S2:Ep 6 - A Golden Year

PART SIX - "It feels like this hazy distant silhouette of a thing that doesn’t feel real, like a wild dream that I can’t fully recall."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Okay, Erica, you gotta get ready. This is too good.
What are we watching? So we're in my basement and
I'm going to force you to watch The Nutcracker, and
not just any Nutcracker. You're Nutcracker when you were Marie
aka Clara and other versions, but the main character that

(00:27):
was a Golden Year? A Golden Year? How did you
get these on your computer? Because weren't they vhs? Yeah?
How did you get these? Mom? And Dad? Can we
get to watch it? As I'm dying to watch it?

(00:48):
I think this is going to be fun. I know
you're probably a little bit anxious. Oh my gosh, just
seeing the still of the costumes. So I guess I
should tell you. My name is Alan, I'm Erica's sister.
I also produce this show. I know it might feel
abrupt to suddenly hear from me, but there's something about

(01:09):
Erica that she's extremely reluctant to talk about that I
think you should know. Okay, I'm going to click on it.
We're going to full screen it. You ready. The Youth
Ballet Company presents two thousand and one The Nutcracker December fourteenth,

(01:36):
fifteenth and sixteenth. WHOA, this is epic they have, like
the roles they have, the whole cast, Littlest Mouse, cook,
Missus Stalbaum, doctor Stalbaum. I didn't know he's a doctor.
Erica devoted her life to ballet for more than ten years.
She thought about trying to go all the way to
join a company and become a professional dancer. I can

(02:01):
picture all of these dancers and like how they danced.
I remember what their feet looked like, what their feet
looked like. Definitely, Marie Salvom Erica lands clearly. I'm enthusiastic.
I'm trying to pump Erica up and get her more excited,
but she's visibly uncomfortable. As the music plays and the

(02:24):
opening credits role, She's shifting in her seat. She's good
at masking how she feels, but I can tell it's
sparking a memory. I'm asking Erica to go back to
a time that honestly feels like another life, a time
when ballet defined her, a time when her ambition to
perform well and maybe to go pro consumed our family.

(02:48):
We haven't talked much about it for probably fifteen years,
and I think there's a reason for that, because when
Erica left, she closed that door. And never opened it again.
As much as she loved it, she suffered in it.
At least that's what I think I saw. I was
so young that it feels like this hazy, distant silhouette

(03:09):
of a thing that doesn't feel real, like a wild
dream that I can't fully recall. Curtain's opening. Where would
you have been in the wings? I'm in the wings, yep,
getting ready for my first entrance. I love that you
remember your first entrance. Of course, there you are.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
Oh are you so cure?

Speaker 1 (03:33):
I'm sneaking on trying to see the presence. Well, look
at those pointed feet. Wow, I look better than I
expected somehow. Yeah, you look amazing. You're acting with your
whole body and moving very gracefully. Wow. I'm actually really

(03:55):
proud of my dancing in this. I think I forgot
how good I was at this point. Does it bring
you back, like, how did it feel to be performing
the lead role in the Nutcracker? It's just so fun.
I loved all of those rehearsals, and I was always

(04:16):
there for a very long time because I was the
main character, and I did not mind at all. It's
just pure fun, pure fun, totally worth any pain or right,
being tired or something totally worth it. I absolutely loved it.

(04:38):
Working on this series has been hard on Erica. She's
often had a quick aside like why am I doing this?
Or I don't know why I signed up for this.
It also brings up a lot of what ifs and regrets.
Interviewing people and writing about ballet every day has made
us both realize how much heru time in ballet is

(04:58):
a part of who she is. It led to a
conversation that honestly, we needed to have as sisters from

(05:18):
Rococo Punch and iHeart Podcasts. This is the turning room
of mirrors. I'm Alan Lance Lesser, Part six a golden year,
So thanks Erica for finally doing this. I feel like

(05:39):
it's been pulling teeth to get you to sit down
and talk about some of this stuff. And I'm not
sure quite why, but I feel like part of it
is that you don't like to talk about yourself too much. Yeah,
I do feel self conscious. You feel self conscious? How so? Yeah?
I mean not maybe not self conscious, but I mean honestly, like, yes,

