Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
(rock music)
(heavy breathing)
(somber music)
Voiceover: A professional ballet dancer's job
is extremely physically demanding
and much like professional athletes,
a serious injury cannot only keep them from dancing,
it could end their career in an instant.
Voiceover: I came down from a jump and my back went.
Voiceover: It's the worst fear for a dancer.
Voiceover: My neck was so bad, I couldn't move my right arm.
Voiceover: I tore an ACL on my right knee,
I've had a stress fracture in my lower back.
Voiceover: Am I going to be okay?
Will I still be able to dance this role?
Voiceover: I didn't know if I was going to be able to come back.
Georgina: Being injured sucks, regardless
of where it happens in your career,
because you feel like you're missing out.
It doesn't matter if you're a principal,
if you're a soloist, if you're senior corps.
You're essentially not performing
and someone else is stepping into your roles
and most of the time you get them back,
sometimes you don't and that's not usually the case,
but that's always a fear every dancer has,
that they're going to be completely replaced.
Voiceover: After finally getting her corps de ballet contract
with the company, Claire sustains a stress fracture,
just two weeks into the season.
Claire: This is my first time I've been really injured
to the point where I couldn't be dancing
and it's not like I can just dance through it,
since it's the bone, it's something that you actually have
to just rest and let heal, so that has been really difficult.
I'm not used to taking time off when things are still starting back up
and when things are happening.
Right now I'm not taking class, I'm not doing anything.
I'm just trying to stay off of it and I'm going to be missing
pretty much all of fall season.
It's frustrating, because I just am starting back
and this is my chance to prove myself and now I'm injured.
(music)
I've been sitting in on certain rehearsals right now,
because they're teaching a lot of new things,
but I'll probably start to stand in on certain rehearsals
in flat shoes, just to be learning things,
and not be falling behind.
I've gotten some advice from older dancers
and that means a lot, because you're like,
"Okay, I'm not the only one who's been through this."
Obviously, but sometimes it feels like that.
Giovanni: Injury is a part of a dancer's life,
just because of the physical nature of what we do
and the wear and tear and the fact that what we do is unnatural.
The body was never meant to be in the first position.
You're turning the hips in a very awkward way.
You're placing stress in certain joints in your body
and when you multiply that
times however many hours we've trained for,
you realize the potential for injury
is all around the corner, it's everywhere.
Chase: This is tedious and it sucks, but I know it'll be okay.
It's just time consuming and just in the middle of -
For Christ's sake, it's the first week of season. (laughs)
It was during my second show and I just had
a lot of good stuff lined up for the season.
I went from best shape of my life to out in one jump.
You just never know, it's just part of it.
It sucks, but what are you going to do?
What can you do?
It's broken, it's not like you can deny that, it's broken.
I'm going to go sit on my *** and watch football and drink a beer.
Megan: I lost a lot of confidence in my dancing
when I went through all of my injuries
and that really bothered me, but I knew the only way
for it to come back, I knew it wasn't gone, that I can get back,
the only way to do it was just wait it out.
(music)
(machine sounds)
Craig: I ruptured my achilles tendon on stage.
I did my dance and the very last jump off stage my achilles snapped.
I heard it, it was like a carrot snapping.
It was a sound that I, for a while, couldn't get out of my head.
Fear came into my head.
I freaked out big time, because as an older dancer,
I knew that I didn't have many years left.
I didn't have ten years left to dance.
A year is a lifetime for a dancer.
I'm still at the point where seeing people do those big jumps
and for a split second I don't know how they're doing it
and it's just in my head a little bit.
When you're out and you're hurting,
it's more painful to come and watch other people
doing the thing that you love so much and you can't do it.
I am coming back tomorrow, but I'm still not there yet.
I'm still at the beginning of jumping and figuring things out,
but I still don't know if I'll be able to jump as high as I did before
or move as quickly, so we'll see what my body can take
and hopefully I will fall back into place, everything will be okay,
but this is still something that's not definite.
I've been doing this for 14 years now.
When you're younger, you're able to jump back
and do things more easy, but the longer I wait,
it's not just my achilles, but it's my back, and it's my knees
and can you do this again, do you want to do this at 34?
I do.
(music)