About Maddie

At the age of five, I fell in love with ballet.  I was always  an energetic kid, ballet made me feel beautiful and strong all while keeping my body active. At around the age of fifteen, I started to fall behind in some techniques because of puberty and the way my muscles developed. I had very tight hip muscles and bad knees, which made dancing ballet the way my teachers expected me to, difficult and straining on my body. I later developed an eating disorder, which went on for many years because I felt that if my body wasn’t working the way my teachers wanted I needed to punish it. After spending some time away from the dance world and healing my body and mind, that love for ballet came back. I started to feel that beauty I first felt and understood why I fell in love with the art of ballet in the first place. As a teacher, I never want my students to feel the way I did about their bodies. This is why I value strength- and control-based training rather than the “aesthetics” side of ballet. Yes those things are important too, but I would rather teach my students to have control with the basics first, then build up the strength to have clean and healthy advanced techniques.  This means putting their health first and preventing injuries. The ballet world comes with a lot of stigma and expectations, but my goal is for my students to see that ballet is for everyone with every body type, no matter what.