231. Ballet’s Harsh Beauty and the Life Lessons we Learn, with Emily Sayre Smith

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Dr Chelsea: Hello and welcome to Passion for Dance. I'm your host, Dr. Chelsea, and it's my mission to create happier, more successful dancers through positive mental skills. And today I have an interview to share that goes into some more adult themes, but it resonated so much with me. It's about the lessons we learned from ballet, both good and.

I had the pleasure to talk with former professional dancer and author Emily Sayer Smith, whose experience as a ballet dancer has profoundly shaped her life in both positive and challenging ways. We talk about the resilience and perseverance we learned in the ballet world . How those lessons are often harsh in the moment, but necessary for our own growth.

Emily shares her journey as a dancer through her memoir, smart Ass Memoir of a Mouthy Girl. This memoir really shows how the lessons we learn as dancers transcend into every aspect of our lives. As I said, this one is a bit more adult themed than I usually share, but it is such a meaningful conversation, and I hope you listen in. Emily opens up [00:01:00] about overcoming addiction, falling in love with a woman, and speaking up even at great personal sacrifice.

This conversation delves into the transformative powers of dance. We see how because of dance, Emily is a resilient and strong woman who is maybe a little mouthy at times in the best way. Here's my conversation with Emily Sayer Smith.

Welcome to Passion for Dance. I'm Dr. Chelsea, a former professional dancer, turn sport psychologist, and this podcast is for everyone in the dance industry who want to learn actionable strategies and new mindsets to build happier, more successful dancers. I know what it feels like to push through the pain, take on all the criticism, and do whatever it takes to make sure the show will go on.

But I also know that we understand more about mental health and resilience than ever before, and it's time to change the industry for the better. This podcast is for all of us to connect, learn, and share our passion for dance with the world.

Dr Chelsea: Hi Emily, welcome to the show.

Emily s.: Hi, Chelsea. Nice to meet you.

Dr Chelsea: [00:02:00] Nice to meet you. I'm excited to chat with you. I wanna jump right in because I have been talking a lot about the lessons we learn as dancers, and you have an incredible story of how ballet has shaped your life. Maybe some for good, some not so good, and I think that's what many of us feel.

So will you. Finish the sentence about what dance has taught you. Like because of dance,

Emily s.: Oh, what hasn't dance taught me? Um, you know, dance has taught me to, persevere, show up. Keep trying. Don't worry about mistakes. Um, one of the best reviews I ever got was when I got dropped from a full overhead. Flat on my face during a performance, and I got a great review because I didn't know I was falling.

So I just hit the deck, jumped up, wasn't hurt at all, and we went on. [00:03:00] Um, it's kind of sad. That's the best review I ever got, isn't it?

Dr Chelsea: Well, it's, yeah, I guess it's like, I don't know. Do you think you danced? Better once you stood up, like there's that recovery mode kicks in and you're like, I have to be bigger, I have to be better. I don't know.

Emily s.: I was so pissed off. Um, and partly because my partner, who was my boyfriend at the time, um, he was so tragic because, you know, what's the first rule of don't drop? The ballerina. Right? So he had just dropped the ballerina and, um, you know, I was pissed off at him being tragic instead of me getting to be tragic because I had just been flat on my face, you know, my adrenaline was through the roof, you know, so what happened directly after that was that he goes off stage and then I have to do this.

Big [00:04:00] jumping and flying, um, duet with the other woman. And, there are pictures of me where I am above her head in my jumps because, you know, it's like I was just, I was so pumped and so pissed and embarrassed. So, but getting back to your first question, it's like, um. You know, working with others.

I have a great love of the court of ballet, partly because, you know, when you watch it, when you see it, it's, I just think it's beautiful. The, the geometry, the unison, the patterns, the et cetera. So, definitely working with others how to handle things that go wrong, you know, things go wrong on stage.

Um, and um, how you deal with it is, I remember seeing Merle Park at the Royal Ballet. She came on [00:05:00] stage. She still had her leg warmers on. She was doing, what was she doing? It was with Reev. I'm old, you know. Um. And you could tell he just had this shit eating grin on his face. Like, are you dumb ass? You've come out here with your leg warmers on, it's the royal ballet.

You're gonna be in so much trouble. Um, but, you know, things happen, shoes come off, earrings fall off. People end up in the wrong places. Um, so it's, , how do you deal with adversity?

Dr Chelsea: Yeah. I was talking to another ballerina who like, her wig kind of fell and was like flopping to the side and yeah, there's just these things that happen. But I agree. I think we learn resilience, we learn the show must go on, I, what I'm experiencing now in trying to shift, I think we learned it because it was, you know, suck it up.

The show must go on, I don't wanna hear about it. And you learn this incredible resilience, [00:06:00] but. Can we learn the resilience without the trauma, without the, you know, I don't care what's going on with you, just fix it. Uh, I dunno. Do you see the culture of ballet as that? Like just get it done no matter what as being a positive lesson for you?

Or like, maybe there would've been a better way to learn that?

Emily s.: You know, when I was, um, when I was young and, and coming up and, and going to school it was very much the culture of just do it because I said so when I went to San Francisco Ballet School on a scholarship one summer and took class from a Russian man who spoke no English and just carried a stick, you know, and I had no idea what he was saying, but if you did it wrong, he hit you with the stick.

Um, so maybe that has toned down some. But because ballet is [00:07:00] so hard, I think, and, and you know, it's very difficult and it's physically taxing. And what I think we forget sometimes is when you open your body that much and that hard emotions come out, that sometimes people don't expect or they get ambushed by.

So, I think the culture has changed some, I imagine the culture has changed some, but I think there's a certain aspect of that that's always gonna be there.

Dr Chelsea: Yeah, it, you're right. It is. When something is that hard, there has to be high standards, are you grateful for some of those hard lessons? Yeah.

Emily s.: Oh, absolutely. I think, you know, dance, it prepared me for the world like nothing else because nothing was ever as hard [00:08:00] as dancing. If you got a teacher or a choreographer who said, good, wow, you floated home. Um, but, you know, it was, it was a almost never good 'cause It could always be better.

You know, um, in the theater, in comedy, they say louder or faster, funnier. It's like in, in dance it could always be more higher, more turns.

Dr Chelsea: Yeah. Yeah. Praise was rare for sure. Praise was rare. Yeah.

Emily s.: So I am grateful, um, because I've had a, a weird life and so it made me think that, yeah, I can do that.

Um, even when I hadn't, and, you know, I'm an Aries, so I just think I can do things. Um, but it made, it made me think that I could do a lot of things without any real [00:09:00] basis in why do you think you could do that? I don't know, because I've done the impossible before.

Dr Chelsea: Yeah. Would you mind sharing a little about your story and how ballet helped you through some of that?

Emily s.: Sure. Um, dysfunctional home refuge in ballet,, and, a great, a great love. I found a great love for dancing and, and I think part of that was the escape and pretending to be other things. But then, it's an important part of the story, so, um. When I couldn't deal with how I felt anymore in my life, I think coming out of the dysfunctional family and also from, you know, falling in love with a woman and it's like, you know, realizing that I'm gay. It's like, and especially back then, the boys were all gay, but, you know, ballerinas aren't [00:10:00] gay.

You know, it's like this was just a major collision with who I was. Um, so going into the, I, I destroyed my, I destroyed my career with drugs. I really did. Um, and you know, that's the story of addiction, which is, is heavily part of my story. I'm long term, I'm 27 years sober now, so, um. I've gotten with a clear mind, um, to be able to look back at my life and make a lot of sense of it.

And that's a lot of what the book was about. The book wasn't written for publication. The book was written for me to try to understand who the hell are you and how did you get this way? Um, so that was really an exploration of me. But, it's like I, from dance, I went into the fitness industry. And that's a logical transition for a dancer, I think. Um, [00:11:00] but you know, in the eighties and nineties we were making it up and a lot of dancers were working in the fitness industry because it was a logical place for them to work. So I think it gave me the resilience to think that I could do something that I had no business maybe thinking that I could do. Um. And also I was fascinated because, you know, you're a dancer, you're a, you're an alien being right? And you're faced with a room full of ordinary people who you're trying to get to do physical things.

And I learned so much from, um, these people that I taught because, people don't know their bodies. They actually don't know where their joints are. They don't understand that increase in heart rate and respiration is not fight or flight. You're not fighting for your life.

Um, but that's how they [00:12:00] associate it. So I, you know, I learned an enormous amount in, I don't know that I'm answering your question. I think I've gotten lost in my answer.

Dr Chelsea: and I'm lost in your story. I was just thinking as you're talking that. It sounds like sometimes ballet was, as you said, the refuge, the place to go when things were challenging, but also ballet might be part of the problem or part of causing some negative self-talk or those thoughts and the challenges that led into addiction.

Am I reading into that or do you feel like ballet is both? Was it always the place of refuge for you?

Emily s.: It was a place of re refuge. But that's a really good question because I think, um, you know, the dysfunctional family and, and things in childhood, I was told a lot that I was, um, bad or ungrateful or, you know, all kinds of negative talk. And [00:13:00] so when I got the negative talk in. Ballet and in dance, you know of no, it can be better or, that's not good enough or, or whatever.

It was like, oh look, I'm home. You know, this feels, this feels comfortable to me. It didn't,

Dr Chelsea: interesting.

Emily s.: it didn't frighten me. And I think that's, that's carried on through my life.

Dr Chelsea: that's interesting. It makes sense that as a young child it would feel comfortable even if it was not necessarily a, a positive experience, but like, this is what I'm used to. Do you. Do you feel like you've turned that around some as you've gotten older, being able to speak more kindly to yourself or it's you're resilient through that and there was no need to change it?

Emily s.: No, absolutely. It's like, you know, the, the process of, of getting sober, that helped a lot. But also the process of, um, you know, in the last couple of years [00:14:00] really with. Help from therapy, and the process of writing the book with understanding what made me and what formed me.

, I tell people, I'm not in a relationship right now 'cause I'm having a love affair with myself. I'm a really good human being. You know, it's like I'm not perfect. Nobody is, but I wasn't bad. Like they said, my parents had massive issues. So I've turned a lot of those things around.

I understand where they came from, but, um, I work on myself very consciously on a regular basis, and I think I've turned a lot of, a lot of that around. I'm a good kid. I was always a good kid.

Dr Chelsea: Absolutely. I'm glad to hear that. Well, and it's interesting that like the ballet lesson of you can do anything you set your mind to, right? That ballet lesson of [00:15:00] almost, uh. Hubris about it. Like I can do whatever I want, but then later that turns to I can change how I think about myself. Like being able to take that same, like I can get sober, I can change my own thoughts.

It just seems like that nice thread that even though it was so challenging, and like you said, ballet is just hard, but teaching you now that you can do hard things, whatever that hard thing looks like.

Emily s.: Yeah. Um, everything's hard. It's like when I went into construction management. You know, after the fitness industry, I went into construction management, which seems like a very strange transition from ballerina to construction manager. But there is logic in there. I knew nothing. I mean, I, I knew a lot about construction, but I didn't understand the world of commercial construction management and what they did.

But what ballet taught me was that, um, you will learn. Work [00:16:00] hard and you will learn, and ask a lot of questions, which I did and I learned and then work hard and I got good at it. So, yes, I think those things were, were set up for me and the world of dance.

Dr Chelsea: Yeah, I do. I think ballet dance in general teaches you to be a beginner, right? To say like, all right, I'm gonna try something I've never done before, but I can learn and I figure it out. Yeah. I think there's, there's a lot of power in that. Um. You've, you've mentioned your book and I wanna just share it for those who are listening that it's called, smart Ass Memoir of a Mouthy Girl, which is so intriguing and fun to me.

