Our Decade in Dance

Happy New Year! We are so grateful to every single one of our readers, listeners, and donors for supporting On the Other Foot! We cannot wait to share with you all of the great 2020 content we have lined up. To kick the year off, we wanted to share a reflection of our decade in dance! Kalena and I spent the last decade...well... growing up, so we hit some important milestones. For our young followers, this may be the decade you hit the same milestones, and we are so excited for you! For our older listeners, we hope this decade deepens your love for the art form of dance!

As always, connect with us on Instagram @OtherFoot.Pod

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Kalena Says:

My decade of dance began in 2009, which was actually my first nutcracker and my first onstage ballet performance. I remember being one of the oldest mice and the tallest in the cast for no reason other than my age, but I quickly made friends and enjoyed myself nonetheless. This Nutcracker was my first exposure to the community which surrounds a life in ballet; for the first time, I shared a dressing room with my friends and experienced candid moments that can only exist minutes before going onstage. I didn’t realize it at the time, but those experiences are the ones that give us belonging in the ballet world and make us fall in love as artists. A decade later, I just finished dancing my third nutcracker with City Ballet of San Diego. When I tell friends and family that I perform 17 shows each year, the most common question is “doesn’t it get boring to repeat the same show for three weeks year after year?” And I tell them it does, which is the truth, but something about the experience is never quite the same. In ten years, the biggest thing I’ve learned about Nutcracker and any performance is that for the artists, the fun is less about the roles, stage time, and the ballet’s story, and more about the camaraderie of those backstage moments.

Kalena at age 9 and again at age 20!

Jayne Says:

It’s 2020, which means I’ve been dancing for 17 years and en pointe for 9 years! When I think back on my decade in dance, I realized it’s been full of incredible opportunities. I received my first pair of pointe shoes, danced as Clara in The Nutcracker, attended summer intensives in 4 different cities, danced my first professional roles, and began college as a dance major. And, of course, started a podcast centered around dance with one of my closest friends! Dance had its ups and downs for me throughout this decade. I sustained my first serious injury, switched studios, and considered leaving the world of dance all together multiple times. But no matter what came my way, my love of dance prevailed. It seems cheesy, but I am so grateful to have grown up surrounded by this beautiful art form. It has trained me to persevere, to work hard, and to always seek to be better. I’ve traveled the country going to auditions, received lots of different acceptances AND rejections, and my idea of what dance is and who I am as a dancer is evolving more rapidly now than ever before. If my 10 year-old self could see me now, she’d be so proud of how close I am to living my dreams!

Jayne at age 11 and again at age 19!

We would love to hear about your Decade in Dance! If you are interested in sharing your story, you can contact us at OnTheOtherFoot.Podcast@gmail.com