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Welcome to the Two Tooth In Podcast.
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My name is Dawn Smith Theodore, and we're so happy today to have Jacqueline Porter with us of the Dallas Conservatory.
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And I'm going to let her talk a little bit about why she feels like she's a good fit for the Two Tooth In podcast.
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Thank you.
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Dawn, first of all, thank you so much for having me on your podcast.
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I absolutely love it.
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I've loved every single guest that I've heard speak, people saying such wonderful and important things for young people and people of all ages to hear.
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So thank you so much for having me.
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I think that for me, I am so passionately committed to health and to dance and also to individuality, that it has taken me, I guess some decades it took me to put those pieces together in one person and find success.
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And now it is my mission, my life's work to empower others to find dance along with health and their own individuality to find their success.
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That's very cool.
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That fits right with the mission that I have.
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So tell us about your road to becoming a dancer, and then also how you've gotten to this place of health and dance.
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Thank you.
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I came from a British theatrical family.
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My dad was from England.
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He was a character actor and stage director by night.
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And then by day, he was an engineer.
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My mother was a dancer.
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She's from Scotland.
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She was a dancer and also a nurse.
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They met in Canada.
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They fell in love.
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They both emigrated there.
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They met on a blind date and they got married and then they started a little bit of an international life.
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My dad's work took them first to Belgium, where my brother was born and where I was conceived.
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And right as I was sort of just a thought and just about to, you know, become a person, they moved to America for a dream job that my dad had.
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And when he had his dream job, and there they were, finally had made it to America.
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My dad said to my mother, What would you like to do?
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And she said, Well, I think I'd like to have a dance school.
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So she opened a Highland dance school, and that's the studio into which I was born.
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And I think I don't recall, I just I don't recall life without dancing.
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I know that as soon as I was toddling, I was dancing.
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I know I started at three or so, but my understanding of life has always been as a dancer.
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I've never identified just as a you know a person before that or after.
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Um, so by six, I was already a I was pretty good.
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I was uh winning little medals, doing the sword dance and the highland fling in big competitions, and I was winning good medals and I was doing well, but I was only six or seven.
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But just at that time, my dad took my mother and me and my brother to Lincoln Center to see the Scottish ballet, The Last Little Feed, starring Carla Fracci and Eric Brun.
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And that was it.
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I was at Lincoln Center and the tutus and the point shoes instead of the kilts.
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Now I liked my kilt, and I but um the point shoes and the tutus really went right to my heart.
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Plus, I really loved the red curtains and the gold theater and the fur coats and the smell of perfume, the whole thing, the glamour.
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I was just into it.
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I said, ballet, that is my life.
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And I imagined myself, like I went right back into the studio and I started dancing very theatrically like Carla Fracci.
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And I always was a very individual young dancer and always imagined, I don't know, I had this sense of my own um, I don't know, my own artistry and my own greatness in in class.
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And I was certain I was going to be a star.
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No question I was going to be a star.
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Anyway, I um I also saw uh Gelsie Kirkland um dancing.
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I don't know if you saw this, but when she and Barishnikov did that fantastic nutcracker on PBS, that was like life-changing for me.
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And Gelsie Kirkland became my new one.
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It was Carla Fracci and Gelsy.
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They were my idols and they were who I was going to become.
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And um I went, you know, in those days, there was really not a lot of information.
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That's why these dreams stayed alive in my head.
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There was no Instagram to show me that I wasn't necessarily had the equipment for ballet.
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There was no, um, there was no, uh, I don't know, there were not even summer intensives until there became, like in when I was 14, um, my teacher, who was excellent, he was invited to the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet to do a summer program that they were just initiating there for students to come from out of town and to study during the summer with their own students.
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And I was one of the first five people to ever attend Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet Summer Intensive.
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Um, and that is where I saw for the first time, I thought I was good, but oh, I saw this one girl in class.
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Her name was Darla Hoover, um, who was just sublime.
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She had the most beautiful body don't.
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She had the tiny waist and a tiny head and long limbs and beautiful feet, and she was their star.
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She was gorgeous.
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Well, later she went on to become the Darla Hoover, the soloist and playing principal roles at um New York City Ballet.
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And now she's the head of the School of American Ballet.
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But I saw her when she was 15, and by God, she was a creature.
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And also right behind her in the class behind her was um Katrina Killian, younger and really an up-and-coming dancer.
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Tiny little body, beautiful, sprightly dancer, gorgeous to look at.
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And um she too became a soloist with Ballan Jean, and she too went on.
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She she actually went to School of American Ballet before Darla, and she became the children's education director.
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And she now, many years later, decades later, I have her in to teach at the Dallas Conservatory.
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But she's one of my first inspirations when I saw her at CPYB.
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She was just as light as a feather and so beautiful.
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So she and Darla made me look more squarely in the mirror.
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They didn't tell me to.
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I did though, because as a teenager, you can't help but see yourself in the mirror.
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You're there all day, every day for six days a week.
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And I started thinking, hmm, am I really cut out for this ballet thing?
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Is this really me?
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I'm not really sure.
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And I had an opportunity to audition for Hello Dolly, then my local playhouse was doing it.
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My dad often directed for the playhouse and he acted for the playhouse.
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And so I auditioned for Hello Dolly at like the age of 15 or 16, and I got a role, a leading role, and I did pretty well.
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I sang well, I acted well, I liked dancing, and everybody told me how good I was.
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But I thought, wow, okay.
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I never thought about that one, but all right.
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And then finally, we had a um a choreographer, a guest choreographer who came to visit the Erie Ballet.
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Now, again, we were in very good company, wonderful guests.
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Um, and I'd always had been lucky to be you know selected by guests for solos and that type of things.
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But this guest uh decided to stage a jazz ballet for us, and I was one of the two demi soloists in like a jazz, uh not even jazz ballet, it was in heels with you know skirts and um it was jazz.
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Uh God, what was it?
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I'm blanking on it, but I know I did very, very well at it, and I know that I felt really good.
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And most importantly, I remember the cast party where a bunch of it's felt like a bunch, probably two or three or four board members came up to me at the cast party and said, Jacqueline, we have never seen you look better.
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You look fantastic, and we know you sing and dance, and you should get to Broadway and you should go and do that.
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And I, on one hand, took it as a direct insult, thinking they're seeing that my ballet is not good enough.
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But on the other hand, a deeper part of me thought, well, I like how I look doing this movement, and it suits my body.
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My curves are better for it.
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You know, I can see that it looks good.
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Um, and I felt very much myself too.
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I felt um, I don't know, liberated that I've in some ways more individual even.
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I felt like I could be more of myself doing jazz than I could doing ballet.
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So um, long story short, I graduated from high school at 16.
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Um, so I had to, I because I skipped second grade and I skipped like senior year of high school, so I had to go to college for a year just to sort of do something and not go directly to New York at 16.
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So I went to Point Park College for a year.
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But then I quickly like just left after a year, got cast in four things bang, bang, bang, bang in New York.
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I got my equity card immediately.
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I started, I even starred in a play, uh, Butterflies Are Free Off Broadway.
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Um, as a very young, like I was 18 or something.
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And I was certain now, okay, now I'm going to become a star.
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I'm going to be a Broadway star.
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I'm going to be an acting star.
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I'll probably be a film star for all I know.
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And I was quite certain of my destiny that way, that it was now going to be Broadway.
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Or so I did well, but as after about like, I don't know, three years or something, I suddenly was not getting cast anymore.
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And it's because I was auditioning for more difficult things.
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Um, I was auditioning for uh Broadway shows, and that was getting harder to get cast in those.
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I was not the right height, and we've not discussed this yet, but I'm small, I'm 5'2.
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And um Broadway was very, very much uh sort of a 5'4 to 5'8 land at the time that I moved there.
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Definitely there was not room for all shapes and sizes.
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So I and even the whole ethnic thing, that all came later.
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The the idea of um you know casting for all individuals and and rethinking roles that came much later.
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So I went to um, oh yeah, my brother, he uh he said to me, Jacqueline, you're not having much success right now, and you're currently working in a restaurant, you are 20 years old, and I'm still so young.
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He said, You're you're young.
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Why don't you go to college?
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So he chose a few schools for me.
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He he wanted me to go to one of the seven sister schools.
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So I applied, um, and I got accepted to all of them, and I chose Smith College, that was his favorite.
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So I chose Smith because so many illustrious graduates from there.
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And that taught me for the first time when I was able to at college um have my own voice as a writer.
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I was I was a comparative literature major, I was a writer, and in writing and in um we did plays in college as well, but basically it was in reading and writing that I developed my own voice, more so than you can, you know, when you're a dancer in a studio, you're not talking.
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When you are taking direction, you're not talking.
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When you're being cut from auditions and not getting jobs, you're not empowered, you know, you're you're feeling less than.
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And so from a life of feeling that I didn't have the ability to speak, as a writer, I could speak.
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And I had never felt more empowered than I did during those years when I had a pen in my hand, even more so than uh than as a dancer.
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Um, and then during the summer, this is the final piece of this little puzzle.
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The during the summers, I had this fantastic job selling books door to door.
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And the books that I sold door to door was with this great company called Southwestern.
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And we um we sold uh literally, we'd run up to a door, knock on it, say, hi, this is Jack Lee Porter, and I'm working with blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
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And then within 10 minutes, you'd be in the house and selling a set of not encyclopedias, but educational books.
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And I did very well at that.
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I was making over a thousand dollars every week all the summers that I did it.
