Month: November 2021

Op-Ed: Please Stop Weighing Dancers

On what began as an ordinary day in early fall, I and the other dancers in my pre-professional ballet program were told that we were going to be measured by the costume shop in anticipation of our upcoming Nutcracker performances with the company. We were lined up in a hallway that led to the open…

Read More

12 Holiday Gift Ideas for Your Favorite Dancer

As rewarding as it is to see the excitement on someone’s face when they unwrap the holiday gift you’ve given them, finding that gift can be stressful. When you’re shopping for someone who spends most of their days in the studio, gift giving can feel like even more of a challenge. Whether you’re looking for…

Read More

Heels Over Head: 5 Tips to Get More Comfortable With Inversions

“Being upside down is important to me,” says Pavan Thimmaiah. After all, an image of an upside-down dancer in a freeze is the logo for his New York City–based PMT House of Dance studio. And yet, when Thimmaiah was younger, he was so unsure about being upside down that his mother, attempting to help, would…

Read More

Begin Again: Figuring Out How to Train on a Budget

At 18 years old, when illness dragged me kicking and screaming off of the stage and into my bed, I felt as though I’d lost myself entirely. The physical pain was stunning, sure, but it was the loss of dance, of what I saw as my identity, that I struggled to cope with. Now, with…

Read More