From Adult Ballet to Ballet to Letting it All Go - My One-Year Odysee to Working With Evelyn Hart

Most blissful times ever.

They say that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

Only in this case, the teacher appeared - and disappeared right away.

I came across Evelyn Hart shortly after coming to Canada in 2017. Actually, I came across a flyer for her “Love, Sex & Brahms” performance in Toronto. The reason that performance caught my eye was that she was in her early sixties! And everyone in my ballet studio had sort of a revering undertone when talking about her. With time, I learned that she was a Canadian legend, a “national treasure”, as one of my friends likes to put it. She was most known for her time as a principal dancer with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, where she danced for almost 30 (!) years. But she also had stints all over the world, for example in my kind-of-hometown Munich. The reason I had not heard of her was essentially because I didn’t know anything about ballet until I started it six years ago.

Anyway. She kept floating around in the Toronto ballet sphere, coaching company dancers, teaching pre-professional students, and yes, still performing, too. We actually did cross paths briefly and said “hi” during my OpenSpace residency at the National Ballet of Canada (I blogged about it here and here), but we never introduced ourselves, nor chatted. I kind of knew it was her, though - lightly carrying the wiry physique of an eternal ballerina and radiating the unapologetic presence of an artist who has done it all.

And then suddenly, we met. Though it couldn’t have been more coincidental.

A sense of Ballet HOme

In 2019, Evelyn started renting space in one the studios where I was taking classes - for the private conservatory that she was running back then. One day, she came into the studio a little earlier to warm up, and my teacher introduced us.

We started chatting, and from the first minute I felt like coming home. Her language, her whole vocabulary when talking about ballet, about movement, teaching, and learning - it mirrored everything that had accumulated in me over all my life, and over my ballet life, and was waiting to be spoken to. Her physical wisdom went beyond ballet - it was a combination of somatic practice, embodied biomechanics, neural pathways - and over everything, a divine elegance. Over everything was also a compulsion to share her wisdom and a deep satisfaction from making others better. She and my teacher knew each other well from the past, and on several occasions she took a peak at our rehearsals and gave us valuable feedback and corrections.

After one of our chats, she casually invited me to stay after my class and do barre with her conservatory girls. Wait, WUT?

I had to catch myself briefly. The truth was that this was the time when I had an episode of intense and chronic SI joint pain while taking a lot of classes and rehearsing for a show. My body was a wreck each time afterwards, and the only thing I could think of every day was to go home and collapse into an Epsom salt bath (and it was only the middle of the day).

But there was no other way than following her invitation. My whole body was magnetically drawn to her work.

Her class reflected her mind, and blew mine. During that hour-long barre, I felt little shocks of enlightment going all the way through my body. While it took me everything to just follow along and catch all the steps, there was something deeply calming and organic in how Evelyn built the progression of exercises and how that progression went into my aching body. Her hands-on corrections were a relevation - mostly because of the effortlessness that she guided me into and that was unknown to me; how she cued me to let go of gripping and tension and let all joints just fall into their sockets. For all my life, I have always “muscled” through everything, ballet or otherwise. I always had this experience of myself as tall, and strong, and therefore needing all the power and strength I could summon to move. And now, here was this petite woman showing me a completely different side of myself. The profound ease in her concept of moving the body shook me to the core.

I joined her barre on two other occasions. These few classes were instrumental in the realization that I had to make a cut and fundamentally change something about how I approached movement and training for it. At least if I wanted to find a way to move without pain, and for as long as I loved it. Even though I only got a glimpse of how it could feel to move in a new way, I knew 100% that there was no going back.

And then, just like she had appeared, Evelyn disappeared again.

There must be a different way

She stopped renting the studio for her conservatory. I didn’t see her anywhere else again. And then I left Toronto for the whole summer.

One consequence of this almost spiritual experience was that I completely took a break from ballet for two months. This was also encouraged by another teacher of mine who suggested that I needed to let go of all the “hard-working” movement pattern that had compressed my SI-joint and screwed up my pelvic alignment, eventually culminating in debilitating pain.

As I took a step back over the summer, I started reflecting how I wanted to move forward. After what I had experienced in Evelyn’s classes, it was hard to imagine to just go back to my regular classes and do business as usual. At the core was my realization, a slight glimpse of hope, that there was a way to take my ballet abilities to a much higher level and quality, in a way that wouldn’t hurt my body. And in a way, as I had experienced from Evelyn’s corrections, it wasn’t even rocket science. In essence, her approach was very “simple”, informed by a deep and fundamental understanding of the human body. I felt that I was craving this more informed, more structured, and wholistic learing experience. Kind of like a pre-professional training, but one that acknowledged the more developed mind-body connection of an adult learner and included an almost metaphysical dimension.

Naturally, it came to my mind to ask Evelyn if I could learn more from her.