Will you, uh, what's the smart ass,

Emily s.: Memoir of a mouthy girl.

recording-1_2025-10-23_11-30-50: what's the Mouthy Girl part is, are you known for speaking your mind? Maybe, or what, where is that coming from?

Emily s.: I am known for speaking my mind, which I think was part of the [00:17:00] detrimental part of my youth, of, you know, if you speak your mind to your parents, um, that's not always popular. Or teachers or whoever. Really it was my publisher that named the book. She wrote something to me and I wrote her kind of a, a smarty pants response.

I was being funny and then I thought, Ooh, this is my publisher. Maybe I shouldn't have been such a smarty pants. And I wrote back and I apologized. I said, I was just being a smart ass. And she wrote back and went, Hmm. Smart ass. And we both went, ha ha ha. And then the next day she was like, no, I think I kind of like it, you know?

Um, I don't know that in a lot of ways it really bears out in the book, but you know, when I told my friends this was gonna be the name of the book, they all laughed and they were just like, well, of course. [00:18:00] Um.

Dr Chelsea: it's authentic to you, then great.

Emily s.: Yes, it is. But I've also learned that it's something that I use sometimes as a defense or as, as as shtick, you know, that's, it's become shtick for me, and maybe being less of a smart ass sometimes allows me to be a bit more authentic.

recording-1_2025-10-23_11-30-50: Yeah. Oh, that's a lovely lesson from it. Were you mouthy in the ballet, like at the ballet bar? I could imagine some ballet masters didn't take that well, or was it purely outside of dance?

Emily s.: Um, you know, when I was very young. I went to class because Peggy Paver went to classes. She was my best friend. And you know, I just liked the part of, of being out of the house and I was that kid who hangs on the bar and you know, you're doing grand battemants and I was trying to kick the girl in front of me 'cause I thought that was funny.

Um.

Dr Chelsea: Yep.

Emily s.: You know, but, but [00:19:00] as you get older, once you really get into it, God, no. You know, I wouldn't have said a word to my teachers, however, as I got older and I was working and, you know, I was good and well educated, I would tend to be in the back of the core going, he's, he's counting this like it's four, four time.

It's a waltz. So, you know, let's all count, or,

I would become dis disruptive and that's part of why, um, I think everybody fired me at a certain point. 'cause I was a pain in the ass.

Dr Chelsea: Yeah.

Emily s.: Yeah.

Dr Chelsea: Well, and I mean that resonates I think on a couple levels. One, I have taught that little girl who's hanging on the bars and being a challenge in the moment, but it doesn't mean they don't love it or won't grow to be amazing dancers. Like there's just some that need the time to understand the ballet culture, but then there's something to being disruptive. [00:20:00] I, I felt a little of that too. I had, if I had a, my ballet, it actually wasn't ballet, it was more in the studio world, but still a director who was, uh, had cleaned something one way. And then a couple days later we were trying to work on the counts again and was counting it differently than they had counted it, you know, 24 hours before.

And it would make me crazy. So I was like, well, now it doesn't look good because you're not counting it the same. But if I speak up. You know, you, you can't like, don't say anything. And then eventually, finally was like, I am old enough. You know, I am prestigious enough in this certain space. Like I need to be the one to say something.

'cause everybody else is not gonna say it, so I'm gonna say it. And then you bear the brunt of that person's wrath. But Yes.

how much, how much of a disruption is necessary. Like sometimes you need to speak up. I don't know. That's a hard balance.

Emily s.: I was dancing with, uh. Um, a company in New Jersey, classical ballet repertoire company, and I let a strike, [00:21:00] um, it was accidental, but it's like we got to this theater that was just smelled of piss and beer. The stage wasn't near the size it needed to be.

I remember that. It was also a rake stage. Which, um, you know, you're gonna do Nutcracker on a ranked stage. I mean, I suppose you can, but people are gonna get hurt. Um, the dressing rooms weren't big enough. It's all kinds of, of issues that were, um, with the performance and, I ended up, , standing up and saying, Hey, we can't do this.

And to get a dancer to say, I can't, um, that's. There must be something egregious,

Dr Chelsea: It has to be bad. Yeah.

Emily s.: But we all walked out and got on the bus, and then I was like, oh, I'm fired. I'm fired now. And after that, they made me the ballet mistress.

Dr Chelsea: So you were not in fact fired, [00:22:00] standing up, turned out to be a good

Emily s.: But

Dr Chelsea: or were you fired in the sense that you're not on the stage anymore?

Emily s.: but then a year later, I got fired. So, you know, I think ultimately being a, I wanna say a strong woman, so, so I'm just gonna say a strong woman isn't always popular. Um, and, I've had trouble with this throughout my life, but I mean, come on, when are we gonna stand up?

You know, ultimately you have to stand up and say the truth, whatever the, the truth is. So, um, it's been to my detriment sometimes, and especially in the construction industry, but, um.

Dr Chelsea: Well, I think we celebrate strong women as we should and we admire them. But don't always acknowledge the personal sacrifice, like what is going to happen to you in your life for being the one to speak up when everybody else is like, I wanna say it, but I can't. But then you fall on the sword for [00:23:00] us and yeah, that. We like celebrate it, but then don't consider now you, maybe you do lose a job or maybe you do lose friends or you lose that career even and it's, it's asking a lot of people to be the one to stand up. Yeah. We need more of them. 

Emily s.: Yes, and I just, my personality just seems to, um, have that bent to it. So

Dr Chelsea: Yeah. You couldn't not stand up. has to, it has to happen. I think we need that, the people, the disruptors who are just like this level of, uh, like you said, because it's unsafe or, you know, we can't just, go along with it anymore and let it be. Was there ever a time you regretted speaking up or maybe actually did hold your tongue, but wish you had spoken up and been the disruptor?

Emily s.: Mostly I just, um, regret, I think being toward the [00:24:00] end of my career being disrespectful, instead of, uh, you know, because I think my ego and my arrogance really got out of control and in being, disruptive and disrespectful. , It wasn't serving anything. It wasn't serving the company, it wasn't serving the dance. It was serving my ego. And, um, I, I regret that, but.

Dr Chelsea: Yeah.

Emily s.: Fortunately, I think it's something that I've also learned from, so.

Dr Chelsea: Yeah. Well, and that's a really important point. There's disruption that is productive and helpful or, you know, standing up for people who won't otherwise speak. And then disruption that is, just disrespectful or just not serving everything and finding that that balance. And [00:25:00] I think ballet culture now has evolved. There's a lot of things that are better, but I don't think we're done yet. There's still space for the ballet culture to continue to evolve. So taking all of this, the wisdom and the work you've done, do you have advice for today's ballerinas about how to navigate this culture and maybe when to speak up, when to not, or how to handle it if they're upset with whatever their current situation is.

Emily s.: One of the best things I've, I've learned, and actually this comes from the, from getting sober and, and that culture is pause when agitated or doubtful. It's like if you're really upset about something. Rather than having an emotional, and, you know, people will poke you until they cause you to explode. You know, I actually had a [00:26:00] choreographer, um, my partner in this company was this tall, magnificent specimen of a man.

Um, you know, he was. Uh, I, he, he was a black guy and, you know, just gorgeous, right? And I was this pasty white girl, so it's like the two of us together, we were kind of, it was kind of beautiful, right? The, the, and she told me later, she said, you know, I used to go to you and Tony into fighting because I got much better choreography out of you.

If, um, if you were fighting the angst that got created. So

Dr Chelsea: interesting.

Emily s.: if I had any words of wisdom, I think pause, um, before you say something is a really good idea. And, and I also, I mean, you tell me, [00:27:00] I think, you know, the strange part about the ballet world is, is that it's a lot about these. Um, you know, ethereal, women, right?

