The New England Artist

This week we’re joined by Amy’s best friend, Sallie—someone who’s been there since the beginning. From growing up together in New Hampshire to living side by side in New York, their shared history makes this conversation feel like home.
Sallie started in ballet, but her path didn’t stay inside the traditional lines. She took that training and carried it into completely different spaces—from hip hop to cheering for the New England Patriots—proving that what we learn in the studio doesn’t just belong on stage.
We talk about how discipline, musicality, body awareness, and resilience don’t disappear when you leave ballet—they evolve. They travel with you. And sometimes, they lead you exactly where you didn’t expect to go.
A conversation about friendship, reinvention, and all the ways our training shapes the lives we build beyond it.

Thanks for hanging out with us on Beyond the Pointe.
If you loved this episode, share it, tag us, and tell us what you want to hear next @beyond_the_pointe_pod
We’re two girls waiting in the wings — and we’re so glad you’re here. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Beyond the Point, two girls waiting in the wings. We're your hosts, Sarah and Amy, former professional dancers, and we're pulling back the curtain on the real ballet world.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

From body image and relationships to money, mental health, and life after the stage. No topic is off limits.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Whether you're a dancer, a retired bunhead, a parent, a student, or simply curious about what really happens behind the scenes, you're in the right place.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Follow along with us on Instagram at Beyond the Point Pod to share your questions, comments, and episode ideas. Now, let's step beyond the point shoes and into the stories that shaped us.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

It just came to me. Um I I mean I did write it down.

SPEAKER_02 1:07

The world is waiting.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

Welcome to another exciting episode of Beyond the Point. We are not two girls today again. We are three gals, once again, just like the last time. And we have another best friend in the house, and it is my bestest friend, my soul sister, my everything. Her name is interesting because her last name is Worst, but she is the best at everything that she does. It's Sally Worst. Tight knocking. We're here. This is so exciting. Sally also is Front Hills from the great state of New Hampshire. We grew up together, so our towns were right next to each other. I grew up in Amherst and Sally grew up in Merrimack. So and they're pretty comparable. Like Merrimack's a bit bigger, but still not that big. And so we went to the same dance school. Um and oh no, Sally, why don't you tell tell the tale? We we didn't really become friends, like you and Jessica were friends since like babies. Sally and I didn't become really close until later, like teens, early teens. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:49

We were a year apart.

SPEAKER_00 2:51

We still are a year apart. We still haven't closed that gap in age.

unknown 2:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:56

Basically, now we're all the same age. Even when you're young. Yeah, when you're young, you kind of just like go in, you can't. It's such a great deal. Like your age. A six-year-old versus a seven-year-old. You're like a separated. Yeah, we were separated by a year.

SPEAKER_00 3:09

But we both went to Kathy Blake's dance studio, um, where our ballet teacher that formed Southern New Hampshire Dance Theater um started teaching. Um yeah, so we left.

SPEAKER_03 3:23

Okay, so let's so we're gonna be people that got attached to this teacher and were like, we we want to do real ballet. We want to go this way.

SPEAKER_00 3:31

And um, so then we danced, we danced, we danced, went to high school. I basically hung out with Sally's friend, Merrimack friends, and um then Sally Schools, yeah. They were right next door, so it wasn't like not the high schools. It was very confusing for the students. Yeah. They're like, wait, is this my school? The towns were adjacent. The towns were next door, and then so um, just doing a quick overview, then Sally moves to New York, um, and you live there for five years. Mm-hmm. Yeah, about ish. Yeah. And then moved back to New Hampshire and teaching and doing all kinds of stuff.

SPEAKER_02 4:23

And then Did you graduate from Pace?

SPEAKER_03 4:26

Yeah. So when I um left for New York, like I really only applied to schools for New York. I think I was always like, I want to be, I want to go to college, like I wanna have a fallback. I always was kind of like dance is a thing that may or may not happen, but I had been offered a scholarship at Ballet Academy East. So I like already had a pathway to continue dancing. And at the time there wasn't a lot of dance academic programs that were simultaneously good, unless you wanted to be in like Indiana or something like that. And I was really just kind of like, I don't know. I just all I know is that I want to go to New York and that I could just base everything around that. Whatever magic happens in these next four years is gonna set me up for a life where I can just be financially independent and discover exactly what I'm supposed to do and then do that. So I think I applied to a bunch of schools and like I applied to Marymount and Fordham and NYU and but I didn't apply as like a dancer. I was I think my mindset, and this was the early 2000s too, when you're talking about college, obviously, like same sees. I was like, well, why would I why would I go to college for dance? Like if I'm going to college, I'm going to like do the thing that's like my backup or my you know, my break money maker. Yeah, exactly. The flip side of the coin. So I was like, I'm gonna there, I can just do both of these things. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 5:57

What do you remember most about us as young dancers? Like you and I.

SPEAKER_03 6:05

Yeah. Um I mean, even though we're very goofy and wacky together, I feel like I we were very serious about dance. Like we were very, very obsessed and serious. And unless it was about like a cute boy that we saw and didn't talk to in the hallway, we were probably mostly talking about ballet. Or we were looking at dance magazines, or we were looking through books about ballet, or hanging ballet posters on our wall, or talking about ballet and ballet. Nerd alert and more ballet. Like Justin Jimberlake, ballet, and that was fine. That was all the time that we had.

SPEAKER_00 6:45

But before I kind of caught up, because it took me a while to get to like a decent level, Sally and our other friend Caitlin, they were kind of these two little peas in the pod. They were like the little prodigies. Um, and they would be in class with like all these, you know, middle schoolers and high schoolers, and they were the little rug rats at the, you know, always in the front of the line. Um yeah, so you were always like really good, like really talented right off the bat.

