Along with other new Company Member bloggers Julie and Ariel, Lauren Elizabeth was recently promoted from Richmond Ballet Apprentice to Company Dancer!When I was a little girl I used to set up a plastic ballet barre on my parents’ driveway and give myself what I imagined was “a class for professional ballerinas”. I would go through every combination I could think of using the technique I had learned in ballet class and added my own personal artistry. I’m sure back then I didn’t look like a professional dancer, rather just an imaginative little kid with dirt on her face from playing with Barbies in the garden, wearing a bathing suit with ruffles to substitute for a real tutu, but I was determined that someday, God would turn me into a real ballerina.
Becoming a Richmond Ballet company member has most definitely been one of the most exciting things that has ever happened to me. Since I was very young I have wanted to be a dancer. I started taking ballet when I was just three years old, and soon after I got over my shyness in my early years and fell in love with dancing. Ever since I came to Richmond Ballet as a trainee four years ago, working my way up through my apprentice years, and now becoming a company member, I have felt that this is the perfect fit for me. This company is truly a family, and it offers so much more than I could have imagined. I have found that dancing here is not only fulfilling for one’s self artistically, but it’s also fulfilling to share a greater joy otherwise unknown to the public. Richmond Ballet creates a wonderful relationship with its audiences. We share relatable feelings through the art of movement, a way they may not be able to express themselves. That, to me, is such a blessing. There is nothing like being onstage, but even more than that, to hear the response of the audience and to feel them holding their breath in astonishment, is a treasure unexplainable.
I am so thankful for this promotion into the company because it is truly a dream come true. I believe that dancing is a way to glorify God and to reach and uplift the hearts of those watching it, and that is what I have been able to do here as a dancer, and look forward to continuing. “A real ballerina?” someone asked me in shock and amazement, as though I answered that I were the tooth fairy when they asked what I do. And with a chuckle I added, “They do exist”.
Photo: Lauren Elizabeth, 2011. Richmond Ballet, All Rights Reserved. Photo by Sarah Ferguson.
