Episode 187: Interview with Janine Kovac
Dr. Chelsea: It's Nutcracker season, and today I want to pull back the curtain on what life is really like as a professional ballet dancer. I'm Dr. Chelsea. Welcome to Passion for Dance, and I'm excited to have a guest with me today, Janine Kovac, who was a professional dancer for 12 years in Iceland, Italy, San Francisco, and her hometown in El Paso, Texas. Janine and I talk about how you can take whatever role you're given in a ballet, even if it's not your favorite, and truly make it your own.
Janine shared her pre-performance ritual as a professional dancer, which I will say was very well thought out and definitely helped her have that sense of confidence every time she took the stage. Janine also shares a really touching story about when her twins were in the NICU and how her life lessons from being a ballet dancer helped her get through it. This episode is packed with tangible advice and behind-the-scenes insights into the world of professional ballet and, of course, some fun with Nutcracker.
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[Motivational Music]
Hi, I'm Dr. Chelsea, a former professional dancer and mental performance coach. I know what it feels like to be a passionate dance teacher who cares about your dancers, but you want to challenge them and help them be their best, and I also recognize that some traditions and teaching practices in the dance world are harmful. So I'm on a mission to change our dance industry by creating happier, more successful dancers using positive mental skills.
When you understand how to help your dancers with their confidence, how to find their own motivation, work together as a team and more, your dancers will unlock new levels of competitive success and happiness. And it's not just about them; you deserve the same. So we'll talk about how dance teachers can use positive mental skills to be more confident, resilient, and motivated as well.
Be sure to hit “subscribe” wherever you listen to podcasts. There are new episodes every Thursday, and each week you'll hear from me and my guests with advice and actionable tips for building mental toughness, covering topics about mindset, motivation, resilience, and building a community. Passion for Dance is a show designed to help dance educators like you have a positive impact on every dancer you teach.
[Motivational Music]
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Dr. Chelsea: Hi, Janine. Welcome to the show!
Janine K: Thank you for having me, Chelsea!
Dr. Chelsea: Will you share your origin story?
Janine’s Origin Story – 2:40
Janine K: My origin story. I don't know how I learned about ballet. I was probably about seven years old. But I felt like I always knew about it. I always wanted to be a ballerina, and I found a flyer when I was in second grade, and they had classes in the cafeteria. And my dad was in the army, so we moved around a lot. We were in North Carolina, and when we moved to El Paso, Texas, he was at the Army base in El Paso, and there was a ballet teacher who taught on base. So for people who might not be familiar with the military, it's like your whole little world. There's a commissary grocery store where you shop. There's a place where you can live for people who live on base. There’s, like, a rec center for kids, and so, I took ballet classes there.
And then one day my ballet teacher suggested that I go to a teacher who had more advanced students, and she invited us to come watch them dance in The Nutcracker. And my teacher danced many roles. And so, if you're familiar with The Nutcracker in a smaller company, you dance in the party scene and you're a snowflake and you're Spanish and so on, and that was my teacher. And then this other woman was the prima ballerina. And not only was she Clara in the first act, but it was one of those versions where Clara dreams that she is the Sugar Plum Fairy, and so, she gets to dance in the second act.
And I was transfixed. Watching Clara just — she was always glowing, and then in the second act she is floating, and at the end of the ballet, she's literally floating because they put her in a little walnut boat, and she flew away. And I thought I was looking at something magic. I thought I was looking at something like, you know, when you're a little kid and you think there actually might be a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow if you could find the rainbow?
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah.
Janine K: I thought the stage was in the middle of the clouds, and we got invited to go backstage, and I kind of knew that that was impossible, but I still believed it. And then we went backstage after the performance, and I was devastated because it was just a painted sheet and red brick walls and sweaty people and some of them were smoking.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah, it broke the magic.
Janine K: Oh, it was not magic at all! And then I realized, “But what I felt was real!” And what those people did onstage, they were ordinary people who actually created magic, and I could hang around these people and learn how to do that.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah. Oh, I love that because, for some kids, if you break the magic, then it's over. But for you to have the interpretation of like, “Okay, no, but that means these are real people,” and then maybe I'm presuming here, “I'm a real person. I could do this too,” right?