SPEAKER_03 7:17

The school was really small at that time, so it was like more like cross-level in that way. But I I do think I was always serious about it. I also like weirdly, I didn't sit around and think about it. I didn't like reflect upon myself as a dancer as a young person. I just kind of like went to dance and then yeah, I don't know. I feel like it was just part of my routine. I started when I was two or whatever, like you know, so you I just like didn't stop. I feel like I was like, oh, people stop. Like did this studio feel like dance when they were two, three, four years old, and then just stopped.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

I was like, You just kept going because you no one told you not to. Like, oh, you no one told me to stop. So I just don't go. Seems really strange to me. Did you see was the studio like a safe space for you at starting at a young age?

SPEAKER_03 8:19

Did you feel like I didn't think of that either? Like, I wasn't like I need to go to my safe space. Like I just kind of went to dance and like I think I can look back now and see that it was a place of like we're of a lot of consistency. And um, the owner and our like teacher who I now work for touch on the timeline, but um, it's like very calm and very consistent too. So it was just kind of like a I don't know, I think a lot of dancers are drawn at a young age to just like that amount of control. Like it's just a kids love routine.

SPEAKER_04 8:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:00

It's like, oh, you go, you know what to expect, and you do it and you you feel good, and I don't think it's it's so many like intentional thoughts as it that's just like running in your subconscious as a kid.

SPEAKER_00 9:14

Yeah, I know it's so it's like it takes us years to understand what we were really crazy going on. Yeah. Um so so you did ballet. You were like Sally was like strictly ballet for a lot for a while. Like I remember thinking to myself, Sally, why doesn't she do like modern? Why doesn't why isn't she taking modern class or jazz class or or everybody else did, especially you did everything?

SPEAKER_03 9:48

Amy tried her hair red, like a spray can red for Annie, and because she was blonde and like probably from like Kmart, her hair stayed red anymore. Her hair stayed red for so long.

SPEAKER_00 10:03

Like my mom wouldn't let me redy it, and it was so disgusting, it was like an orange color.

SPEAKER_03 10:08

Yeah, but you did me, you had the mop, you were lip syncing, you were doing the jazz and the monitor. I was like the last one. The tap. Oh, and Sally was just the bunhead. She was the last one to, I just wasn't interested. I wasn't, there was nothing like against it. It just like wasn't even on my radar. I was like, I just want to do more ballet, and it wasn't until they made the youth company like, okay, you have to do a second discipline in order to be a part of that company. And I didn't really think about why, or you know, now like it's my job and I'm like instilling why. But at that time, I'm like, ugh, okay, sure, fine. Um You're like, can't I just take another ballet? Everybody else, although I did, I was, it wasn't like I hated the idea. I was just like, okay, so everybody else had been doing it for years, and I had no experience. So I took um I went one day a week like to the lower level ballet class because the schedule conflicted, so I could join um jazz intermediate with the kids that were um, you know, not my friends, not a little bit younger, because I had no experience, and I did the whole year there to just catch myself up. Why'd you choose jazz over modern? I don't know. I never really liked modern. I mean, and um granted my knowledge of what modern was at this age was like nothing, but I was like, that looks I'm bored. Um, and also I think I thought I was like, Miss Laura's really cool. Like, I'll I'm I liked her anyway. Oh yeah, the jazz teacher. I was kind of like her. And she's still really cool about her.

SPEAKER_00 11:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:43

So I was like, I want to go do what she's doing. She's got like a vibe, and it she seems fun. I was really musical, so I think if I could understand the music, I really attached to it and was like, oh, I get it. This is fun. I'm feeling this in my body, it's making sense, and then I could enjoy it. But something that I didn't appreciate and didn't ever see is related to my journal dance journey my whole life until later. I was like, oh, um, was that I took piano at a really serious level when I was young. Um yeah, I competed and I came in second in the state when I was in the fifth grade, and I played like the I was like a machine. Um, yeah, my dad had to build a thing so I could reach the pedal because I was so small. Reach the pedal. And I like zoomed through, I started teaching piano to my teachers, Overflow students in the seventh grade, and I continued doing that. So I had um, by the time I left high school, eight years of music theory, like written, ear training, chords, sight reading, sight transposing, like uh music history. And it it was probably like a few years ago that somebody was sitting in um a meeting for parents about dancing after high school, and they mentioned that if you read music, I could go in your resume, because he had a career include like in Broadway. And I was like, I I can read music. I I never once thought of putting that on any sort of resume because I was just like very ballet tunnel vision when I was young. And you still play now? I can could play you every cadence, like up the scales, the tech. I remember the technique.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

I really like technique a lot. And I think that's what makes you such a good one of the things that makes you such a good teacher at ballet, too, is because you like same with you, Sarah, like you guys believe in in it.

SPEAKER_03 13:37

It's not just well when you get it, it makes sense. You're like, it just this is this makes perfect sense. But if somebody asked me to play a song, I'd be like, hot, cross buttons, and that's like I used to have the belief that musicality was something that you had or you didn't have, like, it's just something you have, you can't teach it. But now I and like well into my adulthood and teaching journey, I definitely still thought that that's kind of like maybe what I was told to believe, or just was like, this is the only thing make sense I can make of it. But now I after having many conversations with many different people in the last 15 years or so, I completely do not believe that. I think musicality is innate, it's human nature to have rhythm inside of you. And when kids are having a hard time being musical with like combinations that they give, and I love to give like brain teasy things and like holds and weird accents, because that's what I love to take when I was girls, like brain puzzles, and if they're like freaking out, like stop, and then we clap it and they can always clap it. So it's not that they can aren't musical, it's that when they try to put it in their body, they're thinking about other things, right? They're too worried about A, B, C, D, E, F, G, all the things that you think about when you're in a ballet class.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

Yeah, like it's it's easier to access for some people and quicker to access for some people, and then it takes some people a little bit longer.

SPEAKER_02 15:06

So you go to PACE, and then did you join a company after that?