And yet it's so misogynistic, so, look around, know where you are, and let your work stand for itself. , You don't always have to fight, even if something is very wrong. Um, there's a quote from Man of Lamancha where it says whether the stone hits the pitcher or the pitcher hits the stone.

It's going to be bad for the pitcher. So don't fight every fight. Stand up for yourself. But, um, maybe pause before you outburst.

Dr Chelsea: Yeah, I think that's wonderful advice is we can get really riled up and it usually doesn't go well in that moment. It's better to pause and consider does this need addressing? And if it does, [00:28:00] how can I do it thoughtfully?

Emily s.: And to realize you're so physically hyped up, it's like, when I was dancing, I felt super human. You know, I could do, I could leap tall buildings in a single bound. I was an alien being so. That in the moment sometimes you are, you are so juiced up that, um, you can do yourself and others real harm.

Dr Chelsea: Yeah. Oh, that's very true. When we are so physically, uh, as you said, it's that physical arousal, like the, the adrenaline's pumping that intensity, then you're gonna feel. Emotions bigger as well. everything gets heightened. Right. And especially I think if you're training, like you were saying, maybe you and your, your partner are getting agitated with each other, or you're training an emotional ballet, like you're supposed to be an emotional place, then that can be hard to manage, to not let that emotion carry over.[00:29:00] 

Did you find that hard to balance when you were supposed to be emotional in a ballet, but then have to tone it down?

Emily s.: Well, you know, it's funny, it's like when you practice. You know, being in love with your partner all day long, you know, it's like a lot of people end up sleeping together and, and getting into relationships because you've been practicing it in the studio all day. You know, it's like life imitates art there.

Right. Um, so now I've lost the question. I got so excited about my

Dr Chelsea: No, I was just thinking in both directions, like emotions are heightened as a dancer and you're training those emotions to like you said, to be in love or to be angry or to be sad, but then we're supposed to just like shut it off and go home and not like carry that emotion with us.

Emily s.: Right. Exactly I Think that's, that's something that's good advice for dancers is, is realize that you've been in [00:30:00] this. Different place. It's not reality. So to learn to, to titrate it down or to, change yourself back to, okay, I'm back in the world now.

Dr Chelsea: Yeah. It's, it is a challenge to learn how to do that. Absolutely. Well, and I think there's a lot of things in the ballet world that are important to that world or heightened in that world that are not the same anywhere else. I, I'm thinking about things like, like body image about things like just these unrealistic standards to all sorts of things that then you're supposed to say, but that's just a ballet thing.

And then. It doesn't apply to the rest of the world, but yet we can't separate that. It becomes your whole world.

Emily s.: You know, when I was young, and especially, you know, Balanchine and everybody has to be so skinny and everybody's like, don't blame Balanchine. I do blame Balanchine. You know, I was 14 years old standing in the mirror in first position, and if my inner thighs touch, [00:31:00] I didn't eat that day.

Fortunately, I was too hungry. To not eat. I just didn't have the willpower that some people did to become anorexic. Um, so I would, not eat breakfast. I would eat jello for lunch. I was playing sports in school. Then I'd go to ballet class and then I'd go to rehearsal.

It's like all on jello. And if I got in a panic, I'd eat a candy bar. So when I got into my prime, I was working so hard and so much that I'd eat food, you know? Oh, scandalous food, you know, I'd eat a chicken, and, and my body really benefited from that, of eating actual food instead of messing with my food so hard.

But I still do it. You know, I don't want to eat breakfast. I, you know, I'm old, but I'm [00:32:00] still vain. I still wanna be thin and,

Dr Chelsea: yeah.

Emily s.: Yeah.

Dr Chelsea: Yeah, those, those lessons from the ballet world. Good and bad stick with us. Right? Like maybe these lessons are still something you're battling, but then also the lessons of I can take on any challenge, like, that's such a positive outcome. And, and ballet can be responsible for both. Yeah. Before we leave, will you share a little more about your book?