Janine K: Exactly. Right. Right. This is a skill I can learn instead of something that just drops in and is unattainable.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah. Oh, that's wonderful. Okay. We're going to dig into The Nutcracker. I love that you shared that that was your inspiration. So will you share a little about that professional side? How did you go from that, you know, the army base in El Paso to a professional career?
Janine’s Journey to Becoming a Professional Dancer – 6:08
Janine K: So I was very lucky in the sense that El Paso had a regional ballet company that was pretty robust. They had, at the time, probably about 20 dancers. They had an apprentice program that had about a dozen dancers. They had a school that probably had 50 dancers. And the woman who ran it modeled the company after the company that she had been in, which was in Berlin before and during World War II. She had four programs a year, six performances for each program, which may not sound like a lot, but it was a lot. It was fully running.
So what that meant for a student is you got to see what happens when you're 15. You saw all the 15-, and 16-year-olds going off to San Francisco Ballet or School of American Ballet or North Carolina School of the Arts, and you knew that if you stuck with it, that would be the process. You would go and audition. You'd go away for the summer. You'd come back. And this structure was formal, but it was also familiar. We were like a family, and you knew what the progression was.
And so, by the time I did go to San Francisco Ballet and later to Pacific Northwest Ballet, I knew how to act like a professional dancer. I had a lot of stage experience that many of my colleagues didn't have because they were in schools — maybe they were better than I was, but they were in schools that weren't attached to a company, or maybe they did get to dance roles, but they danced the lead variations, where if you're in a school, you don't usually do that. You're a snowflake or you're a mouse or you're just the person standing on the side with a candy lollipop as part of the scenery.
And there was a lot that I knew about how a ballet company functions, how casting functions, what happens when you learn a role that you're not cast for, how to understudy a role when there's not enough space to understudy. And I learned that by watching the other dancers in El Paso. So it wasn't easy. It wasn't easy at all, but I felt like I knew what would happen if I hung in there. I had a model for what would happen if I did 20 auditions.
Dr. Chelsea: I think we are at a time now where — and I'm broadly generalizing — students feel like it should happen pretty quickly. Like, “I should go on a couple of auditions or when I get there, you know, maybe I was the best at my school, so I'll get these great roles once I get to the company.” And I had a similar experience to you with the training in the studio, a lot of performance. I went to a lot of summer programs, came back. So by the time the professional career started, I was like, “I'm a backup dancer.” Like, I understand that role, and it was a while before there was going to be a solo. It took a long time. But I think that people are not as willing to let that journey happen or to understand that it doesn't mean you're a bad dancer if it takes time for that to happen.
So will you speak a little bit to that journey and the mindset of knowing that this might take a while or, “I'm not the best one, but I can get there”?
Mindset Tips for Perseverance in Dance – 9:36
Janine K: So I think, to your point about how it takes a while, part of that is going from a school where there's room for everybody to a company where it's just math. They only have two spots for an apprentice, and part of that math is also personal preference. Like, “We just like short dancers,” or, “We just like tall dancers,” or I got two different jobs because I had brown hair, and they didn't have enough people with brown hair, and they were really excited to have someone — and they told me that! And I just thought that was — I'll take it. I'll take it.
Dr. Chelsea: [Laughs] Sure.
Janine K: So, so much of it isn't personal, and that's really hard to feel as a dancer because it's your body, it's your — how can it — there's nothing more personal than how you dance.
Dr. Chelsea: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Janine K: So if you audition and somebody says, “I want her and not you,” it's hard to feel that it isn't personal, but the flip side of that is that the more you can stoke what really works for you, the more you will kind of find the other people who are looking for that. It's kind of like magnets that are searching for, you know, the other side that's going to go to the magnet.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah, oh, that’s a great metaphor. I like that.
Janine K: Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Chelsea: You're just trying to find the right match, yeah.