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And so I saw that I had a talent for persuasion and uh promotion.
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Anyway, I finally made my way back to New York after graduating.
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And um finally, when I got back to New York, I uh I was more able to open my voice.
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I was more certain of who I was as a person.
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It helped me to be a better singer.
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My voice literally opened up.
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I was a better dancer because I was more certain of who I was as an individual.
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I didn't feel like I was trying to conform to whatever else other people had been doing.
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Like as I was growing up.
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I mean, we had a lot of good dancers at our at my company.
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And I feel like I always wanted to be a little bit like this one and a little bit like that one.
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And yes, I love my own dancing too, but it was when I finally felt like a real person that I grew as an artist.
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And that is just when they started casting all sizes on Broadway.
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So I was lucky timing worked out.
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Um, and a couple of shows uh went ahead and hired me.
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Um the first one was Joseph in the amazing technicolor dream coat.
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I did that one for four years on tour and on Broadway.
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Uh uh Jerome Robbins Broadway was a really um exciting show to be a part of.
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There were the most accomplished ballet and jazz dancers in the city and in the country in that show.
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And it was a real honor to be a part of that cast.
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And then also I did um a year on the road as Debbie Reynolds' understudy in the Unsinkable Molly Brown.
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And that was quite the quite the show to be a part of.
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She's um real, real individual, that one.
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And we uh and she was a powerful woman, you know, she was not just an actress and a dancer, but she produced that show.
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So she was an excellent role model for me as a director.
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And she at the time had a really big dance studio in LA called the Debbie Reynolds Dance Studios.
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And they just closed recently, actually, but for years, for decades, those were the go-to studios where you would rehearse Broadway shows that were rehearsing in LA, or you would rehearse the, you know, the awards shows rehearsed there.
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Um, but that was Debbie Reynolds who started those, and Debbie Reynolds, who was my sort of my mentor and um role model for about a year when I was on the road with her.
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You know, it's interesting because you talk about, I mean, Debbie Reynolds gave a lot of scholarships to people, like she had a training program.
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So it was a great training ground for young dancers.
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But one of the things you talk about is using your voice, which I talk to young dancers about all the time because I feel like you do have to have an idea of who you are, how you fit into the dance world, and being able to use your voice in order to get what you need and to ask questions and to feel like you don't just have to be quiet and step to the back of the room.
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And I think that's a really important piece of information that you bring up.
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Yes, agreed, agreed.
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So Debbie Reynolds must have been somebody who helped you decide to be the director of this amazing dance studio uh in Dallas.
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Well, kind of, you would think that, but no, there was there were many, many chapters in between.
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But she did sort of, I it did occur to me many years later um that I was that wow, I'm I'm following the Debbie Reynolds path.
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But if you had asked me, even at that time, even though when I was doing my Broadway touring and uh performing, if you had asked me if I would ever be a dance teacher um or ever own a studio, I would have said no.
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I would have just been a little bit ill at the thought.
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I don't know about you if you always wanted to.
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Oh no, I never wanted to.
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And it's like never say never because you, you know, but no, I grew up in a dancing school and never wanted to own one.
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That's it.
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That is it.
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And so I I uh I guess uh after Molly Brown was over and I and my Broadway years were over.
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Um, when I say over, I I took a pause after I'd done actually, it was Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Code.
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I paused for six months.
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I guess this was another really individual thing to do, not everyone was doing it.
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I went to India for six months.
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Actually, I was in India for four months, in Bali for two months alone.
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In Bali, I lived at the bottom of a volcano for two months in a hut, all by myself, out in a remote village.
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In India, I lived in ashrams, like um, and I traveled a fair amount of the country.
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Um, and I just picked them out of the lonely planet guidebook.
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I didn't have anybody who I ever knew who ever went there or ever said to me, Oh, you should go here or go there.
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Nothing.
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I figured it all out myself.
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But that solo travel and that time to contemplate made me realize that um my dancing years were probably over um and that I needed to do something worthwhile um with the rest of my life.
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And I didn't exactly know what that was, but uh I came back to New York and of all things I met a um, oh gosh, it would be the second.
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There was a really fast-forwarded past, a wonderful relationship I had with an English conductor.
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Um he was my um partner for I guess four to five years, and then we were best friends for 15 or 20 years after that until he died.
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Loved him so much, Patrick Flynn.
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This was after Patrick Flynn, after India, I met another person who um became very influential to me.
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His name was Gregory Mitchell.
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We um I I met him, I guess, shortly after India, and we uh we had we shared our life together.
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And at that point, I was no longer sort of working on Broadway, as I said.
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I was in working in sales.
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I had found my way into the sales business, highest end sales.
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And I was working for a woman named Holly Hunt, who's really famous in the design world, and I was the face of Holly Hunt.
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I went out and visited her designers and sold highest end furniture.
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Well, in time, within three years or so, Gregory unfortunately passed of a heart attack on stage while dancing at the Kennedy Center of all things.
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Like it was a most amazing, an unbelievable situation.
00:19:32.000 --> 00:19:34.720
But there he was on stage with Mikhail Barishnikov.
00:19:35.200 --> 00:19:37.519
He collapsed of a fatal heart attack.
00:19:37.680 --> 00:19:41.759
And when he collapsed of a fatal heart attack, my life pretty much went down there with him.
00:19:41.839 --> 00:19:46.399
We were about to be married, we were going to have children, we were deciding on our lives together.
00:19:46.639 --> 00:19:51.200
But he didn't know me as a dancer, he knew me as a salesperson.
00:19:51.839 --> 00:20:00.799
And when he died, it occurred to me that I was doing something that didn't mean anything to me, that yes, I was selling, but I wasn't selling something that I loved.
00:20:00.960 --> 00:20:06.879
I was selling something that was not important to me at all, highest end furniture, highest end lighting and carpeting.
00:20:06.960 --> 00:20:08.799
It didn't matter a whit to me.
00:20:09.279 --> 00:20:14.720
So I realized that I needed to stake my life in passion.
00:20:14.799 --> 00:20:24.639
I needed to put down the passion gauntlet or put, you know, put down the stake and say, I am living my life doing something I love.
00:20:24.720 --> 00:20:26.399
And what do I love and how do I identify?
00:20:26.559 --> 00:20:27.519
I am a dancer.
00:20:27.680 --> 00:20:28.480
That is what I am.
00:20:28.639 --> 00:20:32.399
And while I hadn't done it for a few years, at this point, that's what I said.
00:20:32.559 --> 00:20:38.159
I'm going to um, you know, find a city in America that I love and start a studio.
00:20:38.319 --> 00:20:51.200
I'm going to start something that's going to mean something to other people where I can bring my whole life, um, my my classical background, my jazz background, my theater background, my writing, my persuasion, and bring it all together.
00:20:51.519 --> 00:20:57.920
Um, and that's pretty much how that started, the Dallas Conservatory.
00:20:58.000 --> 00:21:05.920
And the greatest thing is that we have um such uh talented kids in this school that have come my way.
00:21:06.079 --> 00:21:06.960
Some were just there.
00:21:07.039 --> 00:21:08.240
I was just lucky enough to get them.
00:21:08.399 --> 00:21:16.480
Others now, many years later, have found me because I'm a good teacher and people that come to us for our school, for our faculty, for my teaching.
00:21:16.639 --> 00:21:38.000
Um, but I I feel one of the things that I do with me being such an individual is that I take individuals who are highly individual and I help them to find their path as dancers, maybe a little earlier.
00:21:38.159 --> 00:21:42.799
I I think I was a little um, you know, I 16, I still thought I was going to be Delsey Kirkland.
00:21:43.200 --> 00:21:50.000
Um, maybe I do help to guide them a little bit earlier toward things that they might be able to really do well at.
00:21:50.159 --> 00:21:53.920
It's important for me for the kids to succeed and to be excel.
00:21:54.240 --> 00:21:58.240
And I try to introduce them earlier to more than just ballet.
00:21:58.399 --> 00:22:02.559
So we start with ballet, but we we introduce the other things pretty early.
00:22:03.279 --> 00:22:13.599
You know, it's interesting because I think one of the things as a teacher is to is to really guide your students in the way that's best possible for them.
00:22:14.079 --> 00:22:21.920
And there are so many opportunities for dancers today that weren't available for you or for me.
00:22:22.079 --> 00:22:33.680
And I'm curious as to what you wish was available to you when you were growing up and as a young dancer that is available to your students today.
00:22:34.639 --> 00:22:38.559
The most obvious one, Don, and I'm sure you can relate, is food.
00:22:38.720 --> 00:22:44.319
Um, we didn't have low, we didn't we didn't have an understanding of nutrition.
00:22:44.480 --> 00:22:47.519
We didn't have an understanding of food as fuel.
00:22:47.599 --> 00:22:48.799
You either ate or you didn't.
00:22:49.200 --> 00:22:52.399
Eat, but the idea of fuel, nobody ever said that word.
00:22:52.559 --> 00:22:56.639
And I only heard that, you know, like 10 years after I was a teenager.
00:22:57.039 --> 00:23:11.200
Um, and in my day, there was only like tab and fresca, and they had just come out with like Alba 77, you know, shakes, protein shakes, and carnation had a protein shake as well.
00:23:11.359 --> 00:23:18.000
But really and truly, my parents, they they gave us meat and potatoes and vegetables.
00:23:18.079 --> 00:23:25.279
There was probably butter on the vegetables and you know, bacon and eggs every Sunday.
