I’m a nervous teenager waiting in the
wings about to go on stage for one of
the most important roles in my fledgling
career I’m in ballet school my heart’s
pounding in my chest and butterflies are
circling my insides both legs are
burning with a pain relief cream that
I’ve liberally applied I didn’t want
them let the part go to my understudy
I’d been fooling myself and hiding the
truth from others but in that moment
there was doubt I really did not know if
I could pull the performance off with
any credibility at all
I had him flamed and painfully
excruciatingly ly painful hamstrings
with micro tears and I just really did
not know whether I could do it but that
moment didn’t last for long because the
music erupted and my cue to go onstage
arrived I took a deep breath and I ran
on to the stage and instantly there was
a transformation there was stillness and
I realized that I was no longer the
insecure nervous teenager standing in
the wings the pain had vanished and the
artist in me had taken over through that
pain I just continued to lie to myself
and those around me in rehearsals I’d
become used to pushing up against pain
barriers an enduring increasing
emotional strain but the pressure I put
on myself as an artist and the fear of
just falling short of creative
excellence was bringing a new doubt that
I had never encountered before at that
time I definitely couldn’t have
articulated it and I’m sure the
wouldn’t have wanted to either but this
looking back this was the single point
that I would say to find my career in
dance this was my first encounter with
breaking point which I want to explore
through my talk what do I mean by
breaking point it’s different to pushing
up against a barrier or a block it’s
that moment of greatest stress or strain
where the situation just becomes
critical and something or someone just
gives way my life in dance has been
varied and in exciting I’ve been really
privileged to perform many leading roles
especially in Swan Lake and Nutcracker
and now as an artistic director I have
20 years of as artistic director
nurturing other young dancers pushing
them to their breaking point and helping
them and guiding them on a career of
dance I want us to reflect about our
relationship with breaking point
your relationship with breaking point
but through the eyes of a dancer let’s
look at what it takes to become a
professional ballet dancer ideally you
would start at the age of four wearing
your pretty dresses globally girls
usually start around their age boys
would start later and you would need
parental support a class nearby it’s
very easy for a little one to start
dancing at the next stage which is
around the age of 10 there has to be a
mental shift to see if dancing is going
to be more than just a hobby and that
will depends on the individual and their
environment and perhaps their teacher as
puberty arrives both the body and the
personality changes and you’ll find out
whether you have a suitable physique to
become a ballet dancer and maybe the
character to push on towards new
challenges teenage years though is where
there’s a lot of pressure the pressure
comes from schoolwork
balancing your schoolwork which you can
if lots and lots of classes you need to
do class every day and social pressure
we also come to social pressure at some
time in our lives so this usually
removes about half the class and then
comes the point that I was looking at
through my own eyes the beginning the
final moment of truth that will
determine whether you have a career in
dance or will it just remain an
unfulfilled childhood dream
last year I undertook a journey with two
young performers Maya and Peeta and it
was the first time either of them were
performing a lead it was an intuitive
choice for me but it was definitely a
gamble for all three of us I knew that
they had never been pushed to their
limits before that’s what I knew but
what I didn’t know was what they were
going to do when they come up against it
when they came to their own breaking
point I didn’t know how they were react
I didn’t know if they were capable of
pushing through to the other side and
they neither did that did they but
that’s the risk I take Maya comes from a
comfortable lifestyle she’s a lucky girl
she goes to International School and
travels the world with her family on
vacations she started dancing with me at
the age of four and she comes from a
family who are immersed in the arts
Peter comes from a single mom who worked
hard to feed her son and his sisters and
she also worked really hard keeping him
from getting into trouble on the streets
of Koramangala Peter began dancing
around the age of 8 they learn new
choreography and came up against a lot
of physical pain constant rehearsals
exhaustion pressure close personal
contact and continuously drenched in
each other’s sweat they faced more
challenges with technical steps they
were advanced steps requiring strength
precision and perfect timing but Peter
and Maya persevered and through months
of
continuous rehearsal and now capable of
producing a graceful and seemingly
effortless piece of artistry
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
playing a lead role in a performance is
more than just focusing on yourself it
means that you’re holding the entire
show together and the pressure from that
can just keep building to a point of
breakdown successful artist has learned
to rise above this Maya came to me two
weeks before the show with severe pain
in her feet exhaustion and primarily her
own growing insecurity as that moment of
truth was going to arrive she was
dealing with her own battles but she was
also feeling the strain from her partner
in this insane rehearsal Peter was
struggling with heat and suffocation
from his costume
he had fans and water to cool him but it
just began to get the better of him and