Janine K: Yeah, so the advice would be the more you can tune into your own body — I feel like it always comes back to yourself. The more you can tune into your own body, the more you can actually take care of your body, right? So you can sleep well, you can eat well, you know when you're pushing something, you know what to stretch so that you can dance the next day and all that kind of stuff. But you also get a sense of how you want to proceed as an artist, the kind of ballets you want to dance, the kind of people you want to be around. And when you can nurture that, then you are more aware of what you already have right there, instead of always looking at what's the next thing, or what looks like the big, shiny, wonderful thing.
Dr. Chelsea: Right. Yes. Okay. That makes sense. Thank you. That's well said. I want to talk more about that professional life and dig into it, but I want to do it within the context of The Nutcracker and some of your experiences and tis the season, right?
So you wrote a wonderful book, The Nutcracker Chronicles, that I really enjoyed. I'll make sure it's linked in the show notes to everyone listening. There are some really heartfelt themes. If anyone has danced The Nutcracker, I was just flooded with so many memories. I connected to so much of it. Like, you just feel it when you're reading about it. So you mentioned how seeing The Nutcracker was that source of inspiration. When was the first time you danced it?
Janine’s Journey with The Nutcracker – 12:39
Janine K: The first time I danced it would have been two or three years later, and I was in sixth grade, and I was a soldier, and I was a Mother Ginger Buffoon. We called them buffoons.
Dr. Chelsea: [Laughs] Yeah, okay. What was your favorite of all the years you did it, like what roles?
Janine K: Oh, my favorite had to be Fritz. I got to dance Fritz, and when I was first cast as Fritz, I was really, really sad because all my friends were the girl cousins, and who wants to wear a wig and dress up like a boy? But I got to do so much damage. [Laughs]
Dr. Chelsea: It’s just a lot of fun acting!
Janine K: Yeah, exactly, and I felt like, “Oh, this ballet is actually about me, because if I don't break The Nutcracker, everybody goes home, nobody cares, right?
Dr. Chelsea: Right
Janine K: You know, it's just another present. Clara goes off to bed. She falls asleep. It doesn't matter.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah.
Janine K: It's all because of me. And then the relationship that I had with the other dancers in the party scene — so I was 12 or 13 when I was first cast as Fritz, and one of my best friends was Clara, and she was a much better dancer. That's why she was Clara. She was very graceful. She was very sweet. And so, we had this rapport, and also, I was definitely a little bit jealous that she was so much better, and everybody knew that she was so wonderful, and the TV cameras came to film her, and she was in the newspaper and all this.
And so, at first I just let that jealousy kind of take root onstage, and then as I got older, I was able to kind of cultivate that and understand how you're having a dialogue with the audience when you're onstage, especially in an acting role. But you pretend like you can't see them, but you feel them, and your timing, whether it's comedic timing or dramatic timing, is part of what pulls that in. And so, I learned that as Fritz, and I danced Fritz as a teenager.
I went off and had my professional career, and I would often come back to El Paso and dance in The Nutcracker. And even in my 20s, I would go and dance Fritz, and because I'm short, I guess, it kind of worked. So that was definitely my favorite role.
Dr. Chelsea: Oh, that's fun. Okay, and I love that intentional transition from jealousy, “I'm not the title role,” to, like, “I can own this. I make a serious contribution to the show,” yeah, and something that you truly love. That's wonderful.
Janine K: Yeah, and I feel like that can happen in any role. I feel that can happen.
Dr. Chelsea: Sure.
Janine K: Maybe a little bit less when you're one of the roles where you have to hold up a hedge. I had to do that too. You hold up a tree or, you know, you hold up your candy lollipop and things like that, maybe a little bit less so. But definitely in a solo that doesn't feel like it has a story, there is still a relationship to the audience. There is still something that you are expressing that can't be done in words. That's why we do it through dance.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah, absolutely. I want to share a quote from just the first few pages because it struck me right away. So it says:
“Some of those dancers you will see tonight will be better than you were, some not as good. But all of them are younger and healthier. They'll be onstage. You'll be sitting here reliving each piqué arabesque, every grand jeté. Your legs will twitch. Your heart will flutter. Your body will remember all the criticisms, but none of the blisters.” That's the part that got me. “An old lament will resurface and echo like a motif from the battle scene. If only I'd had more time.”
And I think that was — you know, the, “If only I had more time,” I was like, “Ugh.” Yeah, that feeling for, again, anybody who's danced it or just had that career and is trying to figure out how to transition out of it. Will you talk to me a little bit about that idea of “if only I'd had more time,” and what that meant to you when you were writing?
“If Only I’d Had More Time” – 16:53
Janine K: Oh, I feel like at the very, very end of my career was when I finally — well, I didn't know it was the end. But when I finally got to a place where I felt like I figured it out. I figured out how to not take it personal. I figured out how to receive feedback and filter it in a way that made me a better dancer instead of just beating myself up. I felt like I figured out how to land the job that actually made the money that paid the rent and the food and the this and the that, and I felt like I finally knew how to do it. And I was like, “Okay, now I'm ready to go. Now, I'm ready to be a dancer,” and that was actually my last year of dancing professionally at that level. And it was devastating. It felt like the loss of a loved one. It was my dancer self, right?
Dr. Chelsea: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Janine K: And so for a very, very long time, I felt like I didn't get to use all that knowledge that I had assessed, the how to be an artist and how to be a person working in the world. And if I had had more time, then I would have had the benefit of that knowledge, and I would have been able to really grasp that, and so that's what that —
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah. That makes sense.
Janine K: — phrase is. However, in reality, I use those lessons every day. I especially use them as a writer, you know, putting my truth on paper or submitting work and things like that. And this idea that I have finally figured it out and I hadn't figured it out before is also kind of false because there were these steps that I had — the reason I got to a place where I realized I had figured it out is because I had spent so much time working on figuring it out. So I still had that experience. I still had that joy. But the story I told myself was that, “Oh, I figured it out and now it's done, and I didn't actually get to use this knowledge.”
Dr. Chelsea: You didn't get to use it. That makes a lot of sense. That we spend so long working towards that career, gathering all this knowledge, and then if you — it sounds like it was cut short of what you might've wanted it to be. And so, that can feel like it's over, but I was going to ask, and you started to go there. I am a firm believer that what we have learned translates outside of dance, translates to the next phase. So you said some of these lessons have carried with you as a writer, or there are things from that journey to be a professional dancer that you've learned that are a part of your work now, or your life now, I should say?
Lessons From Dance Janine Carried Over Into Her Life – 19:48
Janine K: Absolutely. Every day, every bit of what I do and how I get things done is because I was a dancer. I think one of the most tangible images or stories around this is, as a mother, I have three children, and my twins were born almost four months before they were due. So they were very, very premature. They were, like, a pound-and-a-half a piece. They were — when babies are usually, like, seven, eight, nine pounds. They were 12 inches long when babies are, like, 19, 20 inches long. They were in the hospital for three months, and we didn't know what was going to happen, and I didn't realize I did this until after the fact. But I approached each day like a performance, and I don't mean that as performing for an audience. I mean, the focus that, “Okay, we're just gonna focus on right now. We need to have enough sleep. We need to have enough food. We need to be healthy enough to show up in this day because we don't know what's gonna happen.”
I would stretch in the morning. I would put on full makeup and bright-colored clothes, almost like a costume. It was very similar to my pre-performance rituals, and it was the way I stayed focused in the moment to be able to listen to what the doctors were telling me. It was how I watched the doctor's body language to say, “Oh, they're not telling me something,” and that's something I learned in the studio watching dancers or the choreographer say something. “Oh, he said this. But I can tell from his body language that it's, you know, this or that.” And I did it consciously. It was just second nature to approach life that way.
And then later, when I was trying to process the three months that we spent in the hospital, I realized, “Oh, I did that like a dancer,” because people expected me to show up, you know, exhausted and crying, and no, there was no time for that. Just like a performance, there's no time to think about the slick spot on the stage or the costume that might tear, if you're going to forget your choreography. There is no time. You just go out there and dance. So that's probably the most explicit example of how being a dancer aids me in life, or I'm not going to call it real life because it's all real life, right?
