Ballet Misfits Podcast Episode 1 with Evelyn Hart: On Starting Late, Dealing With Limited Turnout, and Finding Uniqueness

Full attention and soaking up every word. This is the picture that Evelyn refers to in our conversation. (Picture courtesy of Evelyn Hart)

Friends!
Welcome to this only, or maybe first episode of the Late to the Party Ballet Podcast! I started working with Evelyn Hart a couple of months ago, and you can read the full story of how that came about in one of my recent blog articles. Right from the start I realized that I really enjoyed talking with her, beyond the ballet that she was teaching me. I was dying to ask her more questions, but despite Covid-related closures, our schedules were packed and there wasn’t much time around classes to chat.

But because I felt like her story offered so many gifts, I thought – why not ask her if she would be up for a conversation that we could share with others? She graciously agreed. And so here we are!

What I only more recently learned, and what makes this conversation so relevant for us adult ballet starters, is that Evelyn started ballet quite late as a teenager, so a lot of her experience as a dancer revolved around “feeling behind” and “catching up”. Sounds familiar? :-)

Evelyn is considered one of Canada’s most famed and accomplished ballerinas. She started dancing at 14, joined the Royal Winnipeg Ballet when she was 17, and was promoted to principal dancer four years later. She won the gold medal at the International Ballet Competition in Varna, Bulgaria, at 24, upon which she started guesting and for the first time diving into lots of classical repertoire - at an unheard pace - all over the world.

What sounds like a prodigy-type journey is to a large extent also a story of rejections, overcoming limited turnout, and dealing with lots of stage fright and self-doubt. But it is also a story of incredible grit, perseverance, an incessant drive to figure out ballet technique from the inside out, and an exceptional musicality and artistry that would become the key to Evelyn’s remarkable career.

Evelyn now lives in Toronto and is a sought-after coach, teacher, and mentor to professional and pre-professional dancers. She is a Companion of the Order of Canada, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and has received a Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement.

We talk about how long it took her to overcome her late start and what advice she has for adult beginners who struggle with the “late start shadow”; what kept her going after being rejected from the National Ballet School THREE times; her take on pelvic alignment for exploring full turnout and hip joint rotation; why she chose to dance in pointe shoes that were soft as socks; the role of musicality in fundamental ballet technique; how she would start working with an absolute adult beginner; and gift of being uncompromising in any pursuit.

For me, this conversation unlocked a new self-perception around being a student and dancer who started late in life. Hearing from someone so accomplished that, really, you can CREATE at any point in your life, no matter at what age you started, was like getting a fresh infusion of purpose into my daily ballet practice. I hope you’ll get it to – and much more beyond it. Please enjoy!