he was out of time with her music
forgetting the choreography he was
losing control of his emotions and both
he and Maya were beginning to blame each
other for their mistakes but they were
blaming it in each other in a very
classic way for dancers which is a
passive-aggressive body language the
gamble we had all taken was beginning to
unravel and both of them were far far
far beyond their comfort zones they were
trying to keep themselves together
mentally and knowing what was at stake
and how far that they had already come I
confronted them and bought focus to the
point that we’d arrived at bringing each
other down and the production it was not
an option but this was a really big
weight resting on their young shoulders
so from that moment I saw an immediate
mental shift that United them and they
were now offering support to each other
with a very powerful tool of eye contact
instead of using it for inflicting
damage we see exquisite movement
seamless flow controlled energetic
rhythm within the performer lies a story
of falling up a cruel mount
through snow storms and blizzards and in
that moment you can have injuries and
you safety and sanity is questions you
even think should I should be here
should I not be here so what were Peter
and Maya thinking in that moment of
breakdown how did they make that
necessary shift to emerge through to the
other side have they changed themselves
forever
or have they pushed those barriers or
that breaking point further away and
what about us do we know where our
breaking point is do you know where your
breaking point is do you know how you
will respond in that moment do you
assume to know where somebody else is
breaking point is do you ask you when
you meet someone that you know exactly
where that point is and how that they’re
going to push through it or when it will
even arrive I don’t have all the answers
but I am totally confident in my own
ignorance of everybody else’s breaking
point I’ve seen hundreds of dancers push
through their breaking point and I’ve
seen many more just fall away but I
would really like to give you a concise
lift list of points that you should do
when you meet your breaking point or
another list of personal traits for all
the people that succeed and those that
don’t but I really can’t because it’s
breaking point for me is a test of your
whole being in that moment having
reflected on this at length I force
myself to accept that even though I’ve
successfully broken through many many
breaking points in my life I cannot
guarantee how I will respond to the next
given that we live in a universe of
impermanence
we are also
constantly changing and when we are
given the test again we cannot know how
the new me will respond each time we
reach breaking point a new set of unique
circumstances collide and you will find
out firsthand what your personal
singularity pressure point looks like and what happens next
wings about to go on stage for one of
the most important roles in my fledgling
career I’m in ballet school my heart’s
pounding in my chest and butterflies are
circling my insides both legs are
burning with a pain relief cream that
I’ve liberally applied I didn’t want
them let the part go to my understudy
I’d been fooling myself and hiding the
truth from others but in that moment
there was doubt I really did not know if
I could pull the performance off with
any credibility at all
I had him flamed and painfully
excruciatingly ly painful hamstrings
with micro tears and I just really did
not know whether I could do it but that
moment didn’t last for long because the
music erupted and my cue to go onstage
arrived I took a deep breath and I ran
on to the stage and instantly there was
a transformation there was stillness and
I realized that I was no longer the
insecure nervous teenager standing in
the wings the pain had vanished and the
artist in me had taken over through that
pain I just continued to lie to myself
and those around me in rehearsals I’d
become used to pushing up against pain
barriers an enduring increasing
emotional strain but the pressure I put
on myself as an artist and the fear of
just falling short of creative
excellence was bringing a new doubt that
I had never encountered before at that
time I definitely couldn’t have
articulated it and I’m sure the
wouldn’t have wanted to either but this
looking back this was the single point
that I would say to find my career in
dance this was my first encounter with
breaking point which I want to explore
through my talk what do I mean by
breaking point it’s different to pushing
up against a barrier or a block it’s
that moment of greatest stress or strain
where the situation just becomes
critical and something or someone just
gives way my life in dance has been
varied and in exciting I’ve been really
privileged to perform many leading roles
especially in Swan Lake and Nutcracker
and now as an artistic director I have
20 years of as artistic director
nurturing other young dancers pushing
them to their breaking point and helping
them and guiding them on a career of
dance I want us to reflect about our
relationship with breaking point
your relationship with breaking point
but through the eyes of a dancer let’s
look at what it takes to become a
professional ballet dancer ideally you
would start at the age of four wearing
your pretty dresses globally girls
usually start around their age boys
would start later and you would need
parental support a class nearby it’s
very easy for a little one to start
dancing at the next stage which is
around the age of 10 there has to be a
mental shift to see if dancing is going
to be more than just a hobby and that
will depends on the individual and their
environment and perhaps their teacher as
puberty arrives both the body and the
personality changes and you’ll find out