Dr. Chelsea: It is all real. Oh, thank you for that story. It makes sense that you would learn — I think we do. We learn how to show up strong, and there's the good and bad of that, right? Sometimes we do it despite all things and without taking care of ourselves, but the way you describe it sounds more like I know how to take care of myself so that I can show up when I need to, which is beautiful, that balance. Like you said, taking care of sleep and health and your physical health and stretching and food, and then putting on maybe a bit of a costume, but being able to pick yourself up so that you can be there for your children.
Janine K: Yeah.
Dr. Chelsea: I want to ask about the pre-performance rituals, because it's something as a psychologist that I talk to dancers about a lot, the value of a pre-performance ritual. And because it helped you so many years later in life, clearly you had some that really helped you show up onstage as a dancer. Like you said, if something happened to your costume, the stage is weird, you know, you can let that all go and perform because you've gone through your ritual and you're comfortable. Will you share a little about what that looked like for you?
Janine’s Pre-Performance Ritual – 23:20
Janine K: Yeah, yeah. So growing up as a little kid watching the company dancers, I would see how they would prepare for a performance, right? So everyone would have a towel that they’d put at their spot in front of the mirror, and they would arrange their makeup, and you would see the dancers who didn't set out the lipstick and the foundation and the powder, it was just kind of haphazard versus the dancers who did. And the dancers who are organized never had a pair of pointe shoes that the ribbon suddenly ripped because they knew how many pointe shoes they had, which ones they were going to wear, where they were. They couldn't be on the table because, you know, everyone will kick you out of the dressing room, and then you have to go outside and you have to turn around three times and you have to spit and all this kind of thing, and everyone's really mad at you because you gave them bad luck. But those dancers now — and actually the organized dancers never did that. It was always the disorganized dancers who put their pointe shoes on the table.
So there was the preparedness part, and I watched other dancers do that, and I did that. I had this one specific towel that I would use. And then as a professional, especially when we would tour a lot, you didn't know what your dressing room would look like. And so, I couldn't be tied to, “I need to have this kind of table,” or “I need to have this kind of space to put something out,” because you didn't know where you were going to end up. So my rituals had to be very —
Dr. Chelsea: Like, adaptable to where you are?
Janine K: Right, right. There had to be kind of like a foundation. “These are the things that need to happen, but these are the things that don't have to happen.” Ideally, I would always take a shower beforehand, usually before warmup, a really hot shower. I would have a lotion that — I would have a scent for each ballet.
Dr. Chelsea: Oh, nice.
Janine K: The Body Shop, I don't know if they still do this, but The Body Shop used to have, like, these oils, and they used to let you mix and match oils. But then maybe somebody got a skin rash or something, and you can't do that anymore. But I would go, and I would mix an oil, a scent, and then I would put that in the unscented shampoo that they sell and the unscented lotion that they would sell and the unscented, whatever, spritzer. And I would have this for whatever ballet we were doing.
So I would take my shower. I would use the lotion, which I see now doubled as a massage, right? You know, going up the legs and the arms and the face and back. And so, obviously it was like a self-massage, and it was scented. And I would have some yoga structures that I would do. Sometimes they were sun salutations. Sometimes there were these other exercises that I had learned in a yoga class many years ago. They were good stretches or stretches I can do anywhere. They were the same stretches I would do when my boys were in the NICU.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah.
Janine K: So I would have a stretching routine. I smoked, so I would have my pre-performance cigarette, which I don't recommend. However, it's not a benefit to smoking, but one of the things that happened as a result of that is you carved out time to kind of focus and breathe. And granted, you're breathing in smoke and that's, again, not good, but it was a set period of time. It's a moment for you. And if I had to do it again, then I would just have that time to sit and focus and breathe and obviously without the cigarette.
Dr. Chelsea: Right.
Janine K: And I actually think that's really important to have that time that you set aside to stop and just breathe, time to have a non-activity activity.
So when I came in to prepare for this podcast, I was running a little late, but I was like, “Okay, I have to take the time to get ready to talk to you.” So I come into my office, and I feel like I listened to the space, and I have little candles and flowers here and there. So just really bringing it down to a very small moment. I don't think of it as meditation, but I know there are some similarities —
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah.
Janine K: — of breathing and just feeling yourself.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah. It sounds like what you're describing is truly mindfulness. And again, the time was allowing you that space. It's bringing you to your body, your current space, kind of letting yourself settle. It sounds like a wonderful pre-performance ritual and effective and able to kind of center you before a performance. I love the scent as well. There are many psychologists who will tell you about the power of a scent to put you in the right state of mind. And then the power to create one for a ballet. I think that's wonderful to have that specific connection.
So thank you for sharing that routine. I think to any dancers listening, anything that is that ritual before you go to perform is about intentionally putting yourself in the right state of mind before you're going to take the stage and harnessing that. Do that intentionally and not just expect yourself to show up and be your best without any sort of preparation beforehand. So, yeah.
Janine K: Right. And I think it's also important to see the people — what are the people around you doing? When I was in the school at PNB, at Nutcracker, you know, we had to wear our pink tights and our black leotard. It was our uniform for class, and then for Nutcracker warmups, we could get away with wearing, you know, more junk. And because we wore all the plastic pants and the big t-shirts and all the leg warmers and all this kind of stuff. And then one day the ballet mistress took us aside and said, “Okay, look at the company. Look at the company dancers who wear a lot of junk and the company dancers who don't.” You know, and that's all she had to say because the principal dancers, the dancers who their star was kind of rising, they were the ones who wore less junk. It wasn't a performance. It was just —
Dr. Chelsea: Just that professionalism, like just put together?
Janine K: Right, like, “This is how I want to be seen. I'm seen right now. This is how I feel good.” Again, it's very similar to when I would dress up to go to the hospital. I'm not doing this to be seen. I just feel really good in a bright color and I'm showing myself, versus the dancers who are in a lot of schlumpy stuff, and it's really hard to have a straight back when you're wearing schlumpy stuff. And you don't need — it's always hard to have a straight back, so you might as well have the clothes that help that.
And again with the pre-performance ritual, looking around at the dancers who are the most focused, the dancers who don't get rattled on stage, the dancers who kind of always make it work, and what are the things that they do for themselves that help them? And a lot of times it's mindfulness. It's our own, you know, way of doing that.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that reminds me of — there was a part where you were talking about, like, what's packed in your bag for the theater, and I think I laughed out loud, and you were like, one sock with holes in all the right places, and that you wore Freeds. I wore Freeds too, and I had my preferred maker, and you have to find the right ones. So it's the material setup too. Like you said, you have the right makeup, your shoes are set the right way so that you can be calm and prepared because, like you said, the ribbon breaks, you can't find the right lipstick. Those little things can derail you, so you have to, again, take control, have that pre-performance ritual.
But I like how you said that it had to be adaptable because the problem with pre-performance rituals is if you get too rigid and then something doesn't happen, that causes this whole superstitious downfall, and then now you're like, “I didn't have this one thing happen. I'll have a horrible show.” So will you talk a little about that like flexibility or that ability to say, “Well, I couldn't take a shower before. I didn't have my scented oils,” and if that hurt your performance?
The Power of Flexibility with Pre-Performance Rituals – 32:05
Janine K: Yeah. So, you had mentioned, going back to the pointe shoes and the ribbon or the lipstick or whatever, and part of the preparedness is you see before the ribbon breaks that it isn't sewn well, right? So the pre-performance ritual is a small time before you go onstage, but the preparedness is something that is always happening, right?
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah.
Janine K: You're getting enough sleep or you're getting enough sleep so that if you have to stay up late for whatever reason, there's a really late tech rehearsal, the bus got lost — I could write a whole other memoir of getting lost on tour. The bus gets lost and, you know, you're sleeping in a seat, and you have to perform and all these things that can go wrong. But if you are taking care of yourself every day, then it's easier to rebound from, you know, bad sleep or something, or as I mentioned, you see before it happens that this lipstick is — you need to get new lipstick. And so, it doesn't break on that day, because there are a lot of mistakes that don't even happen because you're prepared.
So that already has a peace of mind that comes with it. Because the less organized you are, the more often these things happen. We all know that person who has a safety pin on the ribbon or forgot that the bus was late, the train had an accident, all this stuff. And it's not just luck. Part of it is the preparedness. And so, when you have that, that's already a layer of peace of mind before you get to the ritual. So I feel like that's really important.
