![]() "There were a lot of challenges to coming back, but it has been worth it." Getting her body back in shape was the hardest challenge. "But he wanted me to give it a shot and see if it would work," she says. She retired last year after having her son, Ethan, and thought she was through with dancing. One of his first tasks upon arriving in Houston six months ago was to persuade principal dancer Barbara Bears to return to the stage. So it seems natural - and normal - to have children at the ballet, Mr. He grew up playing in his mother's dressing room while she prepared for a performance as a principal in the Australian Ballet. In Houston's case, the new artistic director, Stanton Welch, has a lot to do with the company's relaxed, family-friendly environment. ![]() It's the support from above that makes all the difference, say many dancing moms. That pressure to not have a family hasn't disappeared entirely." While attitudes are changing, they are changing slowly. ![]() But, she adds, "It still really depends on the company. "Many more of our contracts contain pregnancy clauses, some even over and above what the Medical Leave Act requires," says Deborah Allton, the guild's staff counsel and a retired dancer. It wasn't until the late 1980s that the dancers' union, the American Guild of Musical Artists, finally included maternity leave as a regular part of negotiated contracts. Until recently, some companies actively discouraged female dancers from starting families. "Having James has been a boon to my dancing," she says after a recent performance of "The Nutcracker." "I hadn't taken serious time off since I was 16 and I had acquired a lot of bad habits. San Francisco principal dancer Katita Waldo, whose son is 4 years old, says she is dancing better than before. "But that is changing, I believe."Īnd changing for the better, say both dancers and their directors. ![]() Sometimes even if you got married, they threw you out," says Margot Lehman, a board member of the American Dance Guild in New York and a former ballet teacher. "It used to be unheard of that a prima ballerina, never mind the lesser souls, had children. That 1970s notion that women can have it all is finally gaining a toehold in the ballet. Sitting out for even a few months can mean missed opportunities and a lengthy return.īut more and more female dancers are risking it - especially in companies where the management is mommy-friendly. San Francisco Ballet has five dancing moms, Pennsylvania Ballet and New York City Ballet each have two, and American Ballet Theater star Julie Kent is pregnant.īecause the body-conscious profession is so demanding and a ballerina's career so short, the pressure has been to have children late in their careers or after retiring, at say age 35 or 40. Getting pregnant in the middle of their careers was unheard of a decade ago, but these six Houston ballerinas are part of a new generation of dancers who don't want to wait to have a family.įrom California to New York, ballet companies are brimming with babies. Three women are expecting and three others have just returned to the stage after becoming moms. And she's not alone: There's a baby boom at the Houston Ballet. Now, with the Nutcracker season well under way and no way to hide her bulging belly, Ms. "No one said anything, but I'm sure it looked pretty funny." "I sort of toppled forward," she laughs, three months later. She found out just how different when she moved into an arabesque and lost her balance. At 3-1/2 months pregnant, ballerina Melody Herrera leapt onto stage in a September performance of "The Sleeping Beauty." While she wasn't showing, her body already felt different.
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