Like who, who might enjoy reading it, what to expect from it and where we can find it.

Emily s.: Um, well, you can find it. If you just Google my name, Emily Sayre Smith. S-A-Y-R-E is how you spell Sayre. Uh, it'll come up on Amazon. Barnes and Noble. Simon and Schuster. Um. A, a lot of things will come up, which I find fascinating because, you know, I've Googled myself previously in my life and nothing came up and now all of a sudden if you Google me, it's like, [00:33:00] oh, there I am.

Um,

Dr Chelsea: at that.

Emily s.: you know, dance was a huge part of my life and I definitely talk about my career in the book, but the book really is a, um. It's an exploration of my entire life until I'm literally crossing the George Washington Bridge into New York City. Um, and then there's, another book after that because, I tell stories in this book.

I tell the stories of my childhood, I tell the stories of my family, I tell the stories of, my dance life, I tell the stories falling in love with a woman and how shocking that was and, um, what that felt like. I tell stories about my drug addiction. I'm Irish, I'm a storyteller, so, you know, these are the stories I've been telling my whole life. As a matter of fact, I think in some ways I've been writing in my head [00:34:00] my whole life. I just never put it down on paper before, but, it's truly a memoir. Um, but the feedback that I've gotten so far is just that it's a good read.

It's not about anyone and it's not a trauma memoir, you know, I think it's a, an overcoming memoir and, sometimes I did just bumble through life, but boy did I end up in some, interesting and fascinating places. So, it's like in, in London ending up, hanging out with Reev and Princess Margaret.

That was, that wa I didn't make that plan. That was really fun stuff. So.

Dr Chelsea: Oh, that sounds fun. Thank you for sharing. And I will make sure, it's linked in the show notes if you're listening to go take a look at it. And I think those kinds of memoirs are the powerful ones where it's the stories that are personal to you, but yet reflect themes of that we're all trying to bumble through life and [00:35:00] figure it out.

And, and maybe some ballet lessons helps help along the way. Yeah. Absolutely. Any last parting advice, uh, from these lessons learned or what the stories have helped you? Is there like a, a thread or a lesson from these stories that you would share?

Emily s.: Um, you know, some of this may be from, from age and looking back, but, , I think there's a faith that I have learned in looking back at my life. That I didn't set out to be a ballet manager, gym owner, construction manager, and now author. You know, I just followed the evolution.

I followed the opportunities that were presented and some of it, I, you know, I definitely went after things, but, just the idea that, it's going to work out. There are a lot of crappy things [00:36:00] that happen in life, but that just hang in there that it's going to work out so, you know, just to have, hold on. One of my favorite quotes, uh, the world, according to Garp, he talks about keep passing the open window. It's like, don't get sucked out the window.

Don't get. Sucked into the, you know, things are bad or horrible or, or they'll never get better. They will get better. Um, you just be brave. Keep putting one foot in front of the other, you know, feel, feel your tragedies if you have them, but then move on. Don't, don't stay there. Don't stay in the tragedy unless it's on stage, you know, it's like. Then, then you can stay in your tragedy. If you wanna be, SFI or Giselle or Odette or you know,

Dr Chelsea: Right. Stay in the tragedy for just that piece

Emily s.: yeah,

just. 

Dr Chelsea: keep moving [00:37:00] just for the third act. Yes. That's wonderful advice. Thank you so much for sharing that and sharing about your memoir and your life with us today. I really appreciate your time.

Emily s.: I loved being here. Thank you very much, Chelsea. It was wonderful to meet you and talk to you.

Dr Chelsea: You too. Thank you.

Thank you for listening to Passion for Dance. You can find all episode resources at passion for dance podcast.com and be sure to follow me on Instagram for more high performance tips at Doctor Chelsea dot Otti. That's P-I-E-R-O-T-T-I. This podcast is for passionate dancers and dance educators who are ready to change our industry by creating happier, more successful dancers.

I'm Dr. Chelsea and keep sharing your passion for dance with the world.