Jessika Anspach McEliece

On The Other Side – Thoughts From A Recently Retired Ballerina

November 27, 2016 by 4dancers

Jessica Anspach — **Me, taking off in Europe after my retirement for the solo part of my trip!**

by Jessika Anspach McEliece

The early autumn light flooded through my window as if to smile “Hello”, warming my toes as I sat on the couch scrolling through my Facebook feed. And the babble of the river rushing underneath our flat (because that’s what they call them over here in England), at first sounding almost fake like one of those sleep machines, had a soothing, hypnotic effect.

How in the world did I get here?

Life couldn’t have looked more different than it did four months ago… [Read more…]

But He Married A Ballerina: The Real Husbands Of Pacific Northwest Ballet

March 18, 2016 by 4dancers

***Pacific Northwest Ballet dancer Jessika Anspach McEliece with husband Ryan.***

by Jessika Anspach McEliece

Sitting on the couch, wearing a flannel shirt and jeans, he picks up the guitar positioned next to him. Leans back. Begins to strum.

“Okay. Well… You can’t be ah… playing. I guess you can play the guitar the whole time if you want to…” I eek out as I place the iPhone down on the coffee table in front of us. Recording his music, and my passive aggression.

“Why not?” he replies.

“… like a bro…” I continue, disregarding his objection.

“Total bro.” He smiles sarcastically.

“For the record my husband is a total bro,” I facetiously and falsely declare.

“Off the record I am not, but you can tell people that…”

I may have married a “bro”, but he married a ballerina.

The life of a dancer seems to be one of mystery and intrigue. I mean how many movies and reality TV shows are out there that try to plumb the depths of this strange world? Because let’s be honest, it’s strange…

And yet how realistic is Center Stage or Flesh and Bone? What’s this life really like? Not the super-stereotyped, ballet-on-steroids version – the honest, every-day truth. Are we really these crazy creatures that Hollywood makes us out to be? Who better to ask than the husband of a dancer – and yes, many do manage to work marriage into the mix. I mean after all, husbands have both the front row and backstage perspective.

To get the real story I interviewed three husbands of Pacific Northwest Ballet dancers: Karel Cruz – a principal dancer married to fellow principal dancer Lindsi Dec; Michael Merchant, married to the newly-promoted soloist Leah Merchant; and of course my dear sweet (non-bro) husband Ryan McEliece.

But how does one meet “The One” when, to be frank, the schedule and demands of this profession seem to hinder the spouse-finding process? From my vantage point when I joined the company most of the dancers at PNB were either very single, or very married. How does one traverse the chasm that separates these two sides? To me the options seemed limited – date a dancer, or well… yeah. Tinder? Match? Miracle?

Karel Cruz

“How did you meet your wife?”

Another couch. Another coffee table. Different place. Different guy… So totally different…

He rustles through a brown paper shopping bag up in PNB’s company lounge, pulling out his lunch as I pull out my Moleskin notebook and pen. The definition of “tall, dark and handsome,” Karel energetically bites into his sandwich and you’d never guess he got maybe 4 hours of sleep the night before. He and his beautiful wife Lindsi just recently welcomed into this world a beautiful baby boy – Koan Dec Cruz.

PNB dancers Karel Cruz, Lindsi Dec and Koan Dec Cruz — **PNB dancers Karel Cruz, Lindsi Dec and baby Koan Dec Cruz**

“We met here at PNB when I joined the company in 2002. But we didn’t get together until 2003,” he replied in his heart-warming Cuban accent. “I think because of our heights we were put together a lot. And we both have a lot of ambition… We used to go to the back studios during breaks or after class to work on partnering. We’d rehearse ourselves in Don Quixote and one day Patricia [Barker] saw us and actually got us our first gig dancing together.”

And the rest is history. The on-stage romance blossomed into a real-life one. And by real-life I mean real life. [Read more…]

On The Marley Floor…

October 1, 2015 by 4dancers

Maria Chapman of Pacific Northwest Ballet. Photo by Angela Sterling Photography.

by Jessika Anspach McEliece

Her deafening scream reverberated through the studio.

Remembering it and my stomach still curdles. One moment she was doing petit allegro, the next writhing on the Marley floor in animalistic agony.

There are just some moments you never forget.

Moments you wish you could.