And then when you're in a place where, okay, there's not a place to take a shower, or there's not — well, I would have never forgotten my lotion or whatever, because it was part of the ritual.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah, you were prepared.
Janine K: But it has happened. I have had the phone call at home, you know, “Somebody's not here! You have to come to the theater and dance.” I thought I had the night off, I get in the car, I take the bag, and maybe something's left behind, but you're already in a mindset of focus.
So I guess what I want to go back to is the ritual isn't something outside of yourself. The ritual is something that feeds your focus, and you can always find something to feed your focus. So me walking into my office today, “Okay, I don't have time to do my little ritual, but I do have time to feed my focus.” So, if you stop and do that, you'll find the elements of that pre-performance ritual that will feed your focus.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah.
Janine K: And it might not be the shower or the perfume or the whatever. It might be something new, and that's really stimulating for your brain. There are lots of ways that we can find focus. So I think if you remember that the ritual feeds the focus, you will find the ways to adapt, to keep that intention.
Dr. Chelsea: That is wonderful advice. Remembering what the ritual is for, because I think you're right, that's when it gets derailed is when people — the ritual is about the ritual, but it's not. The ritual is about your focus, and so, anything can replace that. That's wonderful advice.
I want to ask about the journey once you get that first professional job, because I think there's this journey to become a professional dancer. That is challenging enough, and that's where we're getting more and more advice on how you get there. But then once you get your first job, that's just the beginning. Now, there's a whole new set of challenge. So will you share a little about that phase and kind of that lessons learned or what that journey was like, what you've learned in that process?
Janine’s Take on The Journey of a Professional Dancer – 36:01
Janine K: Yeah. Yeah. I think a successful ballet career should have a certain amount of boredom, and what I mean by that is it's your day job, and then whatever day job you have in your life, whether it is working in a bank or making cappuccinos, or as a ballet dancer, it's not always exciting, and that's really important because If your body isn't healthy, you can't do anything. You will always end up pushing a little bit more than you want to be doing anyway. So your middle space has to be a healthy body, and when I was in the school, there was a lot of excitement around pushing ourselves to, whether it was poor eating habits or taking extra classes, there was, like, a value in this starved-artist kind of mentality, and you shouldn't be that, right?
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah, let's get rid of that mindset. Yep.
Janine K: Exactly. Exactly, because then you have nothing left for yourself to enjoy what you're doing. So, again, the people who have the longest careers are the people who take care of themselves. I mean, a lot of time they have just bodies that they heal well, or they don't torque easily, so there's that part of it. But it's a job, and so, you take care of yourself.
So it's not always going to be exciting, but that means that you have a lot of fuel to really give your all when it is time to be exciting, which that can be in class, that can be in rehearsal, that's certainly in performance but your life around is preparing your body to be healthy enough and rested enough to really punch it in the dancing. The excitement doesn't happen outside of the dancing. And so, there are days that you show up to rehearsal and you don't feel like it, and you do it anyway.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah.
Janine K: There's something boring about slow and steady, you know? That's important for longevity.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah, absolutely. No, I think you're right. There is something to monotony of the things that help you, of sticking with it, figuring out what that care is and just sticking to it to allow you to recharge. And I think maybe you're seeing a little of the, you know, pull back the curtain, like you finally made it. But that doesn't mean it's all glamorous and Sugar Plum Fairy the whole time. There are elements to it that are just, “I don't want to go to work today, and I have to, and I have to show up.”
Janine K: Yeah, and I think there's also a constant — you were growing as an artist, and you don't even know what that means because that's what it means to grow as an artist.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah.
Janine K: And hopefully we are all artists in our pedestrian lives, and we are honing that and we're trying to figure out what that next level is, but you don't know what that is yet. So you need to be prepared for the new information that comes in or the new inspiration that you see, something you want to emulate or not and being prepared for that. And the good side of that is that you're always learning. The pitfall is that you might always keep moving the goalposts and you don't want to do that. So having the monotony also can give you time to reflect on, like, “Oh no, this is working. This is.”
Dr. Chelsea: Right. Yeah.
