Walking through the doors to the Abramson Family Recital Hall last Friday night, I was acutely aware of how little I knew about ballet. Like most everyone, I had danced as a little kid and remember enjoying myself, but the lingo and technique of this art form has always eluded me. So while I was excited to hear about the wonderfully talented Julie Kent and her new position as artistic director of the Washington Ballet, I was also preparing myself for an hour of inside jokes and terminology going right over my head. However, I found myself captivated from the moment Kent responded to her first question. Julie Kent spent very little time talking about what she learned about ballet during her historic tenure at the American Ballet Theater, and much more time talking about what she learned about life itself.
“We all start in first position.”
As a freshman, attending “Movement Speaks: A Conversation with Julie Kent” was one of the best decisions I’ve made this semester. With so many new experiences, expectations, and surroundings, adjusting to a new life chapter can be completely overwhelming. But after hearing Kent speak, I know I, and other freshman, am not alone in this sensation. From age 16 to 46 Kent spent her life at the ballet bar and on stage. After thirty years at ABT (the American Ballet Theater), the longest career for any ballerina in the theater’s history, Kent realized her performing career was coming to an end and was dealing with the reality that she was about to be a “working mother out of work.” Kent very honestly spoke about the trouble of leaving the only thing you’ve ever known for something that is a true challenge both because of its foreign nature and because of its demands. But as a person who has always striven to accept a new challenge, she has jumped into her new role as artistic director for the Washington Ballet with courage and poise that speaks to her past on stage. From her time at ABT and through her transition to her new role in the dance community, Kent has learned that we all, no matter who we are or what we do, “start in first position” and keep working to improve. It was nice to hear that even one of the most accomplished women in her field can feel a little like a freshman from time to time.
“The pursuit of improvement.”
While most people might champion the mantra “practice makes perfect,” Kent proposed another way of thinking which she sought to embody throughout her career and hopes to impart onto the DC community as artistic director at the Washington Ballet. To Kent, the “pursuit of improvement” is the best way to achieve excellence in anything you strive for. Because “everybody is going to have bumps” along their path, pursuing improvement rather than perfection puts the focus back on how you get over those bumps rather than how best to avoid them.
Julie Kent is impressive for so many reasons, the greatest of which is her humble nature and attitude towards life. She is grateful for all aspects of her remarkable career, both the failures and the triumphs, and embraces her privilege to have been able to perform for so long and now to give back to the very place where she learned the art of dance years ago. Quite unexpectedly, Kent’s story of new beginnings and the pursuit of improvement was one shared by most of the audience, including a bright-eyed freshman like myself.