00:23:25.759 --> 00:23:32.720
Um, nothing too bad, but it just wasn't like I I when I was in India, I became a vegetarian.
00:23:32.799 --> 00:23:34.480
I was like, oh, I didn't even know I had this option.
00:23:34.639 --> 00:23:35.599
Oh gosh, all right.
00:23:35.759 --> 00:23:38.159
I don't even need to eat meat if I don't want to.
00:23:38.399 --> 00:23:59.920
Um, and that happened to work better for my dancer's body, but I guess they have developed so many snacks and ways to have little bits of food, not like big meals, but like little bits of food on the fly, things to put in your bag, things that can keep you from being starving.
00:24:00.159 --> 00:24:17.519
Um, and also so many things to drink besides just water or fresco or tab, you know, just all those delicious things, hint water or the stuff that has a little bit of vitamin B in it, or ah, just it's a dreamland, it's a fantasy.
00:24:17.599 --> 00:24:21.039
Like I sometimes go into these delis, I can't get over.
00:24:21.359 --> 00:24:35.359
I'm not like a regular New York deli, I should say, you know, it's the the fancier places, but you can just look at the plethora of things available to women and men today so that they can eat well.
00:24:35.599 --> 00:24:45.920
And then the just the understanding too, the vegetables that you have to eat your vegetables, but they don't necessarily need to be, you know, like boiled so much and have so much butter on them.
00:24:46.159 --> 00:24:56.960
Yeah, I mean, I think it's the knowledge that we have that they didn't, you know, it's not that your parents or my parents didn't know there, there wasn't that knowledge available.
00:24:57.440 --> 00:25:00.960
So I think, you know, and you grew up in the Midwest like I did.
00:25:01.119 --> 00:25:05.759
So it was like meat and potatoes, and that was the only option.
00:25:06.000 --> 00:25:27.680
But I think, you know, also like you said, you were only in you were the first one of the first people to attend an intensive for the um Central Youth Ballet of Pennsylvania, and you know, there weren't really intensives, there were dance conventions, but not intensive.
00:25:27.839 --> 00:25:36.319
So, I mean, just the the amount of of different options that dancers have today is really amazing.
00:25:36.559 --> 00:25:42.559
And I think that that speaks to what you can for you as a teacher guide them.
00:25:42.720 --> 00:25:53.039
You know, if somebody's got the facilities for ballet, you can guide them in that direction, or a certain company, or if they will be better suited for jazz or contemporary.
00:25:53.200 --> 00:26:01.599
It's like how great to have a teacher like you who wants to really guide the students in the right direction.
00:26:01.759 --> 00:26:13.680
Because many times, you know, teachers want to hold on to students, uh, you know, versus let them go and and and go the right direction.
00:26:13.839 --> 00:26:25.519
So I think like kudos to you um for doing that, because I think it's so important to have studios like yours where they can be well trained and then sent to where they need to go.
00:26:26.079 --> 00:26:28.240
Yeah, I I am the first to do that.
00:26:28.319 --> 00:26:36.000
Um, as far as letting go that whole idea of like I I remember when little Olivia Bell, she was um, I'd had her for three years.
00:26:36.079 --> 00:26:37.759
She's a gorgeous little dancer.
00:26:37.920 --> 00:26:47.279
Um, I'd had her for three years, and she at only 14, which is a usual age, School of American Ballet offered her year-round entry.
00:26:47.440 --> 00:26:48.879
And I said to her mother, go.
00:26:48.960 --> 00:26:56.799
As much as I would have loved her to stay for one more year and win more prizes with us and make us look good for one more year, no, I said, go.
00:26:56.960 --> 00:26:58.480
This is an extraordinary opportunity.
00:26:58.639 --> 00:27:03.759
And now Olivia was one of the first to just be accepted into the New York City Ballet since the pandemic.
00:27:03.920 --> 00:27:06.240
They only hired a few and she was one of them.
00:27:06.559 --> 00:27:18.799
But um, I, as much as I um love to keep our good dancers, I have probably sent about five or six or seven now at this point away.
00:27:18.960 --> 00:27:29.200
By the time they're 14 or 15 years old, we've got once that went to SAB, we've got at least three or four at SAB year-round, Boston Ballet, Washington Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Houston.
00:27:29.279 --> 00:27:33.440
Um, and it's and they've all become professional, every single one.
00:27:33.839 --> 00:27:50.960
So um I and at the same time, I'm the lucky recipient of when people say um our dancing school does not quite have enough, we don't have enough uh diverse, not diversity, um, a range of the things we teach, or our classical ballet is not quite as specific as yours.
00:27:51.039 --> 00:27:52.559
We know you excel in ballet.
00:27:52.720 --> 00:28:01.200
We are very lucky when people send their kids to us at 14 or 15, they come to us and then they do their finishing with us, 14, 15, 16, 17.
00:28:01.359 --> 00:28:14.159
And that's the time when we can really assess them and say, look, this is you are absolutely right for a ballet career, or I think that this is the time that we really are going to go toward um broadening your uh skill set.
00:28:14.639 --> 00:28:21.680
And we would learn singing with us, you do hip-hop, tap, anything, like whatever it is that we think that will complement that person.
00:28:21.839 --> 00:28:30.079
But we are very much a boutique school that chooses a course of study for each of our students very carefully.
00:28:30.720 --> 00:28:35.119
So it's very individual and uh which is so important.
00:28:35.519 --> 00:28:52.240
Um you know, what do you, you know, what was you talked a little bit about your body image, not like not really knowing that ballet wasn't the thing for you, that you still wanted to be Gelsey Kirkland.
00:28:52.480 --> 00:29:03.519
Um but what about um little did little did I know at the time that she was suffering terribly, you know, from her or from an eating disorder.
00:29:03.680 --> 00:29:05.680
I I just thought she was naturally like that.
00:29:05.839 --> 00:29:08.559
I thought that that's just she was a little sprite.
00:29:09.119 --> 00:29:26.000
Well, and interestingly enough, I think lots of times people like with social media today, they look and see somebody and want to look like them and and think that I always tell people you don't know what they've done throughout the day.
00:29:26.159 --> 00:29:29.759
Have they eaten breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and had snacks with themselves?
00:29:29.920 --> 00:29:40.639
You know, because the the gift for dancers is longevity, and longevity comes through fueling your body, and fuel comes through food.
00:29:40.879 --> 00:29:43.440
And you know, that's just the bottom line.
00:29:43.680 --> 00:30:18.079
And so that is just such an important piece of this, uh, I think is that which goes to what we were saying earlier, these days, the things that you can put in your little dances bag and the things that the kids can choose for themselves and what they can say to their parents, like, I would like this or I would like that, or um, and I know, I don't know about you, but I have found for me that when I met my most um dancer weight, uh to me, I worked very hard at it, but if I should say hard, only in that I was super disciplined.
00:30:18.159 --> 00:30:22.399
I did aerobic exercise every day for let's say 15, 20 years, I was a runner.
00:30:22.480 --> 00:30:27.440
Um, and even when I was dancing on Broadway, sometimes I was living in Soho, I would run to the theater from Soho.
00:30:27.759 --> 00:30:34.159
Um, I would run all over New York and all over the 28 countries that I've visited, run, run, run, run, run.
00:30:34.240 --> 00:30:37.680
So I running is what kept me very much in dancer shape.
00:30:37.759 --> 00:30:41.119
And I had to do that to stay as trim as I wanted to be.
00:30:41.359 --> 00:30:48.240
And I don't, um, and then as far as diet goes, I found that being pescatarian worked for me.
00:30:48.399 --> 00:30:56.639
And also that rather than, you know, you'd have a big thing of rice and fish, no, it's small, small amount of rice.
00:30:56.799 --> 00:30:58.480
I never not eat anything.
00:30:58.559 --> 00:31:11.920
I definitely have a little bit of pasta, but again, I'm talking about when I was my most trim for 20 years dancing as professionally, but um, but vegetables, having vegetables, you know, probably at both lunch and dinner is so key.
00:31:13.039 --> 00:31:13.519
Yeah.
00:31:13.839 --> 00:31:26.399
So tell me about um because now you have this amazing studio, and I don't you have multiple studios.
00:31:26.559 --> 00:31:30.799
You started off in a small little studio, now you have multiple studios.
00:31:31.519 --> 00:31:33.680
Can you talk a little bit about that?
00:31:33.839 --> 00:31:37.119
Because it's the most beautiful studio I've ever seen.
00:31:37.440 --> 00:31:38.319
Oh, thank you.
00:31:38.480 --> 00:31:39.119
Thank you very much.
00:31:39.279 --> 00:31:41.519
Well, I'll tell you why it's when you say it's beautiful.
00:31:41.599 --> 00:31:47.759
When I first came to Dallas, my idea was that I wanted a place like Steppes or Broadway Dance Center.
00:31:47.839 --> 00:31:49.359
I I, by the way, I chose Dallas.
00:31:49.440 --> 00:31:57.519
I went on a little tour of the country when I decided I needed to do something of note and that made an impact and made a difference in people's lives.
00:31:57.599 --> 00:32:03.359
I literally passed out in my car by myself and visited several different cities.
00:32:03.440 --> 00:32:09.039
And I chose Dallas because it had just uh beautiful residential areas.
00:32:09.279 --> 00:32:14.240
And I thought it would sort of be dry and brown, but no, so green and beautiful.
00:32:14.559 --> 00:32:28.159
And there was not yet in Dallas um a sort of a it was the popping major metropolis after Chicago and um San Francisco and New York and Los Angeles.