(06:02):
I studied ballet when I was a kid, but I
didn't become a professional dancer. I didn't actually like fully
commit and go all the way, and so I just
feel like a fraud. I'm not the person who has
the most insight into this by like any stretch of
the imagination, So why would I be talking about my

(06:25):
own story or my own experience, Like there are so
many other people who are more important. So you basically
are experiencing imposter syndrome. I bet Also, if you had
become a professional, you still would be like, well, I
wasn't a principle, so my story doesn't matter, like you
would find any reason to not count your story as worthwhile.

(06:50):
And the fact is, like you devoted your life totally
to ballet four years. I know. Again, I can just
feel you being uncomfortable talking about this. But anyway, do
you remember, like what was your favorite performance that you did?
I don't know, but definitely one of the most meaningful

(07:13):
to me was the year I was Marie in The
Nutcracker or Clara. That was obviously a huge deal. It
was really special because I had looked up to these
dancers for years who played Marie. So getting casts Marie,
I mean, it's like a dream come true at age twelve.
You were twelve looking back it's like twelve sounds so young. Yeah. Wow.

(07:40):
But by the time I was twelve, I was dancing
every day, and I was at a school that also
had this like youth ballet company essentially, and so we
were performing constantly. WHOA, what's weird is I almost feel
like I've blocked out some of these memories about how
much it was was that was every day geez? I mean,

(08:03):
it is true when you're dancing that seriously, you really
do feel like you have to dance every day to
keep up what you're doing and to be improving every day.
At that point, you're so in tune with your body that, yeah,
when you take a day off, you feel it. And
I remember one time I took like three days or
something off and I can't remember if I was sick

(08:24):
or if our family went out of town for a
few days, but I came back to class and I
actually thought I was having an okay class. I don't
think I felt like I was doing particularly badly. And
I was standing at the bar in the studio and
my teacher, who is this Russian teacher who I absolutely adored.
She had really high standards, which I loved, but at

(08:47):
one point she like stopped and I could tell she
was upset, and she looked at me and she said,
Erica aerika like she said it in her Russian accent,
like you miss one day, you notice the difference you
missed two two days, I noticed the difference. You miss
three days. Everybody notices the difference. WHOA that makes her

(09:07):
sound mean? I actually like adored her as a teacher,
but that really stuck with me, and it definitely made
me feel like it's just not worth it to take
days off. How did you feel in that moment? Probably embarrassed,

(09:28):
but it wasn't like a big out of the normal thing,
like you're used to being called out in class, You're
used to being corrected in front of everyone. But it
was more just this very memorable phrase that was a
good reminder of like the importance of staying in class

(09:48):
at home, the dynamics of Erica's ballet, classroom casting, and technique.
It all became our form of childhood gossip. I loved
being in on it. I watched Erica constantly improve and
grow into this polished dancer, but she'd also come home
every night in physical pain. I can remember the constant

(10:10):
bags of frozen peas, or foot baths or full salt baths.
Sometimes Erica would sit in the middle of our living
room floor, slowly stretching her aching muscles and tending to
her wounds, and sometimes she just collapse onto this big
green recliner and just lie there for hours. She always

(10:32):
seemed to be on the mend. When did you first
start having injuries? I think the first time I sprained
my ankle, I was five, and after that first sprain,
I was always aware of my ankle. I always had
ankle problems. And the thing is, when you injure your ankle,

(10:55):
after it heals, it is a little more susceptible to injury.
And so it just felt like a constant battle with
my ankle. And eventually it went from like having mild
sprains from time to time too. I did develop chronic
tendonitis in my achilles tendons, which I think is like
super common, but it was really painful and I was

(11:18):
experiencing it I think at a level that it wasn't
like normal, and that's what I started seeing a bunch
of physical therapists for years. It was such a constant
I mean, you're always dancing through pain, but you kind
of get used to it always. Yeah, I mean to
some extent. I do remember one day in particular, it

