The overture

I was talking to a colleague the other day when I realised I’d been dancing for 15 years, and in the case of this particular peer, longer than they’ve been alive. It came during the middle of a conversation about ballet buns and ‘how do I get mine so perfects?’ and it was as I said the words years of practise that it hit me. It was a surreal realisation to say the least and I thought what better first post than to tell you all my history with ballet, the ups, the downs, and the ‘oh shit reallys?’.  

I started ballet later than most of my peers due to my adamant refusal to have anything to do with it for the first 6 years of my life. I actually started out playing tennis, but I was so small I couldn’t see over the net. Even at 7 when I did eventually take up the mantle I looked like I could have passed for a much younger child. Fair haired, knee high to a grasshopper and with little knobbly knees it seemed as though a stiff breeze would knock me over.  The first ballet class I ever did was in a girl scouts hall in my home town, in the august of 2004. I had no tights and I got there late. I also had no idea what was going on because I’d started in the middle of the year. In short, I loved every minute of it. It was only a few more months until I quit tennis entirely because it was taking away from ballet.

I stayed with that studio for the next 4 years. My teacher moved away for a time and hired another in her place who became a fast favourite as well as my long-time friend. This was the teacher who put me en pointe at 11 years old and taught me all I needed to know about chocolate sandwiches and jete entrelace.  We’ll call her Miss R. for now, as she continues to play an important role in my life and career and always will. My original teacher eventually returned to the studio and Miss R. returned to her own studio several towns away. It was after this that I suffered my first real heartbreak in the name of ballet. My teacher gathered everyone she loved together for one final night to tell us she was closing the studio down for good. She left behind gifts for those select few of us before she left for good.

At 12 it was suddenly time for me to find a new studio, an unexpected difficulty in the small country town where I grew up. Good schools were few and far between and even less trained in the RAD syllabus, which was all I’d ever known. And all whilst I was starting high school! Trying to find new friends and the increased workload didn’t stop me though. I began to travel to the town of I. on weekends to attend Miss R’s classes as well as to B. every Thursday where she would teach at a small public school. I started travelling all around my home state with my mum performing in eisteddfods in a bid to build my stage confidence. I never placed much and we quickly began to realise if I wanted to go further I would have to find a way to get stronger technique. I began travelling to Newcastle once a month in the pursuit of higher technique.

Then comes the next big adventure, I auditioned for a scholarship place at a performing arts school in Sydney and I got it! So at 14 I packed my bags and moved to Sydney to live in the boarding house on school campus, a whole 6 hour drive away from my family and everything I had ever known. I attended school during the day as well as a ballet class in the middle of academics, after school I would do some extra classes. I lived with 30 other girls and my parents were understandably concerned about the free reign we seemed to have to go wherever we wanted with little to no supervision. And for a little country girl in the big city for the first time that was a very big deal. But it was a double-edged blade, and as the years passed I quickly became introverted and disillusioned. I thought about packing it in at 15 and going home but ultimately I stayed. By the time I was in my graduating year I’d cut back to only 3 academics with the idea that I would be doing more ballet classes during school time. Except I wasn’t, I’d gotten to the point where I was avoiding attending any of the extra classes if I could help it, using any excuse under the sun and almost entirely confined myself to my room in the boarding house during any other time. I’d also pretty much stopped eating any semblance of regular meals and avoided telling my parents about my issues with the school and the teachers both. Perhaps I’ll go into more detail in a later blog but for now I will leave it at that. It wasn’t all bad though. I got to dance in the Sydney opera house on more than one occasion and performed with the PSB youth company every year.

Then followed rounds of auditions and a decision to make. I think we all can guess what I chose.  Freshly graduated and all of 18, I moved even further away from my family by heading to Melbourne, Victoria to attend the National Theatre Ballet School which is another tale entirely. But in short, I was now living completely on my own in an apartment, suddenly responsible for my entire well-being and neck deep in the most intense full-time course I’d ever seen courtesy of the artistic director. And with only a few hiccups here and there, I emerged with a Diploma in Elite Performance and a whole new perspective on dance.

One more year of training under said director and another round of auditions and here I am just starting my adventure as a Pre-Professional artist in the Victoria State Ballet Company.  A long hard road to get here, but an even longer future stretched out ahead of me. A future I’d like for you all to join me in!

Elizabeth Renee xx