00:32:28.240 --> 00:32:34.960
It was the number one, and so everyone was moving there, yet there was not a big dance studio like Steps or Broadway Dance Center.
00:32:35.039 --> 00:32:36.000
And I set about to have that.
00:32:36.159 --> 00:32:39.759
I was like, that's that's gonna be my niche, that's where I'm gonna set myself up.
00:32:39.920 --> 00:32:43.359
And I picked the loveliest neighborhood in Dallas and set up.
00:32:43.440 --> 00:32:45.200
Uh I started out of a shoebox.
00:32:45.680 --> 00:32:54.240
And in my head, I didn't realize, you know, yes, if I look at the size of that shoebox now, I think, gosh, I did not know one person started in a shoebox.
00:32:54.480 --> 00:33:07.839
But some of my very early um supporters were, oh, I don't know, Troy Aikman, who was the quarterback, the famous, famous quarterback of the of the Dallas Cowboys, his wife and children, you know, they were my clients and some other celebrity clients.
00:33:08.000 --> 00:33:12.799
Um and they word uh passed from one to another.
00:33:12.879 --> 00:33:16.159
And I guess my teaching style was always just so passionate.
00:33:16.319 --> 00:33:18.720
I've I like don't mince words.
00:33:18.799 --> 00:33:25.839
I'm so full of praise when it's merited, and then I also will absolutely correct and correct and correct like a border collie.
00:33:25.920 --> 00:33:31.039
I will, you know, nip and nip and nip at the um at the heels until I get what I want.
00:33:31.279 --> 00:33:38.799
So I go for those results, but I do it with jokes and I do it with praise and I do it with laughter, and then you know, getting down to business.
00:33:38.879 --> 00:33:57.759
But that teaching style has um really it started producing so many good dancers fast, like the kids would improve right under the parents' eyes that they told their friends and they told their friends, and we told theirs, and the school in no time, I had 200 people within about a year.
00:33:57.920 --> 00:33:59.759
And then I needed a new space.
00:33:59.920 --> 00:34:05.440
So I got the big one that you saw when you visited with your book Too Too Thin and did your book signing.
00:34:05.839 --> 00:34:21.760
Um, and I I made that space not look like a dance studio that I'd ever seen, but I made it look more like the interior design um beautiful uh oh, I don't know, the galleries and the beautiful places in New York that had a more um modern look.
00:34:21.840 --> 00:34:25.840
So it looked more like a Holly Hunt showroom than it looked like a studio.
00:34:26.159 --> 00:34:28.079
It had a distinct look to it.
00:34:28.159 --> 00:34:29.360
And thank you for noticing that.
00:34:29.440 --> 00:34:31.920
I that was my aim to make it look very beautiful.
00:34:32.240 --> 00:34:36.800
And and we grew to, I guess, over a thousand kids there.
00:34:36.880 --> 00:34:44.320
Um, and some of the kids were uh commuting, oh gosh, at least almost an hour each way, the same way I had done.
00:34:44.400 --> 00:34:46.400
I didn't tell you that, but that's what I had to do when I was young.
00:34:46.559 --> 00:34:48.079
I had to go an hour each way.
00:34:48.159 --> 00:34:52.720
And I kept saying to all these families, oh, you know, if it's important enough, you'll do it, don't worry.
00:34:52.880 --> 00:34:54.400
But eventually I felt so guilty.
00:34:54.480 --> 00:35:01.440
I built a campus for them in Frisco, Frisco is north, and there were about 20 dancers that needed their own uh campus.
00:35:01.519 --> 00:35:09.759
And I literally just out of the goodness of my heart went slightly broke, built the new campus, and now it and now it pays for itself and everything's fine.
00:35:09.840 --> 00:35:17.199
But um, and that new campus now has hundreds of students and it houses an international, um, two international programs.
00:35:17.360 --> 00:35:19.279
One is a commercial dance.
00:35:19.360 --> 00:35:24.159
Um, you know, uh people come from all over America to study with a guy named Lake McGrath.
00:35:24.320 --> 00:35:33.119
Blake is a super incredible, uh talented Hollywood guy who won So You Think You Could Dance and is just a superb teacher.
00:35:33.279 --> 00:35:34.800
They come to study with him.
00:35:34.880 --> 00:35:40.159
And then also we have a classical program, just for finishing program for 14 to 22 years old.
00:35:40.239 --> 00:35:46.639
And that's headed by Ashley Ellis, the former Boston Ballet principal, and George Berkadze.
00:35:47.039 --> 00:35:52.159
And those two, uh, just one more time talking about the idea of body image and classical.
00:35:52.480 --> 00:35:58.079
In their classical program, we we do have to look at, you know, these kids are trying to get jobs.
00:35:58.159 --> 00:36:02.960
As soon as they come to our program, they'll be with us for two years, and then they need to get jobs after.
00:36:03.279 --> 00:36:09.039
So they absolutely they we have a sort of a nutrition team.
00:36:09.279 --> 00:36:15.119
We the we um and also physiotherapists and and you know, uh mindset coaching people.
00:36:15.199 --> 00:36:24.480
Like we have a whole team of doctors who help their children to really pick it into high gear before trying to go out into the professional world.
00:36:24.719 --> 00:36:29.759
But um, and then the that that campus was really uh what's it called, successful.
00:36:29.840 --> 00:36:45.440
And then we uh uh an opportunity came up in a different section of town where we had more people who were commuting from a different section of town, sort of west, and opportunity came up to take over a dance school that was going out of business, and we renovated that, and that's our third campus now.
00:36:45.519 --> 00:36:48.480
But yeah, we have three campuses, people come from all over to study.
00:36:48.800 --> 00:36:54.079
Our kids are coming from Japan, China, Australia, New Zealand.
00:36:54.480 --> 00:36:55.440
That's amazing.
00:36:57.519 --> 00:36:58.559
That's amazing.
00:36:58.880 --> 00:37:02.320
I'm so proud of you and what you've accomplished.
00:37:02.480 --> 00:37:18.400
I mean, not only as a dancer, but just as a human being, you know, traveling by yourself, living in India, um, really experiencing the world and um and then giving back to others.
00:37:18.639 --> 00:37:19.519
So thank you.
00:37:19.759 --> 00:37:26.079
Don I Don, I don't know if we told our listeners how we know each other that I taught for you that you were my first boss in Los Angeles.
00:37:26.239 --> 00:37:26.880
Do they know that?
00:37:27.039 --> 00:37:27.599
Did we say that?
00:37:27.920 --> 00:37:29.679
No, they probably don't.
00:37:29.920 --> 00:37:38.000
Okay, well, I think it was right before I left for it was either Unsinkable Molly Brown or um gosh, uh, or Joseph, one of those ones.
00:37:38.079 --> 00:38:12.639
But I was in Los Angeles, I had just moved there, um and I was between jobs, and I I don't know if I answered a classified, I don't even know how I knew to to come to you, but I thought I do very you have great how it was it was through your brother and through his friend Craig, and that's how I yeah, so um, and it was right before you did um Joseph because I took the students who all knew you, and we all went to Joseph at the Pentageous Theater.
00:38:12.960 --> 00:38:17.360
So that was an that was an amazing experience for them.
00:38:17.840 --> 00:38:18.320
Wow.
00:38:18.480 --> 00:38:19.360
Oh wow.
00:38:19.599 --> 00:38:28.159
Well, I I loved teaching for you, and I love that we have connected all these many years later, and I'm hoping um that you will come back.
00:38:28.320 --> 00:38:30.800
I was hoping that you might come this summer to our intensive.
00:38:30.880 --> 00:38:32.960
We have a June one and an August one.
00:38:33.119 --> 00:38:36.480
We would we'd love for you to come in and do a workshop and a book signing, like a question.
00:38:36.800 --> 00:38:38.880
I would love, I would love that.
00:38:39.199 --> 00:38:43.920
So um before you leave us, you're busy woman.
00:38:44.239 --> 00:38:54.559
How do you what's the mantra that you say to yourself every day to kind of get yourself going and able to do everything that you do?
00:38:56.159 --> 00:38:56.800
Wow.
00:38:57.599 --> 00:39:03.039
I guess I always have to remember that I'm not just doing it for me, that when I get out of bed, it's not just for me.
00:39:03.599 --> 00:39:30.079
As much as I um do want to do it for me, I I I have, you know, yes, I want to get up, but the other thing is what gets me out is I want to help other people and I want to get about my business of whether it's checking in with my mother or going to um uh going to teach at the studio or just uh I don't know, just in in my life, I do a lot of talking and and interacting with other people.
00:39:30.159 --> 00:39:34.639
Like if I'm out for a run or if I'm out for a walk, I'm gonna talk to at least five people on en route.
00:39:34.800 --> 00:39:43.039
And I guess rather than just thinking of me, I do think of others getting out and spreading a little positive energy, I guess.
00:39:43.360 --> 00:39:48.239
And you use your voice, which is which you found.
00:39:48.639 --> 00:39:52.880
Well, Jacqueline, thank you so much for taking the time.
00:39:53.039 --> 00:40:00.800
I know you're a busy, busy lady, and you have a lot going on, but I appreciate your time and being with us.
00:40:01.039 --> 00:40:07.599
And um, to the listeners of Tutu Thin, thank you for being a part of the podcast.
00:40:07.759 --> 00:40:17.199
Uh, as always, you can reach me through tututhin.com or dontheodore.com and have a wonderful day.