SPEAKER_03 15:10

No. I basically I was doing BAE and PACE, and then I just started to feel like I don't know what I'm doing. And I was not really one to seek guidance. I had a great guidance counselor because I was in, I was in the marketing, the Lubin School of Business, and I was also in the they have this like Forsheimer's Honors College. So I was doing that, and then I and I had started to get like comments, not comments, but just like, hey, if you're like moving in this direction, you need to lose weight. And I was like, well, okay. I mean, I'm in college, like, and I'm like living in the dorm with like a food card. And and then like some and I would, and then I wouldn't, and like, and I would acknowledge it, and I would go in and out of caring, and then I just think I felt like overwhelmed. I had a really great experience there. I had amazing teachers, like I loved the dancing, but I felt like all I could think about was I always knew that I was like good enough. I knew that I got in on merit and my ability, and I knew that I was taking good classes, and I was like, the only thing that I need to work on is like changing what my body structure is. And like there's only so much time and and space that you have to think about that. At the same time, I'm like leaving the nest and go. I'm like, I just want to like be free and be in New York and have fun. And I have like these friends, I didn't go to school for dance, so all the friends that I'm in college were not dancers. There was a lot of actors. They Pace now has, I think, the one of the top three commercial dance programs in the country, and most of their dance majors leave with a contract. Lots of rackettes, lots of scouts. Um, it's one of the more expensive programs, but it's really, really successful. But at the time, it didn't exist. So I took a ballet class as an elective, literally with the purpose of being able to take a slack-off class because I knew it would be easy, and I wanted a break on homework, and I wanted to be able to do whatever else, like run around the city. So, and my teacher was a former raquette, and so and all the other kids were theater kids, they weren't really ballet dancers, so she loved me, and I would miss her class all the time, and she gave me an A. If I had an audition or I had a thing, um, I went to I definitely did like audition season and didn't get anything. Or, you know, but I still I wasn't really looking to leave at that point. I was like, okay, I'm just gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

And auditions, like open auditions in New York City are kind of they're not indicative of what kind of dancer you are. I remember being in auditions with there was a girl I went to SAB with who was in New York City ballet, and she got cut. It was an OBT audition. It was for OBT, and we both got cut at the same time. And I was like, okay, well, this makes me at least feel better.

SPEAKER_03 18:14

I don't even think I knew what kind of dancer I was at the time. And it's so tricky because it was like now as an older person, you're like, oh, you people dance about things and life. And if you don't have a life yet, you don't really have much to say. So you're literally just measuring your value in ways that have nothing to do with who you are, and everything to do with how you think people see you or whatever. And it was really just more like, yeah, I just felt like I was like, okay, I'm really sick of watching the scale, or I just felt weird. I felt like like I wasn't fully in it, and I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do with ballet, and so I didn't want to go back to BAE and um like waste their time, or take I felt like I was like taking their offer of a scholarship for granted. Because I was like, I don't know if I'm like taking this seriously or not. I'm not really sure. So I kind of pulled back, and you, Amy was still in high school, so I also was like, okay, what's happening there? And then she wanted to move to the city, so we had this whole plan, and I think maybe that's what I did that whole summer. We were like apartment shopping and um preparing to be roommate. So that next year, Amy moved to the city. We got an apartment and we were dancing together, living together, working together, auditioning together, going to school together.

SPEAKER_02 19:43

Yeah, you and going to pace too.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

I I went to pace um because I wanted to do what Sally did. Well, I I went to pace um just for a year. I went to a pace and I didn't want to go to college, but my mom really pushed it. It was something that I kind of essentially did to appease her. And Sally was there, so it was like you know, and I had gone in and stuff, so um, but I wasn't really passionate about it. Yeah, so Sally's first year in New York, she was in the dorms, and then when I got there, we got an apartment stuff. Um I definitely remember going to auditions together. Yes. Here's one for you, Sally. What did New York City teach you that the studio couldn't?

SPEAKER_03 20:34

Um I mean, like the like a dance studio in general, like the studio in generic, or like being at our home studio that we grew up in in New Hampshire.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

And in in terms of like a dancer, you know, dancing in New Hampshire versus dancing in a bigger sea of people. You know, we used to take class, so Sally went to BAE, but then I got there and we were dancing at Steps on Broadway, which is, you know, the place where you could see a principal from ABT or you could see crazy, you know, Looney Tune from the side of, you know, blockover.

SPEAKER_03 21:14

I mean, it would the city is unlike anything else. I think it definitely, for me, it like helped me zoom out a little bit of like your own whatever small town or internal dramas there are. And I was like, oh, not only do people just like dance here, they live all sorts of different lives. Like the um, there are like no status quo in New York. You know, you're not only are there the biggest stars ever on steps, there's also like, you know, man who is consistent and lady with the elbows, and there's just there's just so many characters that you're like, wow. But I think I was just taking it all in. Like, I I've been to a lot of summer programs, and I went to my first summer program when I was like, In like fifth grade. So I always liked being in a bigger pond. I always liked being surrounded by challenge and by like older kids and like being very extra grown up about it. And I like, uh so I didn't feel shocked.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

Did you, I was thinking, like, when you were a junior and like senior in high school, did you have in your mind were you like, I don't know if I want to be a professional ballet dancer, or did you want to, or did you feel like maybe that wasn't your lane? Or how did you see? Because I feel like for me, I was like, this is it.

SPEAKER_03 22:59

You were so sure. I remember feeling you were so sure, and I was like jealous of that in a way. Like, I was like, I what do you mean? Sure of what? I have no fucking clue what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_04 23:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:10

Or any sense of like direction of want. People know those things. Like, what? Um, I've never, I still don't know what I'm doing ever. Like, I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

Now that you say that, I do remember being like, Sally, you're so talented at so many things. Because she's also like a talented artist, like with her hands, like draws stuff, and she's an amazing pianist too, and she's an amazing dancer. And then she got into hip-hop and she was like amazing at that. And so for me, I was just like, you could do anything, you know.

SPEAKER_02 23:47

I know I want to know when you became a cheer.

