'So this is a tale of personal transformation, and of a young man recognizing himself in a great role. In 1957, Balanchine cast d’Amboise in the title role of his and Stravinsky’s “Apollo.” D’Amboise notes how the choreographer had already summed up this ballet in a sentence: “A wild, untamed youth learns nobility through art.”'

Learning ballet has helped in the healing process. It has given me perhaps not nobility, not yet, but confidence in motion and carriage, and it has started to nourish an artistic side that I didn't know existed in my body. As an instrument of expression rather than an end, the body's much more interesting to discipline towards an ideal form. 

"Vladimiroff always said you must practice, practice, practice, repeat, repeat, thousands of times, rehearse, and rehearse, again and again. And then, when you go onstage, forget everything! Just listen to the music and dance. If you’ve done your practice, your body will do everything required, and your soul and spirit will be free and spontaneous. Your dancing will be lifted out of the rehearsal room, out of the ordinary, and you’ll have freedom. If you try to make your performance a recreation of your rehearsal, you’ve lost it. But after performing, like a racehorse cooling down after the race, Vladimiroff would take off his costume, put on his practice clothes, and, keeping his fans waiting, go up to his favourite place in the theater’s studio. There, he would do a short, ten-to-fifteen-minute bare, a few plies, a few tendus, running through the alphabet of exercises to clean out any residue of performance excess and remind his body of the discipline and order that was the technique. The simplicity of the unadorned dancer."

Through the trauma of family drama, becoming an invalid, and watching my father die, I've managed to glean from these and other life experiences a sense of what really matters to me and how I would like to grow and contribute as a person. I used to be so afraid of losing sight of myself through opening up to new and uncomfortable experiences, and yet also so afraid of throwing myself wholeheartedly into a pursuit I cared passionately about, for fear of failure. Thankfully a stubborn, naive and perhaps sadistic streak volunteered myself for many of the former, and I was lucky to have met many people who helped me get up from mishaps along the way. Now, with a confidence borne of experience and growth, I hope to conquer the latter fear, without turning back or self-doubt.