00:00:49.119 --> 00:00:50.960
Welcome to the Two Tooth In Podcast.
00:00:51.039 --> 00:00:59.200
My name is Dawn Smith Theodore, and we're so happy today to have Jacqueline Porter with us of the Dallas Conservatory.
00:00:59.519 --> 00:01:08.319
And I'm going to let her talk a little bit about why she feels like she's a good fit for the Two Tooth In podcast.
00:01:08.960 --> 00:01:09.759
Thank you.
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Dawn, first of all, thank you so much for having me on your podcast.
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I absolutely love it.
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I've loved every single guest that I've heard speak, people saying such wonderful and important things for young people and people of all ages to hear.
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So thank you so much for having me.
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I think that for me, I am so passionately committed to health and to dance and also to individuality, that it has taken me, I guess some decades it took me to put those pieces together in one person and find success.
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And now it is my mission, my life's work to empower others to find dance along with health and their own individuality to find their success.
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That's very cool.
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That fits right with the mission that I have.
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So tell us about your road to becoming a dancer, and then also how you've gotten to this place of health and dance.
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Thank you.
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I came from a British theatrical family.
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My dad was from England.
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He was a character actor and stage director by night.
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And then by day, he was an engineer.
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My mother was a dancer.
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She's from Scotland.
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She was a dancer and also a nurse.
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They met in Canada.
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They fell in love.
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They both emigrated there.
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They met on a blind date and they got married and then they started a little bit of an international life.
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My dad's work took them first to Belgium, where my brother was born and where I was conceived.
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And right as I was sort of just a thought and just about to, you know, become a person, they moved to America for a dream job that my dad had.
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And when he had his dream job, and there they were, finally had made it to America.
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My dad said to my mother, What would you like to do?
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And she said, Well, I think I'd like to have a dance school.
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So she opened a Highland dance school, and that's the studio into which I was born.
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And I think I don't recall, I just I don't recall life without dancing.
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I know that as soon as I was toddling, I was dancing.
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I know I started at three or so, but my understanding of life has always been as a dancer.
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I've never identified just as a you know a person before that or after.
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Um, so by six, I was already a I was pretty good.
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I was uh winning little medals, doing the sword dance and the highland fling in big competitions, and I was winning good medals and I was doing well, but I was only six or seven.
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But just at that time, my dad took my mother and me and my brother to Lincoln Center to see the Scottish ballet, The Last Little Feed, starring Carla Fracci and Eric Brun.
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And that was it.
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I was at Lincoln Center and the tutus and the point shoes instead of the kilts.
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Now I liked my kilt, and I but um the point shoes and the tutus really went right to my heart.
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Plus, I really loved the red curtains and the gold theater and the fur coats and the smell of perfume, the whole thing, the glamour.
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I was just into it.
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I said, ballet, that is my life.
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And I imagined myself, like I went right back into the studio and I started dancing very theatrically like Carla Fracci.
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And I always was a very individual young dancer and always imagined, I don't know, I had this sense of my own um, I don't know, my own artistry and my own greatness in in class.
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And I was certain I was going to be a star.
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No question I was going to be a star.
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Anyway, I um I also saw uh Gelsie Kirkland um dancing.
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I don't know if you saw this, but when she and Barishnikov did that fantastic nutcracker on PBS, that was like life-changing for me.
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And Gelsie Kirkland became my new one.
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It was Carla Fracci and Gelsy.
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They were my idols and they were who I was going to become.
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And um I went, you know, in those days, there was really not a lot of information.
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That's why these dreams stayed alive in my head.
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There was no Instagram to show me that I wasn't necessarily had the equipment for ballet.
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There was no, um, there was no, uh, I don't know, there were not even summer intensives until there became, like in when I was 14, um, my teacher, who was excellent, he was invited to the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet to do a summer program that they were just initiating there for students to come from out of town and to study during the summer with their own students.
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And I was one of the first five people to ever attend Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet Summer Intensive.
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Um, and that is where I saw for the first time, I thought I was good, but oh, I saw this one girl in class.
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Her name was Darla Hoover, um, who was just sublime.
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She had the most beautiful body don't.
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She had the tiny waist and a tiny head and long limbs and beautiful feet, and she was their star.
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She was gorgeous.
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Well, later she went on to become the Darla Hoover, the soloist and playing principal roles at um New York City Ballet.
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And now she's the head of the School of American Ballet.
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But I saw her when she was 15, and by God, she was a creature.
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And also right behind her in the class behind her was um Katrina Killian, younger and really an up-and-coming dancer.
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Tiny little body, beautiful, sprightly dancer, gorgeous to look at.
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And um she too became a soloist with Ballan Jean, and she too went on.
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She she actually went to School of American Ballet before Darla, and she became the children's education director.
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And she now, many years later, decades later, I have her in to teach at the Dallas Conservatory.
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But she's one of my first inspirations when I saw her at CPYB.
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She was just as light as a feather and so beautiful.
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So she and Darla made me look more squarely in the mirror.
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They didn't tell me to.
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I did though, because as a teenager, you can't help but see yourself in the mirror.
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You're there all day, every day for six days a week.
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And I started thinking, hmm, am I really cut out for this ballet thing?
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Is this really me?
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I'm not really sure.
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And I had an opportunity to audition for Hello Dolly, then my local playhouse was doing it.
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My dad often directed for the playhouse and he acted for the playhouse.
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And so I auditioned for Hello Dolly at like the age of 15 or 16, and I got a role, a leading role, and I did pretty well.
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I sang well, I acted well, I liked dancing, and everybody told me how good I was.
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But I thought, wow, okay.
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I never thought about that one, but all right.
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And then finally, we had a um a choreographer, a guest choreographer who came to visit the Erie Ballet.
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Now, again, we were in very good company, wonderful guests.
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Um, and I'd always had been lucky to be you know selected by guests for solos and that type of things.
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But this guest uh decided to stage a jazz ballet for us, and I was one of the two demi soloists in like a jazz, uh not even jazz ballet, it was in heels with you know skirts and um it was jazz.
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Uh God, what was it?
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I'm blanking on it, but I know I did very, very well at it, and I know that I felt really good.
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And most importantly, I remember the cast party where a bunch of it's felt like a bunch, probably two or three or four board members came up to me at the cast party and said, Jacqueline, we have never seen you look better.
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You look fantastic, and we know you sing and dance, and you should get to Broadway and you should go and do that.
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And I, on one hand, took it as a direct insult, thinking they're seeing that my ballet is not good enough.
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But on the other hand, a deeper part of me thought, well, I like how I look doing this movement, and it suits my body.
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My curves are better for it.
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You know, I can see that it looks good.
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Um, and I felt very much myself too.
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I felt um, I don't know, liberated that I've in some ways more individual even.
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I felt like I could be more of myself doing jazz than I could doing ballet.
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So um, long story short, I graduated from high school at 16.
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Um, so I had to, I because I skipped second grade and I skipped like senior year of high school, so I had to go to college for a year just to sort of do something and not go directly to New York at 16.
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So I went to Point Park College for a year.
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But then I quickly like just left after a year, got cast in four things bang, bang, bang, bang in New York.
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I got my equity card immediately.
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I started, I even starred in a play, uh, Butterflies Are Free Off Broadway.
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Um, as a very young, like I was 18 or something.
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And I was certain now, okay, now I'm going to become a star.
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I'm going to be a Broadway star.
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I'm going to be an acting star.
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I'll probably be a film star for all I know.
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And I was quite certain of my destiny that way, that it was now going to be Broadway.
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Or so I did well, but as after about like, I don't know, three years or something, I suddenly was not getting cast anymore.
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And it's because I was auditioning for more difficult things.
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Um, I was auditioning for uh Broadway shows, and that was getting harder to get cast in those.
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I was not the right height, and we've not discussed this yet, but I'm small, I'm 5'2.
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And um Broadway was very, very much uh sort of a 5'4 to 5'8 land at the time that I moved there.
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Definitely there was not room for all shapes and sizes.
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So I and even the whole ethnic thing, that all came later.
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The the idea of um you know casting for all individuals and and rethinking roles that came much later.
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So I went to um, oh yeah, my brother, he uh he said to me, Jacqueline, you're not having much success right now, and you're currently working in a restaurant, you are 20 years old, and I'm still so young.
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He said, You're you're young.
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Why don't you go to college?
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So he chose a few schools for me.
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He he wanted me to go to one of the seven sister schools.
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So I applied, um, and I got accepted to all of them, and I chose Smith College, that was his favorite.
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So I chose Smith because so many illustrious graduates from there.
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And that taught me for the first time when I was able to at college um have my own voice as a writer.
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I was I was a comparative literature major, I was a writer, and in writing and in um we did plays in college as well, but basically it was in reading and writing that I developed my own voice, more so than you can, you know, when you're a dancer in a studio, you're not talking.
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When you are taking direction, you're not talking.
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When you're being cut from auditions and not getting jobs, you're not empowered, you know, you're you're feeling less than.
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And so from a life of feeling that I didn't have the ability to speak, as a writer, I could speak.
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And I had never felt more empowered than I did during those years when I had a pen in my hand, even more so than uh than as a dancer.
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Um, and then during the summer, this is the final piece of this little puzzle.
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The during the summers, I had this fantastic job selling books door to door.
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And the books that I sold door to door was with this great company called Southwestern.
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And we um we sold uh literally, we'd run up to a door, knock on it, say, hi, this is Jack Lee Porter, and I'm working with blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
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And then within 10 minutes, you'd be in the house and selling a set of not encyclopedias, but educational books.