SPEAKER_03 23:50

Oh, yes. I left BAE, kind of like I kind of just like backed away slowly. Like, I was like, I don't know what I'm doing, and I'm getting like this really hardcore advice, and I don't know if I'm in it or out of it. And then and my grades started to feel I felt like I was starting to struggle in school, and like I'm a person that would like cry it in A minus, so I um was like, okay, I need to like focus because this is also a lot of money. And so we were going to steps and doing work study, and I took a little break from that, maybe your junior, my junior year. That was after you had left the city. So then when I graduated, I was like, I kept auditioning. I started to audition for other stuff outside the ballet world. So I was like, okay, let me try that. And I would make a little further, and then I think I was like, okay, I'm like, I'm running out of money. I don't really have a plan. I'm just gonna go back home and like regroup. Like what I'm not here for a purpose anymore. And I feel like New York is a really hard place to be if you don't have a purpose because everybody's like just after something. So I could feel myself like falling out of rhythm with the city. Um, because I think I had attached my living in New York City like to that dancer experience. So once I was like not sure if that was gonna work, I was like, okay, I guess I'll just go back home. And I do think that there was a part of me that wanted to dance, but there was a part of me that's like very was always very realistic. And I was like, I don't have the ideal body type. I'm not ever gonna like audition for SAB. I'm not ever gonna. So if I do this, I'm going to have to maintain like a lifestyle where there's definitely like not lunch involved. Um I'm gonna have to come back. I I don't want to sacriface the quality to like I had too much pride. I'm like, I don't want to dance for like a like a little squatty company. Like I just wanna, if it's you it's gonna go be go big or go home. So if I'm not getting into these like big ones, like whatever.

SPEAKER_00 25:55

Was that kind of like a draw? Because a Patriots cheerleader, like probably 99% of uh the American population knows what the Yeah, I mean that's that, you know, was that a draw that you're like not at all.

SPEAKER_03 26:08

This is that's definitely I just wanted to dance. Um I actually started auditioning for the Celtics first, and um so I started taking hip-hop when I was in New York and then like just continued that. I just liked it. We had a friend that we met that danced at steps and works did work study, Vondana. Like global dance movement phenomenon. But she is probably how I un she's like a big reason why I was able to understand hip hop through a place that wasn't just performance, because we didn't grow up competing, so we didn't have that kind of exposure like a lot of kids do. It was just like straight up taking class and she'd be like, that person's a legend. Like I would have had no idea. She's like, he was is like one of the founding fathers of hip-hop. So she was whispering in my ear all these things, and then she'd call me up at like 11 o'clock at night and be like, Do you want to go out? And there, I would be like, Okay, and I was living alone, and Amy had left the city, and our other roommate Kelly, like, went on tour with iCoon Ballet or something, but I just remember being alone in our five-floor walk-up, and I was like, Okay, and we would go out dancing, and she always knew where she was going because it was always a specific DJ. She's like, Oh, we gotta go see Richmond Dina in the Lower East Side. It was always we never waited in line, like she always knew everybody. She had this like glowing like thing aura about her, and she would just open the door and we'd walk by and we would just go in, and she would just start dancing. It took me months to realize that she didn't drink. All the underground hip hop dancers come out like after 1 a.m. I'm like, oh my god, it's late. So we would leave work study, we'd be in like our hoodies and have our backpacks, and we'd go to the like these clubs. And so that she and she was kind of like how I came to understand it was like, oh, well, like you can take class and stuff in hip-hop, but if people don't see you on the scene, like no one's gonna take you seriously.

SPEAKER_00 28:04

Yeah, it's like she introduced you to the culture, not just the dance.

SPEAKER_03 28:10

That was a big influence, and I just liked the classes. We grew up in the 90s, grew up watching TRL and all the music videos. I was like, I want to dance to this. And so by the time I went home, I'd had a lot of experiences, but I didn't know how to like package them. I think I always felt really split in my desires and my interests and what I wanted to do and what I was good at, but it made it really hard to focus, and it made it really hard to move in a direction. So I just like worked and taught and started teaching. And then I was auditioning for commercial stuff in the area, so I went to the Celtics, and then I got like through, and I was like, oh, okay, I made it to like the next cut. Like maybe I should try again. And then I went to the finals. You Amy, you came to that. You're so mad that I didn't make it.

SPEAKER_00 28:58

I was so well because their judges weren't even didn't even know. It was like a radio voice was one of the judges, and like m Miss Massachusetts or something. Like, what you don't know anything.

SPEAKER_03 29:12

Um, but at the same time, now knowing that culture more than I do, it is it they kind of make an influence, but at the end of the day, it is the coach's decision. But they also do influ you let the pop culture people influence because A, it gives them publicity, and B, you are as much of a brand ambassador as you are a dancer, so your job is very split. And I also understood that because I'm like, well, I am a marketing major, I do understand like money and what you have to do. So yeah, I didn't make it, but their final audition was um at the House of Blues. It's like a show. So they were you work with a choreographer. This choreographer, Andy, now I think runs the dance program at UCal or something out west. Um, and it was awesome, and you like self-costumed and you it was a show and you could go. So Amy came and then they announced it's very pageant-y. I walked into bikini. So this is my bikini era. This is my era where auditions turned from instead of leotard and tights, or I never knew what to wear to like jazz auditions. I'm like, do I wear my Capezio dance sneakers? Yes.

SPEAKER_00 30:21

When you auditioned to uh for a cruise ship, and you were like, all of these people are wearing like these high, like cut leotards and like thick tights.

SPEAKER_03 30:30

Yeah, we didn't come from a mid-drift bearing studio, so I was like, what are these sparkly things? And like, what are why do they look so cool? I don't know how to dress, um, I don't know how to do my hair, but I know that I'm more turned out than them, so I still don't get it.