I mean I knew she was incredibly busy on the highest levels of Canadian ballet. There was no reason that she needed to spend time teaching someone who had started ballet at age 37 and who had no aspirations or hopes for a classic professional career (not sure if street performances would count).

But I very much believe that you need to follow these nudges. Even though I didn’t know her well at all, there was a felt connection of my story to hers, and the way that our stories informed our bodies. The potential of her movement experience felt exhilirating to me and I knew I could never forgive myself if I missed the opportunity to at least reach out to her and ask.

There was just one practical problem: I didn’t have any contact information.

The Connection Odysee

Granted, you would think that being the public figure that she was, it should have been easy for me to figure out a connection to her through my other ballet connections in Toronto. Ya, that’s what I thought, too.

But for god’s sake, I just couldn’t find a way!

I think partly I was very respectful of her privacy and didn’t just want to randomly ask people for her number or email address. One time I did try this, and the person responded a bit Candian-avoidingly-polite. I tried to reach her through her social media channels but she didn’t check her messages there.

Finally, I got over my shy self again and asked another person who was close to her (and it took me months of thinking about it, and a friend to tell me “yes, do it”), who responded she would be happy to help! It took another few weeks and a reminder, but then I finally had Evelyn’s email. I was beyond excited. I wrote a beautiful email that concluded with an open question whether she would be up for teaching me more and that I would be open to formats. I hit send and got all my hopes up.

Only to get NOTHING back. Zero.

At which point I gave up. At least I had tried my everything. I didn’t see any other viable option to reach out to her, and decided that there was nothing else I could do right now. I mean, also, I really was busy enough. I had returned to my old classes upon coming back to Toronto in the fall, moved to a new apartment, struggled with another severe SI-joint pain episode that required all my healing attention for months, and well, Canadian winter and stuff.

Late winter came, and things started easing up a bit.

While I was still taking my old classes, the break over the summer had done its job. Since then and over the previous months, I had managed to start making little changes to how I created turnout in my body, together with other biomechanical shifts. My pain started to subside, and I was having fun being in my body again. My new apartment had become an incredibly beautiful and nourishing home, and this particular Canadian winter turned out being not too bad.

One day, after a particularly nice class at InStudio (which is a wonderful adult ballet studio that runs its classes in the beautiful space of the National Ballet of Canada) and a good stretch afterwards, I was ready to leave the studio and bike home. As I pushed the studio door open -

Evelyn Hart stood right in front of me.

The Ballet Gift of COVID-19

I still remember that second of sheer disbelief, before we fell into a big hug. We enjoyed the pleasant surprise and while holding her hands the whole story of how I had tried to reach out to her burst out of me. She said she never received my email (thanks Universe! Just when I needed you.) and gave me her number. She was about to coach one of the National Ballet’s principal dancers for her Juliet role, so we didn’t have much time to chat, but she encouraged me to re-send my email via text.

Which I did, the same day. She responded the same day. Turned out that she wasn’t running the conservatory any more, which was a bit of a bummer, because that would have been a viable option to join her training. But - she offered some other ideas for how we could get started. Just a little more patience, a few more weeks, early spring was the goal.

And then the world succumbed to Covid-19.

After the first shock over losing all my classes (and, well, shock over everything really), ballet-wise the situation turned out to be not that bad really. A true gift actually. Because while I was not able to take full classes, the practice of doing my training at home gave me the chance to breathe, slow down, do some high quality and highly specific work, in my own way, at my own pace. Really zooming in on the basics of turnout, weight transfer, and tracking of the leg. I am not exagerating when I say that I truly and thoroughly enjoyed the daily ritual of going up to my small ballet space, and completely sink into the work.

I felt so in tune with myself ballet-wise that I had almost forgotten about anything else out there. It wasnt’t until way into April when I fully realized that Evelyn had kind of disappeared again.

As I thought of reaching out to her once more, I felt the old inner resistance strike at me again. The resistance that thought I wasn’t worthy of getting professional-level training with someone so accomplished. Especially not in these state-of-emergency times, how could I even think of such a luxury.

Plus - no studio space anywhere. I mean I had a pretty good barre space at my place, but I couldn’t invite her home during the shutdown, and I didn’t expect her to be much of an online person.

But a less flimsy and more “get it done girl“-minded part of my self got a hold of my phone and texted her. Without any expectations in these exceptional times.

She texted back the next day.

We had our first class together about two weeks ago.

Getting to (Online) Work

Turned out she was playing Zoom like a pro.

Turned out her online teaching was just as profoundly powerful as her hands-on corrections.

Turned out that in a sense, I was about to learn ballet, really, for the first time.

We’ve had four classes together so far, and it feels almost awkward to admit that I have rarely felt this kind of bliss in my life. It’s hard to explain. It’s by far not any glamorous work that we do. It’s the type of work where the plan is to do a barre, and then for a full 1.5 hours, we only get to tendus from first. And we didn’t even do pliés. It’s the type of uncompromising quality that I live for and that makes me feel like I barely need anything else in my life. And all this being facilitated by a guide who has lived through it, who doesn’t have to prove anything, and who lovingly brings me back to “uncompromising” whenever my pelvic alignment slips away or the ball of my femur is not perfectly centered in the hip joint.