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And I did very well at that.
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I was making over a thousand dollars every week all the summers that I did it.
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And so I saw that I had a talent for persuasion and uh promotion.
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Anyway, I finally made my way back to New York after graduating.
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And um finally, when I got back to New York, I uh I was more able to open my voice.
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I was more certain of who I was as a person.
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It helped me to be a better singer.
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My voice literally opened up.
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I was a better dancer because I was more certain of who I was as an individual.
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I didn't feel like I was trying to conform to whatever else other people had been doing.
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Like as I was growing up.
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I mean, we had a lot of good dancers at our at my company.
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And I feel like I always wanted to be a little bit like this one and a little bit like that one.
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And yes, I love my own dancing too, but it was when I finally felt like a real person that I grew as an artist.
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And that is just when they started casting all sizes on Broadway.
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So I was lucky timing worked out.
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Um, and a couple of shows uh went ahead and hired me.
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Um the first one was Joseph in the amazing technicolor dream coat.
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I did that one for four years on tour and on Broadway.
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Uh uh Jerome Robbins Broadway was a really um exciting show to be a part of.
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There were the most accomplished ballet and jazz dancers in the city and in the country in that show.
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And it was a real honor to be a part of that cast.
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And then also I did um a year on the road as Debbie Reynolds' understudy in the Unsinkable Molly Brown.
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And that was quite the quite the show to be a part of.
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She's um real, real individual, that one.
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And we uh and she was a powerful woman, you know, she was not just an actress and a dancer, but she produced that show.
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So she was an excellent role model for me as a director.
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And she at the time had a really big dance studio in LA called the Debbie Reynolds Dance Studios.
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And they just closed recently, actually, but for years, for decades, those were the go-to studios where you would rehearse Broadway shows that were rehearsing in LA, or you would rehearse the, you know, the awards shows rehearsed there.
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Um, but that was Debbie Reynolds who started those, and Debbie Reynolds, who was my sort of my mentor and um role model for about a year when I was on the road with her.
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You know, it's interesting because you talk about, I mean, Debbie Reynolds gave a lot of scholarships to people, like she had a training program.
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So it was a great training ground for young dancers.
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But one of the things you talk about is using your voice, which I talk to young dancers about all the time because I feel like you do have to have an idea of who you are, how you fit into the dance world, and being able to use your voice in order to get what you need and to ask questions and to feel like you don't just have to be quiet and step to the back of the room.
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And I think that's a really important piece of information that you bring up.
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Yes, agreed, agreed.
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So Debbie Reynolds must have been somebody who helped you decide to be the director of this amazing dance studio uh in Dallas.
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Well, kind of, you would think that, but no, there was there were many, many chapters in between.
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But she did sort of, I it did occur to me many years later um that I was that wow, I'm I'm following the Debbie Reynolds path.
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But if you had asked me, even at that time, even though when I was doing my Broadway touring and uh performing, if you had asked me if I would ever be a dance teacher um or ever own a studio, I would have said no.
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I would have just been a little bit ill at the thought.
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I don't know about you if you always wanted to.
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Oh no, I never wanted to.
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And it's like never say never because you, you know, but no, I grew up in a dancing school and never wanted to own one.
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That's it.
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That is it.
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And so I I uh I guess uh after Molly Brown was over and I and my Broadway years were over.
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Um, when I say over, I I took a pause after I'd done actually, it was Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Code.
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I paused for six months.
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I guess this was another really individual thing to do, not everyone was doing it.
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I went to India for six months.
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Actually, I was in India for four months, in Bali for two months alone.
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In Bali, I lived at the bottom of a volcano for two months in a hut, all by myself, out in a remote village.
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In India, I lived in ashrams, like um, and I traveled a fair amount of the country.
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Um, and I just picked them out of the lonely planet guidebook.
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I didn't have anybody who I ever knew who ever went there or ever said to me, Oh, you should go here or go there.
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Nothing.
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I figured it all out myself.
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But that solo travel and that time to contemplate made me realize that um my dancing years were probably over um and that I needed to do something worthwhile um with the rest of my life.
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And I didn't exactly know what that was, but uh I came back to New York and of all things I met a um, oh gosh, it would be the second.
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There was a really fast-forwarded past, a wonderful relationship I had with an English conductor.
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Um he was my um partner for I guess four to five years, and then we were best friends for 15 or 20 years after that until he died.
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Loved him so much, Patrick Flynn.
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This was after Patrick Flynn, after India, I met another person who um became very influential to me.
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His name was Gregory Mitchell.
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We um I I met him, I guess, shortly after India, and we uh we had we shared our life together.
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And at that point, I was no longer sort of working on Broadway, as I said.
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I was in working in sales.
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I had found my way into the sales business, highest end sales.
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And I was working for a woman named Holly Hunt, who's really famous in the design world, and I was the face of Holly Hunt.
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I went out and visited her designers and sold highest end furniture.
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Well, in time, within three years or so, Gregory unfortunately passed of a heart attack on stage while dancing at the Kennedy Center of all things.
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Like it was a most amazing, an unbelievable situation.
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But there he was on stage with Mikhail Barishnikov.
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He collapsed of a fatal heart attack.
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And when he collapsed of a fatal heart attack, my life pretty much went down there with him.
00:19:41.839 --> 00:19:46.399
We were about to be married, we were going to have children, we were deciding on our lives together.
00:19:46.639 --> 00:19:51.200
But he didn't know me as a dancer, he knew me as a salesperson.
00:19:51.839 --> 00:20:00.799
And when he died, it occurred to me that I was doing something that didn't mean anything to me, that yes, I was selling, but I wasn't selling something that I loved.
00:20:00.960 --> 00:20:06.879
I was selling something that was not important to me at all, highest end furniture, highest end lighting and carpeting.
00:20:06.960 --> 00:20:08.799
It didn't matter a whit to me.
00:20:09.279 --> 00:20:14.720
So I realized that I needed to stake my life in passion.
00:20:14.799 --> 00:20:24.639
I needed to put down the passion gauntlet or put, you know, put down the stake and say, I am living my life doing something I love.
00:20:24.720 --> 00:20:26.399
And what do I love and how do I identify?
00:20:26.559 --> 00:20:27.519
I am a dancer.
00:20:27.680 --> 00:20:28.480
That is what I am.
00:20:28.639 --> 00:20:32.399
And while I hadn't done it for a few years, at this point, that's what I said.
00:20:32.559 --> 00:20:38.159
I'm going to um, you know, find a city in America that I love and start a studio.
00:20:38.319 --> 00:20:51.200
I'm going to start something that's going to mean something to other people where I can bring my whole life, um, my my classical background, my jazz background, my theater background, my writing, my persuasion, and bring it all together.
00:20:51.519 --> 00:20:57.920
Um, and that's pretty much how that started, the Dallas Conservatory.
00:20:58.000 --> 00:21:05.920
And the greatest thing is that we have um such uh talented kids in this school that have come my way.
00:21:06.079 --> 00:21:06.960
Some were just there.
00:21:07.039 --> 00:21:08.240
I was just lucky enough to get them.
00:21:08.399 --> 00:21:16.480
Others now, many years later, have found me because I'm a good teacher and people that come to us for our school, for our faculty, for my teaching.
00:21:16.639 --> 00:21:38.000
Um, but I I feel one of the things that I do with me being such an individual is that I take individuals who are highly individual and I help them to find their path as dancers, maybe a little earlier.
00:21:38.159 --> 00:21:42.799
I I think I was a little um, you know, I 16, I still thought I was going to be Delsey Kirkland.
00:21:43.200 --> 00:21:50.000
Um, maybe I do help to guide them a little bit earlier toward things that they might be able to really do well at.
00:21:50.159 --> 00:21:53.920
It's important for me for the kids to succeed and to be excel.
00:21:54.240 --> 00:21:58.240
And I try to introduce them earlier to more than just ballet.
00:21:58.399 --> 00:22:02.559
So we start with ballet, but we we introduce the other things pretty early.
00:22:03.279 --> 00:22:13.599
You know, it's interesting because I think one of the things as a teacher is to is to really guide your students in the way that's best possible for them.
00:22:14.079 --> 00:22:21.920
And there are so many opportunities for dancers today that weren't available for you or for me.
00:22:22.079 --> 00:22:33.680
And I'm curious as to what you wish was available to you when you were growing up and as a young dancer that is available to your students today.
00:22:34.639 --> 00:22:38.559
The most obvious one, Don, and I'm sure you can relate, is food.
00:22:38.720 --> 00:22:44.319
Um, we didn't have low, we didn't we didn't have an understanding of nutrition.
00:22:44.480 --> 00:22:47.519
We didn't have an understanding of food as fuel.
00:22:47.599 --> 00:22:48.799
You either ate or you didn't.
00:22:49.200 --> 00:22:52.399
Eat, but the idea of fuel, nobody ever said that word.
00:22:52.559 --> 00:22:56.639
And I only heard that, you know, like 10 years after I was a teenager.
00:22:57.039 --> 00:23:11.200
Um, and in my day, there was only like tab and fresca, and they had just come out with like Alba 77, you know, shakes, protein shakes, and carnation had a protein shake as well.
00:23:11.359 --> 00:23:18.000
But really and truly, my parents, they they gave us meat and potatoes and vegetables.
00:23:18.079 --> 00:23:25.279
There was probably butter on the vegetables and you know, bacon and eggs every Sunday.
00:23:25.759 --> 00:23:32.720
Um, nothing too bad, but it just wasn't like I I when I was in India, I became a vegetarian.
00:23:32.799 --> 00:23:34.480
I was like, oh, I didn't even know I had this option.
00:23:34.639 --> 00:23:35.599
Oh gosh, all right.
00:23:35.759 --> 00:23:38.159
I don't even need to eat meat if I don't want to.
00:23:38.399 --> 00:23:59.920
Um, and that happened to work better for my dancer's body, but I guess they have developed so many snacks and ways to have little bits of food, not like big meals, but like little bits of food on the fly, things to put in your bag, things that can keep you from being starving.
00:24:00.159 --> 00:24:17.519
Um, and also so many things to drink besides just water or fresco or tab, you know, just all those delicious things, hint water or the stuff that has a little bit of vitamin B in it, or ah, just it's a dreamland, it's a fantasy.
00:24:17.599 --> 00:24:21.039
Like I sometimes go into these delis, I can't get over.
00:24:21.359 --> 00:24:35.359
I'm not like a regular New York deli, I should say, you know, it's the the fancier places, but you can just look at the plethora of things available to women and men today so that they can eat well.
00:24:35.599 --> 00:24:45.920
And then the just the understanding too, the vegetables that you have to eat your vegetables, but they don't necessarily need to be, you know, like boiled so much and have so much butter on them.
00:24:46.159 --> 00:24:56.960
Yeah, I mean, I think it's the knowledge that we have that they didn't, you know, it's not that your parents or my parents didn't know there, there wasn't that knowledge available.
00:24:57.440 --> 00:25:00.960
So I think, you know, and you grew up in the Midwest like I did.
00:25:01.119 --> 00:25:05.759
So it was like meat and potatoes, and that was the only option.
00:25:06.000 --> 00:25:27.680
But I think, you know, also like you said, you were only in you were the first one of the first people to attend an intensive for the um Central Youth Ballet of Pennsylvania, and you know, there weren't really intensives, there were dance conventions, but not intensive.
00:25:27.839 --> 00:25:36.319
So, I mean, just the the amount of of different options that dancers have today is really amazing.
00:25:36.559 --> 00:25:42.559
And I think that that speaks to what you can for you as a teacher guide them.
00:25:42.720 --> 00:25:53.039
You know, if somebody's got the facilities for ballet, you can guide them in that direction, or a certain company, or if they will be better suited for jazz or contemporary.
00:25:53.200 --> 00:26:01.599
It's like how great to have a teacher like you who wants to really guide the students in the right direction.
00:26:01.759 --> 00:26:13.680
Because many times, you know, teachers want to hold on to students, uh, you know, versus let them go and and and go the right direction.
00:26:13.839 --> 00:26:25.519
So I think like kudos to you um for doing that, because I think it's so important to have studios like yours where they can be well trained and then sent to where they need to go.
00:26:26.079 --> 00:26:28.240
Yeah, I I am the first to do that.
00:26:28.319 --> 00:26:36.000
Um, as far as letting go that whole idea of like I I remember when little Olivia Bell, she was um, I'd had her for three years.
00:26:36.079 --> 00:26:37.759
She's a gorgeous little dancer.
00:26:37.920 --> 00:26:47.279
Um, I'd had her for three years, and she at only 14, which is a usual age, School of American Ballet offered her year-round entry.
00:26:47.440 --> 00:26:48.879
And I said to her mother, go.
00:26:48.960 --> 00:26:56.799
As much as I would have loved her to stay for one more year and win more prizes with us and make us look good for one more year, no, I said, go.
00:26:56.960 --> 00:26:58.480
This is an extraordinary opportunity.
00:26:58.639 --> 00:27:03.759
And now Olivia was one of the first to just be accepted into the New York City Ballet since the pandemic.
00:27:03.920 --> 00:27:06.240
They only hired a few and she was one of them.
00:27:06.559 --> 00:27:18.799
But um, I, as much as I um love to keep our good dancers, I have probably sent about five or six or seven now at this point away.
00:27:18.960 --> 00:27:29.200
By the time they're 14 or 15 years old, we've got once that went to SAB, we've got at least three or four at SAB year-round, Boston Ballet, Washington Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Houston.
00:27:29.279 --> 00:27:33.440
Um, and it's and they've all become professional, every single one.
00:27:33.839 --> 00:27:50.960
So um I and at the same time, I'm the lucky recipient of when people say um our dancing school does not quite have enough, we don't have enough uh diverse, not diversity, um, a range of the things we teach, or our classical ballet is not quite as specific as yours.
00:27:51.039 --> 00:27:52.559
We know you excel in ballet.
00:27:52.720 --> 00:28:01.200
We are very lucky when people send their kids to us at 14 or 15, they come to us and then they do their finishing with us, 14, 15, 16, 17.
00:28:01.359 --> 00:28:14.159
And that's the time when we can really assess them and say, look, this is you are absolutely right for a ballet career, or I think that this is the time that we really are going to go toward um broadening your uh skill set.
00:28:14.639 --> 00:28:21.680
And we would learn singing with us, you do hip-hop, tap, anything, like whatever it is that we think that will complement that person.
00:28:21.839 --> 00:28:30.079
But we are very much a boutique school that chooses a course of study for each of our students very carefully.
00:28:30.720 --> 00:28:35.119
So it's very individual and uh which is so important.
00:28:35.519 --> 00:28:52.240
Um you know, what do you, you know, what was you talked a little bit about your body image, not like not really knowing that ballet wasn't the thing for you, that you still wanted to be Gelsey Kirkland.
00:28:52.480 --> 00:29:03.519
Um but what about um little did little did I know at the time that she was suffering terribly, you know, from her or from an eating disorder.
00:29:03.680 --> 00:29:05.680
I I just thought she was naturally like that.
00:29:05.839 --> 00:29:08.559
I thought that that's just she was a little sprite.
00:29:09.119 --> 00:29:26.000
Well, and interestingly enough, I think lots of times people like with social media today, they look and see somebody and want to look like them and and think that I always tell people you don't know what they've done throughout the day.
00:29:26.159 --> 00:29:29.759
Have they eaten breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and had snacks with themselves?
00:29:29.920 --> 00:29:40.639
You know, because the the gift for dancers is longevity, and longevity comes through fueling your body, and fuel comes through food.
00:29:40.879 --> 00:29:43.440
And you know, that's just the bottom line.
00:29:43.680 --> 00:30:18.079
And so that is just such an important piece of this, uh, I think is that which goes to what we were saying earlier, these days, the things that you can put in your little dances bag and the things that the kids can choose for themselves and what they can say to their parents, like, I would like this or I would like that, or um, and I know, I don't know about you, but I have found for me that when I met my most um dancer weight, uh to me, I worked very hard at it, but if I should say hard, only in that I was super disciplined.
00:30:18.159 --> 00:30:22.399
I did aerobic exercise every day for let's say 15, 20 years, I was a runner.
00:30:22.480 --> 00:30:27.440
Um, and even when I was dancing on Broadway, sometimes I was living in Soho, I would run to the theater from Soho.
00:30:27.759 --> 00:30:34.159
Um, I would run all over New York and all over the 28 countries that I've visited, run, run, run, run, run.
00:30:34.240 --> 00:30:37.680
So I running is what kept me very much in dancer shape.
00:30:37.759 --> 00:30:41.119
And I had to do that to stay as trim as I wanted to be.
00:30:41.359 --> 00:30:48.240
And I don't, um, and then as far as diet goes, I found that being pescatarian worked for me.
00:30:48.399 --> 00:30:56.639
And also that rather than, you know, you'd have a big thing of rice and fish, no, it's small, small amount of rice.
00:30:56.799 --> 00:30:58.480
I never not eat anything.
00:30:58.559 --> 00:31:11.920
I definitely have a little bit of pasta, but again, I'm talking about when I was my most trim for 20 years dancing as professionally, but um, but vegetables, having vegetables, you know, probably at both lunch and dinner is so key.
00:31:13.039 --> 00:31:13.519
Yeah.
00:31:13.839 --> 00:31:26.399
So tell me about um because now you have this amazing studio, and I don't you have multiple studios.
00:31:26.559 --> 00:31:30.799
You started off in a small little studio, now you have multiple studios.
00:31:31.519 --> 00:31:33.680
Can you talk a little bit about that?
00:31:33.839 --> 00:31:37.119
Because it's the most beautiful studio I've ever seen.
00:31:37.440 --> 00:31:38.319
Oh, thank you.
00:31:38.480 --> 00:31:39.119
Thank you very much.
00:31:39.279 --> 00:31:41.519
Well, I'll tell you why it's when you say it's beautiful.
00:31:41.599 --> 00:31:47.759
When I first came to Dallas, my idea was that I wanted a place like Steppes or Broadway Dance Center.
00:31:47.839 --> 00:31:49.359
I I, by the way, I chose Dallas.
00:31:49.440 --> 00:31:57.519
I went on a little tour of the country when I decided I needed to do something of note and that made an impact and made a difference in people's lives.
00:31:57.599 --> 00:32:03.359
I literally passed out in my car by myself and visited several different cities.
00:32:03.440 --> 00:32:09.039
And I chose Dallas because it had just uh beautiful residential areas.
00:32:09.279 --> 00:32:14.240
And I thought it would sort of be dry and brown, but no, so green and beautiful.
00:32:14.559 --> 00:32:28.159
And there was not yet in Dallas um a sort of a it was the popping major metropolis after Chicago and um San Francisco and New York and Los Angeles.