SPEAKER_00 30:45

And then we're looking for her in the Celtics dancer turnout. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:51

Well, no, but I did recognize that I did not really know how to sell myself. So um in that way, I was like, oh. But um, so then I was I didn't get it, and somebody else asked me, they were like, you should at the time, I remember after that audition, somebody said to me, You like have the perfect body that is um you look great but not too thin. And I took that as such an insult. Yeah. You don't look too thin. Like basically saying, like some of these girls look like they've been starving themselves. And I'm like, well, I also have an yeah, you it's just you can't tell as much. So yeah, exactly. I've been really hungry, but dairy. I mean, that's not that's offensive to everybody involved in that.

SPEAKER_00 31:49

So true.

SPEAKER_03 31:50

Then somebody was like, Oh, you should go to the Patriots, and I had no idea. I didn't know. I was like, I'm not a cheerleader, though. Yeah, and they were like, oh, it's not like a cheering team. Like, I was like, I can do a cartwheel, you know. And they were like, Oh, I did pop warner cheerleading in the fourth grade for one year, and that was it. So I've done, I was like, Well, I don't really, I'm not really a cheerleader. That's not my thing. I don't tumble, I'm not like that verbal in public spaces. And they were like, oh no, it's not like like that. It's like a dance team, like um with palms. I didn't know what a palm team was, I didn't know that was a thing. And I was like, oh, and there was a lot of girls that were Celtics that went to the Patriots or vice versa. There was crossover. I was like, oh, I had no idea. I just I didn't come from a sports family, so and they don't televise the cheerleaders anyway. So I just like I guess I figured that the cheerleaders were cheerleaders. Yeah. I was like, okay, so I'll try. And I remember the next year I went to the Patriots and I decided on a whim, because I maybe never wanted to put my eggs all in that basket or like my hopes and dreams all in this idea. So I think I was like out at the bars with like friends. I was like, should I go? They're like, yeah! It's like a bunch of dudes. You should go. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna get up in six hours and do my makeup in the car and go to the auditions. So I go to Foxborough and there's like 300, 400 people, and there's no online still, there's no smartphone, so it's all in person. And I have my like sports bra. I don't know, I had started to get a little more savvy with like the look. And huge audition. They do like out of across the floor, and then they cut maybe half, and then you learn a combination. They cut by the end, I think there was three or four cuts throughout the day, and it was like a 12-hour day. So if you make it to the end of that, then you come back like a week or two later for another audition, or you will go to an interview, and then if you make it through that, you did boot camp, and they would always say it's not mandatory, it's optional. But everybody was like, if you miss one, you're cut automatically, you know. So you had to take off work. It was kind of a huge monetary commitment for people that are in their twenties and don't have any money, but um and you don't know if you're on the team yet. And you would basically attend practices and you we would run the ramps at the stadium. Like boot camp style, you do like working out together and interviews and PR stuff. There was a quiz, a foot so you had to know football facts so that you didn't sound dumb. Um because you are taking interviews and there was a lockout that year. There was like um the NFL wasn't playing or on strike, there was something like funny going on. So there was like more PR being done by the cheerleaders because the football players weren't working that summer. So if you make it through the boot camp week, then they make another cut, and then you go to a final audition. So now it's been a month that you since the first day that you auditioned. Oh, and you don't even know if you're you don't know, it's a lot of sacrifice, like you like one day audition, like great. These stages, it's a huge endeavor. You're just like, okay, and um just getting tanner and tanner, and um the final auditions like really similar. Um, and you'd walk in your bathing suit and heels with jewelry, and you did another interview, and you did all the combinations and some sort of group routine, and then I think they announced it.

SPEAKER_00 35:53

Yeah. And then didn't they take you to like the Bahamas or something and get your teeth whitened and do a calendar shoot? Liposuction. Liposuction, yeah. Butt implants, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:07

Final audition, then boot camper, something like that. Then they announced the team via email. Yeah, they you had sponsorship, so the pay is pretty was minimum wage, punch in and punch out, and but uh but you did get a lot of sponsorship, so it's like, oh, we we go on a trip because the flight's sponsored, they have a deal with the airline. You the hotel sponsored because you're doing promotions in the lobby with hotel guests, and there's fans that like travel and seek these things out too, apparently. And so we went to Aruba, yeah. You get your teeth whitened. I hadn't been to the dentist in like years because I didn't have an insurance, so it was like a dentist appointment.

SPEAKER_04 36:44

I was so excited, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:47

Um, and you get a hair sponsor, so it was like you could get your hair done at a certain chain of Delaria salons, so different sponsorships, you get a lot of stuff in that way, and then you just dive into practices and start learning all the dances because the preseason starts at the end of the summer, and there's 10 home games, and then you're doing appearances. Sometimes they do like USS USO tours or things abroad. They didn't do anything the year that I was there.

SPEAKER_00 37:19

But your year the Patriots went to the Super Bowl.

SPEAKER_03 37:23

It's true. So we were really good the whole season and the during that whole era. I mean, it was Tom Brady era um, so we were winning all the um championship games were at home, so we got to cheer at them. To me, it was like, oh, I'm like working for a multi-billion dollar corporation and dancing representing that this brand that is yeah. At the same time, the minimum wage like probably equated to the same amount of money like a lot of people I knew at that time were dancing for, so it was like, well, but it did anger me more because when you're talking about like a startup arts organization, there's no money, yeah. Whereas here you're like, Well, there is money, like interesting, a few hundred off of any player's salary, and they wouldn't notice so that made me pissed off, and I the coach was um interesting. She's coached for like 30 years, and I don't know. And you guys did weigh-ins and stuff.

SPEAKER_04 38:32

We had a lot of weigh-ins, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:35

We had weigh-ins, they were always a surprise, so like nobody ever knew. So people would do the most idiotic things like eat a um like they wouldn't want to eat things that were were heavy that day, like a pineapple.

SPEAKER_00 38:50

Like that sounds heavy. It's gonna weigh me back.

