Thank you BalletMet!

Hello All!

As BalletMet’s marketing and communications intern for the past 3 months, I would like to take the time to thank everyone for such an awesome experience. I am truly grateful that I found such a great opportunity with BalletMet and am sad that this is my last week here. I will definitely miss it!

A little about me:

I’m Chelsea, a third year strategic communication major and dance and professional writing minor at the Ohio State University. I grew up in Dayton, OH and have been dancing my entire life. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. I want to always keep dancing in my life and that is how I landed here.

BalletMet was a great place for me to see a new perspective of all the behind-the-scenes work it takes to run a company and to put on a show. My knowledge of dance has grown immensely, and I have only been here since January. I loved taking a tour on my first day, seeing the costume shop, the studios, and all of the history here at BalletMet.

I started ballet and tap classes when I was five. Every Saturday morning my mom would dress me up in my leotard and pink tights and wrap my waist long hair into the perfect ballet bun, which usually looked a little like a birds nest by the end of the class. My first recital was something I’ll never forget (probably because there is video evidence that always seems to make its way out at family gatherings). For this tap number, we were all dolled up in a blue velvet tutu and bright white tap shoes and forced to sing our steps as we did them. Some of the girls cried, picked their noses or waved to their mothers in the audience. I was the loud obnoxious one in the middle (since I was much too tall for my own good at age 5) and could be heard over everyone else. I have never left the stage since.

Dance has always been my passion. It started at Margaret Leiber School of Dance, where my teachers planted the seed of dance in my life and it has been growing ever since. I cannot thank them enough. Now that I am in college, I rarely get a chance to perform, so I love coming to work at BalletMet. I get to see dancers every day and attend the amazing performances, where I can live vicariously through the dancers on stage. I’ve begun taking other classes too. Modern, jazz and hip hop too. I think salsa is next on my list!

Along with dance, I dabbled in theatre, choir, and art. But, I always managed to squeeze dance into every role I was given. Degas is by far my favorite artist. I joined show choir in high school so that I could dance every day at school. And, I always tried out for the musicals, since what is better than acting, singing and dancing all at the same time. Dance posters cover my room and my old pointe shoes, which I haven’t touched for years, still sit in my closet, just in case I ever get the urge to lace them up for old time’s sake. But when I do, I realize why I put them back in the closet in the first place : ) I have to give these pros credit, there is a lot of pain that goes into dancing.

Now that I am leaving BalletMet, I am not quite sure where my next step will be. But I know that I am leaving having learned so much and my passion for dance has grown even more. I cannot wait to take my skills that I have learned here into my next internship and into my career once I graduate (fingers crossed). But since I’ll still be in town, you better believe I’ll be buying those show tickets and taking a class or two here at BalletMet!

Thanks again to everyone who made this experience so great!