00:32:28.240 --> 00:32:34.960
It was the number one, and so everyone was moving there, yet there was not a big dance studio like Steps or Broadway Dance Center.
00:32:35.039 --> 00:32:36.000
And I set about to have that.
00:32:36.159 --> 00:32:39.759
I was like, that's that's gonna be my niche, that's where I'm gonna set myself up.
00:32:39.920 --> 00:32:43.359
And I picked the loveliest neighborhood in Dallas and set up.
00:32:43.440 --> 00:32:45.200
Uh I started out of a shoebox.
00:32:45.680 --> 00:32:54.240
And in my head, I didn't realize, you know, yes, if I look at the size of that shoebox now, I think, gosh, I did not know one person started in a shoebox.
00:32:54.480 --> 00:33:07.839
But some of my very early um supporters were, oh, I don't know, Troy Aikman, who was the quarterback, the famous, famous quarterback of the of the Dallas Cowboys, his wife and children, you know, they were my clients and some other celebrity clients.
00:33:08.000 --> 00:33:12.799
Um and they word uh passed from one to another.
00:33:12.879 --> 00:33:16.159
And I guess my teaching style was always just so passionate.
00:33:16.319 --> 00:33:18.720
I've I like don't mince words.
00:33:18.799 --> 00:33:25.839
I'm so full of praise when it's merited, and then I also will absolutely correct and correct and correct like a border collie.
00:33:25.920 --> 00:33:31.039
I will, you know, nip and nip and nip at the um at the heels until I get what I want.
00:33:31.279 --> 00:33:38.799
So I go for those results, but I do it with jokes and I do it with praise and I do it with laughter, and then you know, getting down to business.
00:33:38.879 --> 00:33:57.759
But that teaching style has um really it started producing so many good dancers fast, like the kids would improve right under the parents' eyes that they told their friends and they told their friends, and we told theirs, and the school in no time, I had 200 people within about a year.
00:33:57.920 --> 00:33:59.759
And then I needed a new space.
00:33:59.920 --> 00:34:05.440
So I got the big one that you saw when you visited with your book Too Too Thin and did your book signing.
00:34:05.839 --> 00:34:21.760
Um, and I I made that space not look like a dance studio that I'd ever seen, but I made it look more like the interior design um beautiful uh oh, I don't know, the galleries and the beautiful places in New York that had a more um modern look.
00:34:21.840 --> 00:34:25.840
So it looked more like a Holly Hunt showroom than it looked like a studio.
00:34:26.159 --> 00:34:28.079
It had a distinct look to it.
00:34:28.159 --> 00:34:29.360
And thank you for noticing that.
00:34:29.440 --> 00:34:31.920
I that was my aim to make it look very beautiful.
00:34:32.240 --> 00:34:36.800
And and we grew to, I guess, over a thousand kids there.
00:34:36.880 --> 00:34:44.320
Um, and some of the kids were uh commuting, oh gosh, at least almost an hour each way, the same way I had done.
00:34:44.400 --> 00:34:46.400
I didn't tell you that, but that's what I had to do when I was young.
00:34:46.559 --> 00:34:48.079
I had to go an hour each way.
00:34:48.159 --> 00:34:52.720
And I kept saying to all these families, oh, you know, if it's important enough, you'll do it, don't worry.
00:34:52.880 --> 00:34:54.400
But eventually I felt so guilty.
00:34:54.480 --> 00:35:01.440
I built a campus for them in Frisco, Frisco is north, and there were about 20 dancers that needed their own uh campus.
00:35:01.519 --> 00:35:09.759
And I literally just out of the goodness of my heart went slightly broke, built the new campus, and now it and now it pays for itself and everything's fine.
00:35:09.840 --> 00:35:17.199
But um, and that new campus now has hundreds of students and it houses an international, um, two international programs.
00:35:17.360 --> 00:35:19.279
One is a commercial dance.
00:35:19.360 --> 00:35:24.159
Um, you know, uh people come from all over America to study with a guy named Lake McGrath.
00:35:24.320 --> 00:35:33.119
Blake is a super incredible, uh talented Hollywood guy who won So You Think You Could Dance and is just a superb teacher.
00:35:33.279 --> 00:35:34.800
They come to study with him.
00:35:34.880 --> 00:35:40.159
And then also we have a classical program, just for finishing program for 14 to 22 years old.
00:35:40.239 --> 00:35:46.639
And that's headed by Ashley Ellis, the former Boston Ballet principal, and George Berkadze.
00:35:47.039 --> 00:35:52.159
And those two, uh, just one more time talking about the idea of body image and classical.
00:35:52.480 --> 00:35:58.079
In their classical program, we we do have to look at, you know, these kids are trying to get jobs.
00:35:58.159 --> 00:36:02.960
As soon as they come to our program, they'll be with us for two years, and then they need to get jobs after.
00:36:03.279 --> 00:36:09.039
So they absolutely they we have a sort of a nutrition team.
00:36:09.279 --> 00:36:15.119
We the we um and also physiotherapists and and you know, uh mindset coaching people.
00:36:15.199 --> 00:36:24.480
Like we have a whole team of doctors who help their children to really pick it into high gear before trying to go out into the professional world.
00:36:24.719 --> 00:36:29.759
But um, and then the that that campus was really uh what's it called, successful.
00:36:29.840 --> 00:36:45.440
And then we uh uh an opportunity came up in a different section of town where we had more people who were commuting from a different section of town, sort of west, and opportunity came up to take over a dance school that was going out of business, and we renovated that, and that's our third campus now.
00:36:45.519 --> 00:36:48.480
But yeah, we have three campuses, people come from all over to study.
00:36:48.800 --> 00:36:54.079
Our kids are coming from Japan, China, Australia, New Zealand.
00:36:54.480 --> 00:36:55.440
That's amazing.
00:36:57.519 --> 00:36:58.559
That's amazing.
00:36:58.880 --> 00:37:02.320
I'm so proud of you and what you've accomplished.
00:37:02.480 --> 00:37:18.400
I mean, not only as a dancer, but just as a human being, you know, traveling by yourself, living in India, um, really experiencing the world and um and then giving back to others.
00:37:18.639 --> 00:37:19.519
So thank you.
00:37:19.759 --> 00:37:26.079
Don I Don, I don't know if we told our listeners how we know each other that I taught for you that you were my first boss in Los Angeles.
00:37:26.239 --> 00:37:26.880
Do they know that?
00:37:27.039 --> 00:37:27.599
Did we say that?
00:37:27.920 --> 00:37:29.679
No, they probably don't.
00:37:29.920 --> 00:37:38.000
Okay, well, I think it was right before I left for it was either Unsinkable Molly Brown or um gosh, uh, or Joseph, one of those ones.
00:37:38.079 --> 00:38:12.639
But I was in Los Angeles, I had just moved there, um and I was between jobs, and I I don't know if I answered a classified, I don't even know how I knew to to come to you, but I thought I do very you have great how it was it was through your brother and through his friend Craig, and that's how I yeah, so um, and it was right before you did um Joseph because I took the students who all knew you, and we all went to Joseph at the Pentageous Theater.
00:38:12.960 --> 00:38:17.360
So that was an that was an amazing experience for them.
00:38:17.840 --> 00:38:18.320
Wow.
00:38:18.480 --> 00:38:19.360
Oh wow.
00:38:19.599 --> 00:38:28.159
Well, I I loved teaching for you, and I love that we have connected all these many years later, and I'm hoping um that you will come back.
00:38:28.320 --> 00:38:30.800
I was hoping that you might come this summer to our intensive.
00:38:30.880 --> 00:38:32.960
We have a June one and an August one.
00:38:33.119 --> 00:38:36.480
We would we'd love for you to come in and do a workshop and a book signing, like a question.
00:38:36.800 --> 00:38:38.880
I would love, I would love that.
00:38:39.199 --> 00:38:43.920
So um before you leave us, you're busy woman.
00:38:44.239 --> 00:38:54.559
How do you what's the mantra that you say to yourself every day to kind of get yourself going and able to do everything that you do?
00:38:56.159 --> 00:38:56.800
Wow.
00:38:57.599 --> 00:39:03.039
I guess I always have to remember that I'm not just doing it for me, that when I get out of bed, it's not just for me.
00:39:03.599 --> 00:39:30.079
As much as I um do want to do it for me, I I I have, you know, yes, I want to get up, but the other thing is what gets me out is I want to help other people and I want to get about my business of whether it's checking in with my mother or going to um uh going to teach at the studio or just uh I don't know, just in in my life, I do a lot of talking and and interacting with other people.
00:39:30.159 --> 00:39:34.639
Like if I'm out for a run or if I'm out for a walk, I'm gonna talk to at least five people on en route.
00:39:34.800 --> 00:39:43.039
And I guess rather than just thinking of me, I do think of others getting out and spreading a little positive energy, I guess.
00:39:43.360 --> 00:39:48.239
And you use your voice, which is which you found.
00:39:48.639 --> 00:39:52.880
Well, Jacqueline, thank you so much for taking the time.
00:39:53.039 --> 00:40:00.800
I know you're a busy, busy lady, and you have a lot going on, but I appreciate your time and being with us.
00:40:01.039 --> 00:40:07.599
And um, to the listeners of Tutu Thin, thank you for being a part of the podcast.
00:40:07.759 --> 00:40:17.199
Uh, as always, you can reach me through tututhin.com or dontheodore.com and have a wonderful day.
