Expert: Dianne M. Buxton - 1/27/2011

Question
I am 20 years old and was wondering if it was to late for me to become a professional ballet dancer. I am planning on taking a class six times a week for an hour to an hour and a half. I would love to perform on the stage some day and was wondering if that would still be possible considering my age.

Answer
Hi Meg. While I always maintain that nothing is impossible, this is unlikely. Why?

Dancers competing for your job will have done 10 years of training already. They will have had the advantage of training over physical limitations, while young enough to overcome them, to some degree, or altogether.

I don't like to be discouraging but must be honest.

But here's something else to think about - what soulful or artistic quality in you loves ballet? Could that aspect of yourself be expressed through another media that does not require:

a) an extraordinary physique by birth
b) the circumstances under which to be trained by an exceptional professional school starting at age 9-10
c) the political savvy to survive all that? (seldom mentioned, but not to be discounted)

That wonderful artistic energy in you could come out some other way without challenging your age, your body, the reality of the profession, et al.

I hope I have not disappointed you with this answer. But I believe there is something in you, even though you love ballet, that can come alive without ballet. And you are better off figuring that out, even if you experience a disappointment right now.

I am sometimes right, and sometimes wrong - like anybody else. I wish you my BEST wishes to go forward with this, Dianne.