SPEAKER_03 38:53

So we're an enemy. You know what this the kind of sad thing about it, maybe I guess, but to me it was funny, was it none of it phased me because the eating disordered thoughts or self-talk or out loud talk or expectations still um maybe they were just as unhealthy as what you witness in the ballet world, but the body type needs were not as extreme. So I was like, based on what my eyes see, I'm like, guys, this is nothing. If you get an email with a body part circle, this it's at least they're being specific. They're being specific, yeah. I was like, thank you very much. I mean, it was like insulting, and we would get those emails. Um, but other people didn't have like the ballet experience prior, so I think it was really harmful, not that it wasn't harmful to me, but they were like shocked. And I was like, this is not that bad. It's like this It's also such a different aesthetic.

SPEAKER_00 39:53

Like this also, yeah, I mean, and there's like I remember in a picture that you had, I'm like, well, when did you get boobs? Like there's just a different allure, a different like just really tight halter.

SPEAKER_03 40:06

Like my neck was imprinted because of how tightly um it was pushed up. But yeah, different aesthetic and more achievable for me personally, but and also less uniform. Like it was like, oh, there's many different body types, many different heights and shapes here. Um, some of them aren't even dancers, but and those are the ones that are really hot, so they don't have to dance.

SPEAKER_00 40:31

Oh, yeah, they've got like models that don't dance but are just like cheerleader or they're like Patriot fangirls or something.

SPEAKER_03 40:38

Yeah, they had a promo girls, so there was people, some a small percentage of the team would do promotions and weren't dancers. If your nails were bad, you couldn't get booked promos because people take pictures of you sending autographs. If your hair, I got a bad hair job by our sponsor at one time. They like the red bled into the blonde and my hair looked pink and orange. They were like, you can't do any sponsor, you can't do any promos. And you were required to do you're expected to do X amount of paid promos and X amount of charitable promos, like 60 in a season. Because it's very like charity organized. We do make a wish foundation and different things and mall stuff and calendar signings because we did the calendar shoot, so my one modeling experience. So when did you get into teaching? Like really get into teaching. I mean, I think I just started teaching right away because I think my old teacher reached out to me and said, Hey, we need blah blah blah. Can you do it? And it was just like light, it was like once a week. Sure. Okay, so I was working I think at a restaurant. I think I was working at Lilac Blossom. I was like, okay, so I'll teach. And I was just kept a foot on the door and I taught like the jazz classes, maybe it was really light. And then I got recommended it was like one thing led to another, and I just started teaching more and more places until um I went maybe for like a period of 10 years, I was teaching 38 classes a week. So many classes in probably seven locations, and somewhere along that time I I started to teach group exercise too, because I was like, Well, I want to have time to work out, but I also need to get paid, and I don't have time for both.

SPEAKER_00 42:29

So and some of the studios she was teaching at, like one was in Peterborough, like far, like you have to travel a ways too.

SPEAKER_03 42:37

So yeah, I would I would spend a lot of time in my car, but it's like you know, it's good pay once you get there. And so then I was teaching Zumba. So that is another like form of dance that was eye-opening because I was like, oh my god, I didn't realize that people didn't know which foot was their right and their left without looking down. I didn't realize that a whole room could be sidestepping to the right and and and one person could be going to the left in a room full of mirrors and not know that that was different. Like I had it kind of gave me this different appreciation for like all the things that we learn when we're so young that we take for granted of like, I was like, oh, this is like this, you guys have no idea.

SPEAKER_00 43:18

You're just it I feel like um because that could be so infuriating as a dancer, especially a ballet dancer. We're just like, Why are you so dumb? But with Zuba, like like Sally didn't have to correct anyone. She just, you just like do the moves and you just like they follow along. So she's literally just doing everything and maybe cueing it in, but she's not going around being like, okay, let's stop and understand that this is our left and this is our right, or like this is a heel and give it.

SPEAKER_03 43:52

There was a point in my life that I was like, oh God, I have a really narcissistic everything. Every day. Like every day, whether I'm in front of the random adults, first generation, or immigrant wives, because in Nashville, like I didn't have really any white people in my class. So that was another cool experience. That's not typical New Hampshire. And uh or I'm with kids. It was just like, okay, here we go. We're gonna shake our butts, and like if it's good or it's bad, it doesn't matter. It's just about like having fun, and we would just laugh, and there's so much freedom in that.

SPEAKER_00 44:35

Like I remember the first time taking Sally's zoom. It was a really good workout. And it's such a good workout, but also there's something so freeing about like when we'd go out and just go awkward dancing. It's just like it doesn't, you're just it doesn't matter how you look, it's just in it's like doing it and for you, and you're feeling it. So freeing. Talk a little bit about um when did you go to Africa? Because that was around that same time, too.

SPEAKER_03 45:22

I went to Africa when I came back from college.

SPEAKER_00 45:24

So I definitely think we were the Patriots.

SPEAKER_03 45:27

Yeah, I I definitely think there is an influence too. Not there were I was a confused, I don't know where I am point in my life, but I was also like, okay, well, what's the next thing you focus on if like this plan that you loosely had isn't taking off? Which maybe isn't taking off so loose, but uh you you get married, you like you get a you get a guy, you join the nine to five workforce and get that's like what happens, right? Like once you get A, B, and C out of your system, you just become somebody that's satisfied with domesticated, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:03

Yeah. Do you feel like, especially because we haven't, I mean, people that are seeing like video clips or know you know this, but if you're just listening, Sally's Korean, but she's not white, she was adopted, so she grew up in the states. She, you know, you're you were adopted when you were months old, couple months old. Um, so you've and you've never been back. You that's what you know is, but you you are Korean, you look Korean. Um, and in New Hampshire is very homogeneous, very white, and um just like Jessica was talking about last time. Um you must have felt that. And then going to New York, it's like you can't, and then coming back to New Hampshire, it's like you can't unsee what you saw in New York, you can't see all the diversity and all the all the everything, and then come back to small town New Hampshire and just go like have these dreams that aren't yours.