Janine K: Please, one grand plié in seconde will never be as exciting as four pirouettes. It's not supposed to. It's supposed to bring you into the moment and be the big, deep breath of the day.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah. Oh, that makes a lot of sense. And I think with what you were just saying about goalposts is, you know, not always moving them ahead. And I think that's just another way to say something I say a lot about there is no top of the mountain. You can keep growing, but you’ve got to notice the goalposts along the way. Like, don't have that be the only thing that keeps moving, so that you're noticing the growth and the progress along the way.
Janine K: Right. Right.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah.
Janine K: Right, and then also helps you in the — you know, some of my most gratifying performances wasn't something that was flashy and technical or wasn't something that was an important performance. I mean, there were some of those, but having that, either it's a connection to the audience or a connection to your artist self, and it feels like lightbulbs going. It feels like you're the sun, not lightbulbs.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah.
Janine K: And being prepared to have this moment and then reflecting back and amplifying those moments for yourself in your memories so that you can repeat that and even just enjoy it, just have the joy of having that, that moment, that's dance. That's also the advantage to being a hobbyist and just doing it when you feel like that because the ratio of moments like that to the monotony is a higher ratio, but you're not honing the skill part of it. And as a professional dancer, you're also honing your skill along with honing your artistry.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah. Okay. So I want to wrap it up and come back to Nutcracker for a minute. Any advice to the aspiring professional dancer, to the dancer listening who wants to be that Sugar Plum someday?
Janine’s Advice to The Aspiring Dancer – 41:57
Janine K: Well, I think we kind of already answered it. The Sugar Plum is not the top of the mountain.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah.
Janine K: And this is not meant to sound cynical, but if you think about it, she doesn't even dance that much, right?
Dr. Chelsea: No, she doesn't. I agree!
Janine K: And that's actually one of the beautiful things about The Nutcracker that's completely different from any other full-length classical ballet, that there is no top billing. I mean, even The Nutcracker gets broken, first of all, you know, and then depending on the version, the Prince either just sits around or he goes on — and there's no star of The Nutcracker. Everybody has a memorable part, and the music is so — there's so much story and drama and joy and narrative in the music that audiences remember parts of the music. And it kind of doesn't really matter what you're dancing, you have a shot at being the character that the audience will remember, whether it's one of the toy soldiers, whether it's one of the dolls in the party scene, you know, one of the cute, little kids in Mother Ginger. And so, if you're an aspiring professional dancer, looking at the Sugar Plum, I think I would say, “What are you dancing now? That's your top of the mountain today? Now, what are you dancing now that connects you, your steps that you're doing with the music that you've been given that gives you the most capacity for joy?” That's what I would say.
Dr. Chelsea: That's wonderful advice. Will you share where listeners can get your book and learn more about you?
Connect with Janine – 43:48
Janine K: Yes, my book is called The Nutcracker Chronicles: A Fairytale Memoir, and it follows the story of The Nutcracker but really through the life of a professional dancer, and you can get this book wherever books are sold. You might have to — if you go to your independent bookstore, you'll have to tell them ahead of time so they can stock it. And yeah, wherever books are sold!
Dr. Chelsea: That is wonderful, and yeah, go support your independent bookstore!
Janine K: Yes, go support your independent bookstore, and they will want to hear that. They like to know about these titles that their neighborhood patrons want.
Dr. Chelsea: Yeah, absolutely! Let's get more performing arts books stocked in the shelves. Wonderful. Thank you so much for being with me, Janine, today. This was wonderful!
Janine K: This was so much fun! I love talking about ballet in a growth mindset way, right, instead of just this perfectionist thing. And yeah, this was so much fun!
Dr. Chelsea: It was really fun. You had so much to say, so thank you!
Janine K: Yeah, all right, thanks! Bye!
Dr. Chelsea: Bye!
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Thank you for listening to Passion for Dance! You can find all episode resources at www.chelseapierotti.com/podcast, and be sure to follow me on Instagram for more high-performance tips at @Dr…chelsea.pierotti. This podcast is for passionate dance teachers and coaches who are ready to change the dance industry by creating happier, more successful dancers. I'm Dr… Chelsea and keep sharing your passion for dance with the world.
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