researchers have identified the lower portions of the TA, the ones in the low belly / just above the pubic area, as the crucial ones active in back stabilization.

2 – the 2nd leg of the stool is the Pelvic Floor.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: conditioning, Dance Wellness Tagged With: abs, back stabilization, Ballet, colorado ballet, core conditioning for dancers, core control, core muscles, dance medicine, Dance posture, dance wellness, dancers center, Denver Dance Medicine, gorgeous extensions, iliopsoas, jan dunn, multifidus, pelvic floor, psoas major, sarah graham, scapular stabilization, torso alignment, transverse abdominal

Jobs At Colorado Ballet

October 8, 2009 by 4dancers

colorado balletColorado Ballet has some job openings listed on its website, including Academy Director, Special Events Associate and a Marketing and Public Relations Intern position.

For a list of the qualifications needed an to find out how to apply for these positions, visit their website. The organization is also looking for both a hip hop and ballet teacher at this time.

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Filed Under: JOBS Tagged With: academy director, ballet teacher, colorado ballet, dance, hip hop, JOBS

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