Oh, and it turned out that there is a major advantage to working online: I can take the exact same class the next day, and as often as I like. It’s fascinating how much more I catch when I watch the replay, pause it whenever I need more time to do it right, and listen to every nugget of ballet wisdom once again.

One aspect that has excited me originally about working with Evelyn was to take a step beyond “adult ballet”. Into “ballet”. I mean, this is one of the biggest drivers for me in my own learning, but also for what I am trying to create with Late to the Party Ballet: The idea that just because you started later doesn’t mean that you have to compromise on skill, movement quality or anything. To deconstruct what it means to create the appearance of a professional dancer, and what that in turn means on the most fundamental, neuro-muscular level. Because the brain, and the body are highly plastic and formable way into old age, but the challenge is really in understanding HOW to bring that kind of profound change about. I knew that Evelyn would be able to give me some key ideas here, in a way that speaks to me.

But I am starting to understand that her work goes even beyond the traditional ways of “ballet”.

Getting out of your Body’s way and Letting it Fall into Place

It breaks with the belief that you have to “bully” your body into shapes and positions over many years in order to achieve the desired athletic and aesthetic results. I’d describe her approach more as: How can I step out of my own ways in order to achieve the desired athletic and aesthetic results? How can I make it easier for my body to get there? What are the movement pathways that I need to understand? How can I use as little muscle as possible to create a specific pose or movement? A lot of it reminds me of very universal movement work approaches like Feldenkrais. That explains why we can easily spend one or two hours on a preparatory exercise and tendus. Because it’s not really about tendus - it’s about learning where the hip joint sockets are and how the ball of the femur needs to be positioned and moving in them. How this can happen without involving any movement from the pelvis at all, and I mean not even the slightest one. How does the heel need to track when the leg moves out, how do you point your feet, how do you let go of any tension in the toes. Even these four classes that I had with her so far easily have material for months of explorations.

The interesting thing is that I have been aware and worked on these key ballet concepts for a long time, and I am absolutely humbled by how much more and better is possible. I mean, SO MUCH better. Evelyn’s experience and wisdom is so rich in showing me the pathways into all these bone mechanics. And it’s fascinating time and again to experience how quickly the nervous system jumps into place - even now, after those four classes and some daily “homework” my pelvic alignment has changed already. With some tissue self-release, I was able to open up the right joint capsule. Which only confirms to me that it’s really the work around movement patterns and tissue quality that needs to happen first, before you can add strength and mobility.

What I am enjoying so much: I don’t have any goals for these classes. I am not working towards any outcomes. I don’t know where it will take me, what I will learn, and for how long. There is a purposelessness in the work that I believe is the prerequisite for all higher skill-building. If you can find joy and reward in the simple and strictly uncompromising, you’ve already won at it.

Follow your instinct and make learning your best investment

My biggest takeaways from this one-year odysee?

Always, always, always follow your gut instinct. There is not one “world’s best” teacher. You will gravitate towards different teachers at different stages of your ballet game. You might not necessarily find them in the typical adult ballet setting - so it’s worth keeping your eyes open outside of your usual studio classes. I believe that we are attracted to other people by our lifes’ stories, even when we don’t know much of them when we meet. And it’s so important to follow that attraction, to take that little voice seriously that says “try it, reach out, say that you would like to learn more from her” even if you are afraid that someone might say No. Maybe it won’t work out right away. (BTW, over the past few months I was also trying to take classes with another incredible teacher, and while it looked like it would work out, it hasn’t happend at all so far!) I think that my experience of connecting with Evelyn is such a beautiful illustration of it: She “appeared” when I was in deep pain and needed a glimpse of an idea for how to move differently; then she “disappeared” when I needed the time for my body to heal and let go of the pain, and then she finally “re-appeared” when I felt physically amazing and had distraction-free and peaceful time during quarantine (took me a while to get it, Universe, thank you!) That balance of letting go and trusting the process while persistantly staying at it is a tough one - not just when trying to connect with a ballet teacher.

And last - there is no reason why you should compromise and not work with the best teacher that you can think of at your particular learning stage. They’re not just for pre-professionals and professionals. Well, some maybe prefer to do just that and that’s ok. But it’s worth asking. And you’re worthy of asking. Because every learning endeavour is an investment of the most valuable things you’ve got: time, love, attention.

So you might just as well make that investment the best possible - and most uncompromising one.

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So…this was my very personal take on ballet learning and following the call. What about you? Have you ever actively sought out a specific teacher because something about him or her spoke to you in an inexplicable way? Or is there someone you would like to work with but you’re not sure how to approach it? Feel free to speak your heart in the comments!