(11:41):
was like a Saturday day rehearsals. I can picture the
point shows I was wearing. It was a pair of
grish goes. They might have been like slightly too broken
in at that point, but we were preparing for multiple
performances coming up. I just remember that I was cast
in a lot of things. It was a really exciting

(12:02):
set of castings because I was kind of cast above
my level. But the result is that I like didn't
get any time off. Like I was just constantly rehearsing
one after the next, and my friends were getting little
breaks and I just like wasn't getting a break. And
there was this one piece where we're basically on point
the whole time, Like the whole thing is that we're

(12:23):
burying across the floor like the entire dance, so you're
like literally never not on point. And I had like
so many blisters that day, and I just was like,
oh my god, I cannot run this piece one more time.
And then to be like, let's run it again, and
I'd just be like please. Now. I just remember thinking

(12:44):
to myself, my god, this is insane, but also it
was like so exhilarating because I felt like such professional
because I just like was dancing all day and you know,
you feel important if you like don't have time for breaks,
and you do feel like an adult. I mean, when
you're making those types of sacrifices where you're not hanging

(13:05):
out with friends, you're in the studio and you're dancing
through pain, you feel like a grown up. And it's
partly because the instructor, to some extent, treats you like
a grown up, Like the expectations are so high you

(13:27):
need to like put on your adult behavior. Kind of
that's what kids want. They want to probably to a
certain extent, they want, like teachers to have high standards
and high expectations or to challenge them, Like I do
think that that's so empowering to not be seen as
just like a kid who's doing this for fun. It's like, no,
take me seriously, Like I wouldn't want any less. I'd

(13:49):
want to be treated that way because I took it
so seriously. And also I don't want my fellow dancers
slacking off either, because we all want it to be
the best it can be. Erica really wanted to be

(14:27):
the best she could in every way, and I remember
noticing that desire shift to how she felt about her appearance.
I want to pause here because we're about to talk
about topics that could be really triggering and even unhealthy
to listen to. They have to do with body image

(14:47):
and include some really skewed and unhealthy thinking. And if
you feel you might be triggered by explicit discussions of
body image or eating disorders, you might want to stop
listening here. There's re or to suggest that hearing specifics
about eating disorders could contribute to actual symptoms. I loved

(15:08):
so much of my body when I was dancing, like
I liked my feet, I liked my legs. I liked
the level of hyper extension. I felt like it was
a little but not too much. I liked a lot
of my shapes. I loved how I looked in a
lot of ways, and I was looking at myself all
the time. I was proud of my body, except for

(15:32):
the I wanted to be thinner. I just I really
wanted bones jutting out. But like, where do you think
that came from? Because I don't feel like it came
from you. I thought I was too fat starting from
age four. Geez, can you tell me your first like,

(15:56):
why do you say age four? What's your first memory?
But I think it was for it could be that
I'm not don't have the age right. My first memory
of feeling that I was too fat was not in
ballet class, but I think it was influenced by dance.
There was like a stage where we would do cabarets
in the summer and things. I was on stage and

(16:17):
I had I was like kind of standing with a
sway back. I had more of a sway back as
like a toddler. And I was aware suddenly that my
like that made my stomach stick out. And that's my first,
like very concrete memory of wishing that my stomach were smaller,

(16:41):
and that never went away. I started dance classes when
I was three, and I mean, I think it's it's
hard to just stand in a leotard in front of
a mirror every day as a kid. Do you remember

(17:01):
any times when a teacher like specifically told you to
lose weight or implied it in some way. No, that's
the thing. I don't think I ever had a teacher say, Erica,
you need to lose weight. No, I think it's like
very clear that you want to be thin, Like no

(17:22):
one needs to say that explicitly in class. There was
just such an awareness that thinness was clearly important. And
I think sometimes teachers would tell stories about their own
training that were kind of intended to point out how
messed up something was, but also inevitably then communicated maybe
the messed up message to us unintentionally. So like I

(17:48):
remember one of my teachers who was from Ukraine and
she'd been trained in Russian schools. She would tell stories
that a teacher would go and pinch your back, and
if they could pinch your back and get any kind
of like fat in the pinch, the teacher would say, oh,

(18:08):
I see, even having a little too much milk in
other words, like drinking milk was making them fat. But
I was like, oh, I guess I don't want any
pinchable fat in my back. She also would tell us
stories about how Russian schools worked at the time. You know,
you're a little girl between age six and ten. I
don't know the exact age, but if you want to

(18:28):
get into a Russian school, you go in your auditioning.
At one point you take off your clothes you're naked.
I think for the audition often you're topless as a
little girl. And then you also have like a medical
examination where they measure your body. They might even like
look at your parents to see how you're likely to

(18:50):
develop physically, basically saying we only want to admit people
into our school who have the exact like proportions and
ballet body that we're looking for. Yeah, you're also thinking,
you know what I cut it in Russia. I don't know.
I think I remember the teacher that you're talking about,
and she was I think, amazing in a lot of ways.

(19:12):
But like also I feel like to a certain degree,
there's an element of psychological breeding with that by just
saying like, oh, listen to how bad I had it,
or the types of disparaging comments I received. These other
comments I'm making are nothing compared to that. Yeah, the

(19:33):
messaging is, oh wow, look how intense that is over
in Russia. Wasn't it nice? We don't do that here.
But now I have these ideas that I'm supposed to
have certain measurements in order to be the best ballerina.
Now I'm aware of that, even if that wasn't the intention,

(19:55):
I do remember one time you walked in because you
were always there because you're always having to like write
with mom as she's like driving me to class and stuff.
But you walked in and I think she was like, oh,
you you would be accepted, you Ailen. Yeah, you know.
I even remember she had me do first position and
she like, I'm not even her student, and she took

(20:17):
her hands and put them on my ankles and crept
her hands all the way up to my up my
legs to my hips, feeling my turnout wow, and literally
put her hands all over my legs up to like
my butt and then was like, yes, you would be
accepted or something. And I felt so good at the
time because I mean like I was even totally drenched

(20:41):
in ballet culture at this point, because I was, you know,
just watching you all the time. Yeah, and then I
feel like you were like, ough, what the heck? Why
didn't she say that about me? Yeah? Definitely, every day
I saw Erica striving for some image of perfection. I

(21:04):
remember when she got obsessed with the idea that her
ponytails should be smooth with no bumps. She'd spend what
felt like forever stuck in a loop slicking her hair back,
then checking it for bumbs, taking it out, and starting
all over again. I'd watch her perform these rituals in
the mirror. The mirrors at home and in the ballet

(21:24):
studio became a decider of Erica's self worth. There are
a lot of body markers, body checking, like just things
that I think are probably potentially super triggering for people.
But yeah, I remember, like we shared a bathroom and
you just had certain rituals of checking yourself in the

(21:47):
mirror in certain ways that you would do almost like
repetitively patting certain parts of your body. I would like
turn in profile to the mirror. I'd like go one
way and then the other, and I would like, look
at my profile, See how then I was. I'd put
one hand in front of my stomach and one hand
on my back and go tap tap the other side,

(22:07):
tap tap, like how then are we today? Yeah? And
then you would, you know, do that regularly throughout the week,
throughout the day. I have a memory or two of

(22:29):
you actually like teaching me the body checking. Not oh god,
not no, that sounds bad, not in like a judgmental
oh God or no. I was more like curious, like
I would ask you explicitly like what are you doing
or like what is that supposed to do? What you're
doing right there, that specific thing, and then you'd be like, oh, well,

(22:50):
I just go like this and like that to check this,
and I think it helps with this. And like being
a younger sister, you know, I kind of looked up
to you and would almost like you know, be like
oh wow. And then you had lots of rules about
when you could eat. And again these were like also

(23:10):
explicit things that we talked about and that you'd be like,
I've heard that if you don't eat after X time,
it like really helps for this or that reason, which
I mean didn't even really make sense. But my point
is ballet had permeated our family culture or our family. Yeah,

(23:34):
and so talking about that stuff even explicitly was just
like oh interesting, got to try that you accepted. Yeah.
I also think there was a lot less awareness of
eating disorders and what that meant at the time. Yeah.

(23:57):
I mean we had heard of eating disorders before we
thought like the more extreme versions when someone's being hospitalized
for an eating disorder. Yeah, at the time, we thought
it was anorexia or bolimia. And because Alan you like
you were home from summer break or something. In college,
you were researching eating disorders and you were like, oh, yeah, Erica,

(24:23):
you had an eating disorder or you had a disordered
eating of some kind. I was like what, and you
listed a bunch of things, and I remember you explaining
what body checking was. And I actively did not want
an eating disorder, and I knew how dangerous they could be,
and I was very aware of the dangers of it,

(24:44):
but I definitely didn't restrict food as much as I
wanted to be able to restrict food. And then I
remember with bolimia, like also I did not want bolimia,
but I did try to throw up on multiple occasions,
and I just like literally couldn't do it physically. And
that was probably a really good thing because I could
see myself getting into that back then. But one year

(25:05):
I ended up homeschooling because my dance schedule at that
particular ballet school was so intense that like, I was
missing a lot of school. During that time, I got
really into like trying certain foods. So for a while
I was really into grapefruit and grape nuts, which I
also thought was funny because it was like the word
grape in both of these foods, and like I would

(25:26):
eat like a late breakfast because I was homeschool so
I could do this. I would eat late breakfast of
like half a grapefruit and some grape nuts and then
some other snack or food and then you know, not
eat after my allotted hour and be done eating for
the day. Wow. And that year, I don't think I

(25:48):
really noticed it, but I guess I must have lost
a lot of weight. I remember at the end of
the year, I was like at the bar next to
the mirror. We wasn't during class. It was like maybe
people were putting their point shoes on or something. My
teacher said Erica, like, I've noticed your leotard's look. Your
leotard's loose. Your leotard's loose on you. You're looking good

(26:10):
or something like that. Geez, basically complimenting me that my leotard,
which I had worn, you know, regularly throughout the year,
was now loose on me. And I felt so good
when she said that. Oh my god, Oh so happy.
I was so happy. Around this time, I remember how

(26:33):
ballet started monopolizing our family life, either because Erica wasn't
around as much or just because we were spending so
much time doing things for ballet. We'd spend time in
the Point shoe store while Erica tried on shoes, and
our mom and I would help. So on ribbons, we'd
burn the edges with a lit match so they wouldn't fray.

(26:55):
We'd go to the mall and purchase expensive hair pieces
or stage makeup that the school requests. Then there were
the countless car rides and waiting for class to be over.
I'd write in my childhood diary how I missed her,
and I just remember Erica around then. She seemed down.

(27:18):
She didn't have time for hangouts or sleepovers, and no
matter how she seemed to perform in class or on stage,
she was always stuck in this same loop. Just how
much I hated my body and all of the emotional
consternation around that, and like constant obsession with that. It

(27:40):
was very tiring. So I was just really knotted up
inside that year because I just wanted my bones to
jut out. That's what I wanted. I wanted to be bony.
But I remember like I'd be like crying at home.
I'd be home from ballet and crying, And I remember

(28:04):
one night I was crying, and like mom and Dad
were on the couch and I was on the floor,
and I was telling them that I needed to be thinner,
and they I think, they're just like, what, like, we
don't know what to do. And I think around that
time they actually went to the head of the school
and said, like, you know, they have parent teacher conferences
and they said, you know, one of Erica's concerns is

(28:25):
that she's worried about being thin enough. And you know, really,
to the head teacher's credit, she said, no, no, she's fine.
She doesn't need to worry about that. All of the
reassurances I needed and Mom and Dad passed it on
to me, which did mean a lot because she had
been a principal with ABT. She you know, she knew

(28:47):
what she was talking about, but I think it caused
so much emotional weight that increased just the general turmoil
around this decision of should I keep dancing or should
I allow myself to do some of the the other
things I love as well. One year, Erica got into

(29:32):
a prestigious pre professional summer intensive for ballet. With this
type of program, she'd spend the summer away from home,
living in a dorm training in hopes of eventually joining
a company. It should have been caused for celebration, but
for some reason, Erica just felt dread. I had been

(29:53):
questioning whether this was the right path for me already,
and there was a period where I was crying, like
almost nightly about it. I just felt so torn in
different directions. I just wasn't ready to give up my
whole self to it. I've always had a lot of interests,
too many interests, and ballet had become my whole life.

(30:17):
But it sort of had become my whole life out
of default because it required that I was considering quitting
high school and just focusing on dance. And I loved school, Aileen,
you know, I was like a total nerd, and you
know I was in a lot of pain a lot
of the time with my multiple injuries. Meanwhile, Erica spent

(30:42):
a lot of time in physical therapy. One day she
went in for routine visit to deal with one of
her many chronic injuries, and so I remember that day
in the physical therapist's office, we were in like a
separate room. So usually doing exercises, we'd be in this
sort of main room where a lot of people. There

(31:02):
were machines, but for some reason we went into this other,
smaller office room off of the main room, and that's
when she said, you know, honestly, I'm not seeing the
improvement that we want, and you're not seeing the improvement
that we want. And really to get over this, I
think you're going to need to take three months off,

(31:24):
take the summer off. I felt like I couldn't miss
two days, and then she says, take three months off.
But as soon as she said that, I felt relief.
I didn't feel sad. I was I was like, yay,
I was happy because I instantly knew I was never

(31:46):
going back and I never did. Whoa did you never
even go back to class? Like what happened there? I
think I went back. I went back to one class.
I don't know why I'm crying. I think it just

(32:08):
meant a lot to me at the time, and it
was like one of the hardest decisions I ever made.
I can't believe him crying about.

Speaker 2 (32:16):
This, but I just like really loved it so much.
Yeah you did, and it is.

Speaker 1 (32:29):
Hard to know that it feels like you're giving it
up permanently because you can't like go back to that level.
But I remember I I went back to one last class.
I think it was a weird class because it was

(32:54):
post the school term and before the summer intensive starts,
and so it was like a weird in between limbo
class is how it felt. It felt less serious or
just slightly less formal, and it was a modern class,
and I just danced my heart out and I had
so much fun, and I felt so free in the movement.

(33:16):
I think maybe also because it was modern and we
had these combinations across the floor that were just you're
jumping in like all directions and turning in the air,
and I just felt so free. It felt so exhilarating.
And I remember after the class one of my ballet

(33:37):
teachers had been watching it for some reason, which never happens,
and it was one of the teachers who's really she's
extremely straightforward, doesn't compliment you often, can be very harsh,
would make people cry in class. And what did she say?
I used to remember the words so well, but essentially

(33:58):
she said, I've never seen you dance like that, and
she gave me this look. Basically, what she was communicating
to me was you have something like you have it
like that was amazing. Wow, And it's like I really
was able to put myself in it in a way
it never had. And I thanked her and I felt totally.
I felt so free. As I walked out that door,

(34:20):
I knew I was never going back. I wasn't planning
to take classism any kind because it was an all
or nothing. It was all or nothing. I wasn't going
to watch my body slowly degrade in the mirror. I
wasn't going to do that. So I was not going back.
I felt good about it, but it is hard to

(34:42):
hear as you're leaving, you know, someone communicating like what
you're capable of if you decide to stay. She didn't
know I was leaving either. I hadn't told anyone. I
hadn't told my teachers, I didn't tell my classmates. I
basically left and never went back, and I didn't say goodbye.
I didn't say goodbye to anyone. Why. I don't know.

(35:26):
I'm just curious because I guess I don't even know,
and maybe you don't know exactly why. But like when
you just started crying, like what were you thinking? Why?
What brought that out? I think I just really loved
to dance I did. I did love it more than anything.

(35:48):
I do think it was a natural part of me
and I and the reality is I was like I
it really did come from me, Like I do think that,
you know, practic before I could walk, I wanted to dance.
It made me feel connected with music. I always used
to say I dance because when I dance, I am

(36:08):
the music. And there's just nothing that feels as amazing
as that. And so at the time it felt like
the biggest, most important decision of my life, and it was.
It was the most central decision at that time for me.
But this all sounds so over dramatic for like a
fifteen year old, sixteen year old or whatever I was.

(36:32):
But why was I crying just now? I think I
just miss it. I wish I hadn't said all or nothing,
Like I wish I had just kept taking a few classes,

(36:53):
not in the pre professional program and the open division.
I think it would have been too hard at the time,
But I wish I had done that. I wonder though,
if you could have you know, Yeah, I feel like
in your particular situation, like it was too hard. Like
sometimes when you have like a breakup or something you

(37:17):
need to have time where you're not communicating otherwise it's
just way too complicated. Yeah, you're right, that's totally what
it was. It was like a breakup. It was really
like a divorce though from like a really potentially even
toxic relationship, just because it was all encompassing for you. Yeah.

(37:43):
And I do think, like I even get emotional seeing
you get emotional because I know you so well. And
maybe this is horrible to say, but I feel like
in some ways that was your great love, and I
don't know if you've ever found that in anything else,

(38:03):
And I think that's why you're crying. Yeah, But the
problem is that, like, even though maybe that was your
great love, the cost was too high. Yeah. When I
look at my sister now, I see a confident woman.

(38:25):
She's full of life and not afraid to say what
she thinks. But that took time. For months, maybe even years,
after Erica left ballet, she often had a more quiet demeanor.
She kept the slicked back hair, She seemed to trust
others more than herself. The other thing I wanted to say, is,
like I said that thing about it was your one love,

(38:48):
but I think that's the way you perceive it. Yeah,
You're right. Ultimately ballet wasn't enough for me, And that
doesn't mean ballet is enough for other people, But it
just wasn't enough for me to give up everything else.
Sometimes I'm not sure what came first, because I started

(39:10):
dancing when I was three years old? So what is
me because I'm me? And what is me because of ballet?
I do think ballet does instill this like rigorous, constant
self criticism where that is your job, and maybe trusting
how others see you as well more than how you
even see yourself at times. Actually, now that I'm saying this,

(39:33):
it kind of reminds me of what Willemina Frankfurt told
us balance. He used to say, you can't see you,
only I can see you. If that's the messaging you're
getting in your training, you do learn to trust someone
else's perception of you more than your perception of yourself.

(39:57):
It's funny to think how the culture of ballet that's
been passed down for generations affects not only the professional dancers,
but the thousands and thousands of little children who learn
this art form. How many people do you know who
danced as a kid, and how many of them may

(40:21):
have been deeply affected by this culture. It's like all
these years you're learning to reflect back what other people want,
and you're learning to look at your reflection and see
what's wrong with it. All those hours you spend in
the studio, all those hours you spend in that room
of mirrors, It's like that room of mirrors is still
in your brain.

Speaker 3 (40:42):
Sticks with you.

Speaker 1 (41:10):
Next time on The Turning?

Speaker 3 (41:12):
Who decided this?

Speaker 1 (41:15):
Who decided that you have to have twigged like arms
or legs? Did the skies open up and the ballet?
God said, this is how it has to be. No,
it's just how we've all been programmed. The Turning is

(41:35):
a production of Rococoa Punch and iHeart Podcasts. It's written
and produced by Erica Lance and Me. Our story editor
is Emily Foreman. Mixing and sound designed by James Trout.
Jessica Carresa is our assistant producer. Andrea Assuage is our
digital producer. Fact checking by Andrea Lopez Crusado. Our executive

(41:59):
producers are John Parratti and Jessica Alpert at Rococo Punch,
and Katrina Norville and Nikki Etour at iHeart Podcasts. For
photos and more details on the series. Follow us on
Instagram at Rococo Punch, and you can reach out via

(42:20):
email The Turning at Rococo punch dot com. I'm Alan
Lance Lesser. Thanks for listening.