SPEAKER_03 47:06

I think those things definitely affected me, but I wasn't as conscious of them as people would think. Because you live inside yourself, you know, so you're not looking at yourself. I mean, maybe in the dance studio you are, but I in the dance studio I think I felt more like everybody else because it's probably about the same proportions in uh New Hampshire, uh maybe less white, yeah, less less non-white people in New Hampshire proportionally than the ballet world. Or at least the same. Yeah. There's still definitely like Asian ballet stars and Asian ice skating stars and gymnastics stars and things like that. There was no K-pop demon hunters, it was not like that kind of representation. There was no, and it was like there was just what, Mulan? She's like the one not hot princess. No, I found her attractive.

SPEAKER_04 48:07

Yeah, what are you talking about?

SPEAKER_03 48:09

Well, and she would think she's a badass, but but when you're shown that every other Disney princess is wanted for their looks and their princess-like ways, it's like wasn't cool then. That's an interesting thing.

SPEAKER_02 48:23

It wasn't even cool to not be like unless you were blonde, you weren't. Yeah, and unless you guys are finally blonder than me.

SPEAKER_00 48:34

If you had dark hair, you were the villain. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That is a really interesting thing to think.

SPEAKER_03 48:42

So there wasn't that kind of, but I don't think I thought of it like that. I'm only, it's like one of those things that I didn't notice because it didn't exist, but now that it is coming into existence, and I'm like, oh, that's empowering. So I don't think I felt as much of a lack as people might imagine. Um, but I can see now where the presence of those things is impactful. Yeah, I think it in the dance studio, even though it was like, oh, it's hard to go to an audition and be looked at and things like that, I felt like, oh, I have control over this and I'm being judged for my merit and I'm being honored, and I'm being I always had um good castings and like was put in in high levels. So and in like our studio shows at home, there was never any body image thing. So that never helped and I was petite, like I I was easy to partner. Um, even though I might not have looked like long and lean, I was like, I was petite and could hold myself. It was always a positive experience for me that now I'm like, oh my god, there are people that just like are only in the core or don't even make it to the highest level of their own school before they graduate. And so I think I did get a lot of validation, but I also feel like I put in a lot of work and I tried really hard. You went to Ballet Austin before I did.

SPEAKER_02 49:59

You're really just chasing her tails, weren't you, Amy?

SPEAKER_03 50:02

I kind of just wanted to do what Sally did. Yeah. I thought because it was more contemporary and it was outside of that New England bubble of like New England's just really intense, I think, in a lot of ways, like whether it's medical school or or ballet or um colleges, but like uh they were taking dancers that were older because I was like, oh, I got into this summer program, and I'm like 20. And I was like, oh, because they're hiring from it. So I was like, that was like my last hurrah before I was like, I'm gonna just try to graduate now. Um, but I went to Ballet Austin and I had a great time, and uh, but I didn't get hired. And I remember sitting in um the ballet mistress's office. Is it Michelle? And she was like, Sally, we didn't really see what you were capable of doing until like week three. Because I think I was always more reserved than I thought I was in the studio, and um, and then she's like, We like really like you, da-da-da-da-da, and like you could like do so well here. They uh yeah, basically she was like, We really like you, we only have two spots. Could you come back next year um like more fit? And I was like, I'm already trying to lose weight this whole time. Like, no, I can't. I think I was just kind of at that point, like, this is the extent of like how far I can go, clearly. And and I it wasn't like I was really extreme. I never like I definitely had body disordered thinking, but I never would have like a what would be maybe diagnosable as a as a um eating disorder. But I feel but I would like pray that I would. I would be like, I hope I wake up like able to be more sick in the head. Yeah. And then I just couldn't. I would be like, like, like I can I throw up, like, no, I can't. I like I love food. I know there was like something, maybe it's my adopted survival self that was like, no, no, no, no. That's like not. You already like survived this like trip around the world, and you could have been like anything. You could have been born in a dumpster, you could have been adopted by a Mormon cult, you could have been anything could have happened, you could have been raised in a different religion, you could have been picking rice. Like, you're not come on, just be eat a cheeseburger and enjoy this American life. Like, I don't like I just couldn't get myself to be uh as sick as I as sick as your friend Amy.

SPEAKER_00 52:43

Yeah, I remember one time I well I told Sally, I said, you know, I'm I'm bulimic. Like I've been and she was like you were like damn it, I'm you too. She was like, that's not fair. You can't just like eat whatever you want and then just did I say that? Yeah, but I think that was at the tail end of like, you know, you it was to me. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think maybe that yeah, there was a tinge of like, oh god, I wish you were that, I wish I was that messed up in the head.

SPEAKER_03 53:17

Oh, we I really like derailed you from Africa.

SPEAKER_00 53:21

Yeah, so to talk about um because you you taught dance too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 53:28

I mean, it was very haphazard. I came back from New York and then um I was kind of dating my now ex-husband. I was it was like the beginning of a the a long situation ship. Long story. But his mom, I was close to, I mean, I was close to their whole family for a very long time. She was a church secretary and she was organizing this trip to Namibia. So it was like through their church, but their church was like a cool church, which was very different than I grew up going to church when I was little, and they had like their pastor like played the guitar and like drank beers, and his daughters danced at a different studio, like more of a competition studio. So they had some missionary type folks going, they had school teachers going to work in schools, and then they had dancers going because the daughters had started this relationship with this girl over there named Pearl, who was starting a dance program in a town called Arondas. And so it was like basically a lot of kids have nowhere to go after school, or maybe no parents, and you know, the the presence of AIDS is like through the roof, crazy. And she's like, Oh my god, we're going to Africa. They had a lot of them had gone and they'd gone a bunch of times. I mean, I guess it was a it's a mission trip in essence, but she's like, You should go. Like they're they want dancers to help run like this thing with Pearl. And I was like, Oh. And so I go, and it was like a month's time.

SPEAKER_00 55:02

I just, I mean, obviously, I didn't go, and um that's uh maybe now looking at the trajectory of my life in terms of what you did, maybe I should go to Africa because I do things that you do.

SPEAKER_01 55:14

I think that's your next step.

SPEAKER_00 55:15

Okay, so yeah, I just I really found the when you went to Africa so fascinating to me because like there is no diet culture, there's like it's just such a different landscape in terms of how underwrited compared to America, right? Right. Like they didn't when you told me you're like there's there's no diet coke or there's no skim milk, like people aren't trying to cut calories. I was like, where's the diet coke? They're diet, yeah, and they don't want to be malnourished. So why would you just cut your milk to have less protein and fat?

SPEAKER_03 55:55

So let's acknowledge that like it's a very privileged thing to have your greatest worry be what you look like in the mirror for what this director says about you or your hair came out wrong. Like it's a very privileged thing. And I think my expectations, and I was not that old, I was in my early 20s, was like, and people like, oh, it's like so impoverished. And it was under the umbrella of a church chip. It was like kind of not super conservative, but like you're like, okay, the pastor's drinking beer and playing guitar, but it's still a church thing. So there is a little bit of this savior mentality, which is really interesting, and also in relationship to being adopted, the idea of like we're gonna, we're gonna save them because they have so much less than us. And I remember there's this guy, Richard, who was like helping, and he, um, white guy from South Africa, and he um was a huge skydiver, so he had been to the States a bunch of times to like visit and do these big skydiving things, and we asked him about his experience, and he was like, it was like fun. Like he's like, it's just kind of like a it's just a little bit of a sad, like soulless, like godless. Like he could just feel that like everybody was just like after profit, and if there wasn't profit, it wasn't worth doing, and nothing was from like the heart. That was his like impression. And then granted, he also is coming from a very religious place, but so we're there dancing with and it's just kids, just gobs of kids. They'd never like seen an Asian person, they don't travel, they were like really they all wanted to touch my hair and my face, and I was like, Oh, I feel even like like uh it's just something I had never felt, like that kind of fascination. Yeah, dude, yeah, that's gonna be so beautiful kids, and then and they'd go to do like these churchy things, but it was like outside, everyone's bringing their own drum. I mean, there was the happy the vibes were so good. Like I know that the death toll is high and blah, all these things, but it was like I was like, oh, it is like the most joyous people you'll ever meet. Um, they make everything out of nothing, they are dancing and bringing music alive anywhere, and in these little church services where they're worshiping and feeling grateful for all the things they have, which is so much less than everything that we have. They're just they're twerking. These kids, they would just get up and they're just dancing naturally. I'm like, what am I here for to teach them? You know, like but it was like more like having a learning experience after school. But the actual, I mean, if I I think in any environment, no matter what you're doing, if you're teaching the right way, you're also learning. Like it's it's right. So, but I was like, these kids are just twerking at church, and we're like from you know, like Puritan culture, like New England, like twerking in church do not go together. And you're like, God, this is why is it so sexualized? This is just this joyful expression. These are the happiest kids you'll ever meet, and most of them have lost a sibling or a parent or both to AIDS and live in a shack, and when the payday comes out at the beginning of the month, like everybody goes spends it all in one day at the bars, and it's theirs every, but they are so happy.

SPEAKER_00 59:17

So it's so incredible. And then you look at people here in the states, and we we complain over the dumbest shit, and I mean some stuff not so dumb, but a lot of times it's insignificant, first world bullshit that we just get so caught up in and we like can't see through, anyways. I just wanted to like put that kind of to light because I just think that's an amazing experience. Um, okay. Winging it. Winging it. Who is more likely to get in trouble in class? You, Sarah, or Jessica? We know probably Jessica.

SPEAKER_03 59:56

She's you said she was not tea.

SPEAKER_02 59:59

Well, she was not. That was like in her real life. It's just too different to me. I mean, we were just so good. I can't. I mean, maybe, maybe the two of us would like do a little chitter-chatter, but like really not really.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:15

Who do you think for us, Sally? Get in trouble?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:20

Yeah. I feel like I would maybe instigate the trouble, but you would give us away.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:26

You and you would get yeah, because I can't hide my like expressions or too wacky.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:33

Like, I would be like, you know, play it cool, and you would and I'd be like, Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:40

Okay. Do you Sally? Do you have a worst audition moment?

unknown 1:00:45

Gosh.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:46

Nothing crazy. Uh or like something that happened on stage. Oh my god, tell the story. This just happened this past uh Christmas time holiday season. Sally was performing and sheffed it hard. She fell down really.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:06

I changed my shoes decision at the last minute, and I just like it's it's more of like a visual um story. If you saw the video, it was very shocking. We should post the video. I've got it. One time, well, I don't know. I think I had a couple, like, at least in my brain, they were bad. Like the in once I started doing commercial stuff, and then they were like improv. Like, I think I auditioned first so you think you could dance too. And then I got it. Yeah, I got called back, and so I had to like sit in the theater for like 14 hours, and then everybody that got called back, which included some of the gimmicky people, like this person's dressed like a chicken, and then some really good people. And then you had to get up and the call back, they didn't tell you until everybody was done, and then they call you up, and I'm thinking, you know, they're gonna give us choreography or something, and it was just like a like a quick, like music continuously playing. They call out your number, and when they call out your number, you go into the middle and improv. Oh, and I think I'm really glad there was not as much readily available technology then, because I feel like it was really me and my jazz sneakers had some awkward moments. I alright.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:23

Okay, well that was fun. That was so fun. I feel like we could have gone on forever and ever. Yeah. Well, you're an inspiring person and an amazed, just an amazing human. I love you.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:40

I love you.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:40

All right, love you guys. Three girls in the wings. You're three girls here. We'll see you next time. Bye. Bye. But don't shave your legs with like your big toe. Thank you for joining us on Beyond the Point. If you enjoyed today's conversation, subscribe and share this podcast with a friend who loves ballet or just loves a good story.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:05

Got questions, comments, or topics you'd like us to cover? Connect with us on Instagram at Beyond the Point Pod.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:13

Beyond the Point is produced and edited by Christopher Gallant with additional editing by Sarah Furman. We'll see you next time, waiting in the wings.