And yet these terrifying incidents are ones rarely thought of, let alone mentioned. It must be human nature to sweep the scary under the rug. Like those cheesy ceramic monkeys I often see in vintage shops, we choose to “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil,” superstitiously (and aren’t we dancers the worst?) believing that if we don’t speak it, acknowledge it, then it doesn’t exist. Injury won’t happen to us. We keep the lights on and those monsters “safely” under the bed.

But sometimes, no matter our diligence – how often we ice, how much we stretch or see the P.T., no matter how many “Zzz’s” we get, the monsters rear their frightening faces. And sometimes we end up on the Marley floor.

My “Marley moment” came May 15^th, 2015. And I actually was on the floor. [Read more…]

Searching For Swans…

April 16, 2015 by 4dancers

Swan Lake Ballet — Jessika in Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Swan Lake. Photo by Lindsay Thomas

by Jessika Anspach McEliece

The dreary landscape stretched out before us as we migrated northward on I-5. Headed to the Canadian border, we were searching for that powdery white stuff they call snow. A ski weekend for him, not so much for me – there’s always the lodge and hot cocoa, right? Sitting in the passenger seat, the scenery seemed to mimic the weariness of my own self, having spent weeks recovering from mono.

And then, in the brown bleakness he saw it. He saw them.

“Hey. Hey babe? Do you see that?” my husband asked me as he drove. “On the left…”

I looked over his shoulder through the driver’s window and across two lanes of traffic to see a field, all white. And no. It wasn’t snow.

Squinting his eyes he continued, “I think… Are those..?”

The little kid leapt out of me as my eyes grew wide with wonder; as my heart began to flutter; as I shouted aloud, “SWANS!”

There they were. A whole field of them. Swans. Dozens of them. Maybe even hundreds. An invisible string tugged tightly on my heart and suddenly my soul felt awake – alive.

“PULL OVER BABE!” I implored. “Seriously. Please. Please?!! We can take that next exit… At the very least drive past them? I just have to see them!”

His eyes smiled at me as he laughed and shook his head.

This invisible string.

This strange connection to these beautiful white birds. Why did I feel so drawn to them? What was it about them that so compelled me? When had this affinity begun? [Read more…]

Jewels: A Multifaceted Ballet

September 19, 2014 by 4dancers

Today we are thrilled to welcome Pacific Northwest Ballet‘s Jessika Anspach McEliece to the site officially as a contributing writer. She’ll be writing about a variety of topics for us, starting with this post about George Balanchine’s “Jewels”, which the company will be performing, starting September 26th in Seattle.

by Jessika Anspach McEliece

It’s Tuesday but it feels like, um, I don’t know… not Tuesday. Coming back to work after a break always gives me that jet-lag feeling, no matter what time zone I’ve been in. PNB dancers are doing pirouettes across the grey marley floor of Studio C and between thinking about getting my foot immediately to passé and keeping my standing leg engaged, my rehearsal schedule for the day runs through the ticker tape of my brain. Confusion. Then holes. Then blanks.

I turn to the blonde girl with hyper-extension for days who’s patiently waiting her turn and ask, “Emma, do we have Rubies first or is it Emeralds?”

“I’m pretty sure we have Rubies 12-1 and Emeralds 1-2 but with the principal couple…” she replies. And yet I can tell that her ticker tape is following a similar pattern by her perplexed eyes.

“Oh yeah. That’s right… But I’m pretty sure Emeralds is only a half hour. I thought we had a break from 1:30 to 4, and finished with Diamonds. Is that just demi women or corps women too?” I reply.

“It’s demi and corps men and women. I think we’re piecing together the finale. Are you sure Emeralds is only a half hour?”

“Ha. I’m not sure of anything.”

Emeralds, Rubies and Diamonds – juggling these ballets can be a bit of a handful at first. Yes, Jewels is a full-length ballet. Yes, it has the same choreographer – the genius George Balanchine. All the costumes are designed by the same woman – the fabulous Karinska, and thankfully there’s not a single hair change during the performance… I think. But that’s about it when it comes to continuity.

No two stones are alike, and that is most definitely true of Jewels. Like any beautiful gem, we see the many facets of Mr. Balanchine’s choreographic prowess.

Emeralds

In Emeralds, set to the very French and very impressionistic music of Gabriel Faure, the movement is soft, yet sweeping. The curtain opens to a sea of emerald green: a principal couple dancing amid ten corps ladies who bourrée from one formation to the next, rarely coming off pointe. The effect: a floating, almost shimmering quality–like lily pads glistening on a glassy pond in one of Monet’s landscapes. [Read more…]

Karel Cruz

Emeralds

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