whether you have a suitable physique to
become a ballet dancer and maybe the
character to push on towards new
challenges teenage years though is where
there’s a lot of pressure the pressure
comes from schoolwork
balancing your schoolwork which you can
if lots and lots of classes you need to
do class every day and social pressure
we also come to social pressure at some
time in our lives so this usually
removes about half the class and then
comes the point that I was looking at
through my own eyes the beginning the
final moment of truth that will
determine whether you have a career in
dance or will it just remain an
unfulfilled childhood dream
last year I undertook a journey with two
young performers Maya and Peeta and it
was the first time either of them were
performing a lead it was an intuitive
choice for me but it was definitely a
gamble for all three of us I knew that
they had never been pushed to their
limits before that’s what I knew but
what I didn’t know was what they were
going to do when they come up against it
when they came to their own breaking
point I didn’t know how they were react
I didn’t know if they were capable of
pushing through to the other side and
they neither did that did they but
that’s the risk I take Maya comes from a
comfortable lifestyle she’s a lucky girl
she goes to International School and
travels the world with her family on
vacations she started dancing with me at
the age of four and she comes from a
family who are immersed in the arts
Peter comes from a single mom who worked
hard to feed her son and his sisters and
she also worked really hard keeping him
from getting into trouble on the streets
of Koramangala Peter began dancing
around the age of 8 they learn new
choreography and came up against a lot
of physical pain constant rehearsals
exhaustion pressure close personal
contact and continuously drenched in
each other’s sweat they faced more
challenges with technical steps they
were advanced steps requiring strength
precision and perfect timing but Peter
and Maya persevered and through months
of
continuous rehearsal and now capable of
producing a graceful and seemingly
effortless piece of artistry
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
playing a lead role in a performance is
more than just focusing on yourself it
means that you’re holding the entire
show together and the pressure from that
can just keep building to a point of
breakdown successful artist has learned
to rise above this Maya came to me two
weeks before the show with severe pain
in her feet exhaustion and primarily her
own growing insecurity as that moment of
truth was going to arrive she was
dealing with her own battles but she was
also feeling the strain from her partner
in this insane rehearsal Peter was
struggling with heat and suffocation
from his costume
he had fans and water to cool him but it
just began to get the better of him and
he was out of time with her music
forgetting the choreography he was
losing control of his emotions and both
he and Maya were beginning to blame each
other for their mistakes but they were
blaming it in each other in a very
classic way for dancers which is a
passive-aggressive body language the
gamble we had all taken was beginning to
unravel and both of them were far far
far beyond their comfort zones they were
trying to keep themselves together
mentally and knowing what was at stake
and how far that they had already come I
confronted them and bought focus to the
point that we’d arrived at bringing each
other down and the production it was not
an option but this was a really big
weight resting on their young shoulders
so from that moment I saw an immediate
mental shift that United them and they
were now offering support to each other
with a very powerful tool of eye contact
instead of using it for inflicting
damage we see exquisite movement
seamless flow controlled energetic
rhythm within the performer lies a story
of falling up a cruel mount
through snow storms and blizzards and in
that moment you can have injuries and
you safety and sanity is questions you
even think should I should be here
should I not be here so what were Peter
and Maya thinking in that moment of
breakdown how did they make that
necessary shift to emerge through to the
other side have they changed themselves
forever
or have they pushed those barriers or
that breaking point further away and
what about us do we know where our
breaking point is do you know where your
breaking point is do you know how you
will respond in that moment do you
assume to know where somebody else is
breaking point is do you ask you when
you meet someone that you know exactly
where that point is and how that they’re
going to push through it or when it will
even arrive I don’t have all the answers
but I am totally confident in my own
ignorance of everybody else’s breaking
point I’ve seen hundreds of dancers push
through their breaking point and I’ve
seen many more just fall away but I
would really like to give you a concise
lift list of points that you should do
when you meet your breaking point or
another list of personal traits for all
the people that succeed and those that
don’t but I really can’t because it’s
breaking point for me is a test of your
whole being in that moment having
reflected on this at length I force
myself to accept that even though I’ve
successfully broken through many many
breaking points in my life I cannot
guarantee how I will respond to the next
given that we live in a universe of
impermanence
we are also
constantly changing and when we are
given the test again we cannot know how
the new me will respond each time we
reach breaking point a new set of unique
circumstances collide and you will find
out firsthand what your personal
singularity pressure point looks like and what happens next
Please follow and like us: