Why I Quit Dancing Ballet Professionally
Transcript
I have actually attempted to make this video many times already but each time I tried, I pretty much failed because of how difficult it is for me to talk about this but today I am giving it one last try especially since as of today it is one year since I had my last performance where I quit dancing professionally and I think I'm finally at the point where I can comfortably explain to you guys why I quit dancing ballet so in this video I want to share my story with you and also the thought process behind this decision. We’re also going to talk about some of the main factors like the fear of leaving ballet after dancing for 20 years, the fear of losing the identity of being a ballerina which I worked so hard to establish, the fear that nobody in society will care about what I have to say if I lose this prestigious badge of being a dancer, the fact that I struggled with depression, nihilism, and chronic back pain but also just overall thoughts about the ballet industry as a whole. And as much as this video is hard for me to make, I think it’s worth sharing my story, if it inspires or helps even one person, maybe you’re at the crossroads of making a big career decision in your life as well so I hope this video gives you a bit of courage.
If you’re new here, I’m Sayaka, I’m a Harvard graduate ballerina turned entrepreneur.
First of all, before we even begin, I just want to make it clear by saying that as a dancer, I will admit I was enormously privileged to do what I love for a living. Most people have jobs, not careers because they need to make money. The definition of a job is an activity that you get paid for because you wouldn't do it voluntarily. Very few people are getting paid for doing something that feels to them like their calling. Very few people can derive meaning and purpose and all that kind of stuff from their day-to-day jobs sitting in an office. So the very fact that I, as a dancer was able to make a living by doing something I love was a huge privilege already.
But that being said, I've also come to realize that human motivation is a very complex thing, and moreover, passion can change over time.
So let me tell you my story. I grew up in Japan and by the age of 3, I was already doing the splits. When I started ballet at the age of 6, I was already in love. At school, I always told my friends that I would become a ballerina one day but it wasn’t like I was talented, I was actually the worst dancer in my whole class and so many people made fun of me and laughed at me. But that all didn’t matter because when I had ballet, I felt like the world disappeared and nothing else mattered. I felt safe with ballet. And so during my entire teenage years, I focused obsessively on nothing else, I traveled across oceans to learn ballet, and so growing up, I had to sacrifice everything, my country, my education, time spent with family, friends, etc.
When I finally graduated from ballet school at the age of 17, I thought I finally made it and I could be a professional now. However, there was no company in Europe that would hire me because I was way too young and way too short to be a corps de ballet member. But there was just one company that offered me a contract, and not just any contract, but a principal contract, perfect? Right? No, not perfect. This company was in Yakutsk, which was in East Siberia, in Russia. But because I was so determined to become a ballerina, I was willing to go through any conditions and go to any country that gave me an opportunity to dance.
And so just like that, I danced in countries like Turkey, Armenia, Kazakhstan, and Poland… Apart from extreme weather conditions, I was also caught up in situations like the failed military coups and the bombings at the Ataturk Airport in Istanbul in 2016. But none of that life-threatening situation mattered because the only thing that mattered to me was ballet.
And so after spending 4 years in these countries, I was eventually able to relocate to Germany where I finally had a bit of safety and security and space to breathe. I had a great time building my career, dancing all the dream ballets that I wanted to dance, and working with prominent choreographers, I was privileged to dance lots of principal and soloist roles so I was really living my dream life… But then… as the years went by… I started to notice that I wasn’t as happy as I expected myself to be. I somehow started to feel stuck. Up until now, there was all this thrill but then, all of a sudden, I started to be unexcited about my work. I would wake up and I’d feel really tired and not want to go to work. Because I had already danced my dream ballets, I got to a point where I felt like there was just nothing that I could look forward to in ballet.
And because I wasn't feeling fulfilled with my job, I started to really get depressed and nihilistic, and what really sucked was then these feelings then gradually turned into chronic back pain, I was drinking like 8 pain killers a day just to get by, I was on sick leave for like months and months while my colleagues had to cover for me so I felt horrible about myself. And trust me, when you are at home all the time just thinking about what a terrible and lazy person you are for being injured, it makes the depression even worse. So I was kind of caught up in this toxic spiral and I knew I had to make a change but I didn't know how to get out.
And then, just when I was going through all of this, a lifeline appeared. I suddenly got a new job offer in my current company as a manager, more specifically for sponsoring and fundraising so basically dealing with corporate partnerships and private donors and all that fun stuff. And so from the day I got that job offer to the moment I had to take my last bow on stage, I only had two weeks to decide. And these two weeks were the weirdest time of my life because I was in this transitional phase and it honestly felt like I was sentenced to death. But long story short, I did end up having my last performance on October 22, 2022,... ah, super emotional, I don’t even want to get into it, but life goes on and so I started my new job a few days later.
So that’s my story. And so what I’ve learned from my experience is that it is the journey that counts, not the destination. It sounds so cliche, but this is literally what happened to me. During all these years that I was trying to “make it” I was actually enjoying every step of the way. But as soon as I got to the destination, that’s when things started to not work out. So I learned much more from the journey of going through all these hardships and challenges than from the dream life I had at the destination.
Part two of this video is my thought process behind this decision to leave. So when I was deciding whether to stay in ballet or not, I went back to the roots and asked myself first of all what the purpose of work is.
And the way I see it there are probably five different things that we work for. Which are…
Money
Passion
Helping People
Purpose
Status.
And so thinking about these five factors separately eventually led me to understand why it was best for me to leave. And so if you are going through a career transition, I hope some of this stuff will help you or inspire you.
So let’s go one by one.
Money- Personally speaking, in all the years that I’ve danced, I have never met a single person who went into ballet for the money. Dancers have very little financial stability because they are often on very short-term guest contracts hired per production or even if you are lucky enough to land a full-time position in a company, the money is alright but honestly not incredible if you consider the amount of specialized training you go through. If people were motivated by money, they would have chosen to be a doctor or a lawyer or something.
In my case, I was lucky enough to have a full-time position in which I had a lot of financial security and I also couldn’t get fired easily because unless something drastic happened, my contract would automatically extend every year. So I admit that I was very privileged. But on the other hand, if I were to consider what I could potentially be earning as a Harvard graduate elsewhere in other industries like business or finance, money was definitely not a factor in staying in ballet.
Now the next one is passion. I think it’s safe to say that this is the most important thing for dancers, most dancers are in the ballet industry because of passion. Without passion, you cannot become a very good dancer because dance is not only about talent, you also need to have an extraordinary level of commitment and dedication because ballet is a lifestyle. You go through many hours of physical training, you have to change your eating habits, your routines, etc. You also need to sacrifice the majority of your childhood to go through professional ballet school which usually means you leave your family or country at a very young age which is not very easy if you are not passionate about the subject. So ballet is definitely one of those professions where you need to be 120% committed.
And so passion is definitely the reason why I initially got into ballet but as I mentioned earlier, as I achieved more and more in ballet, I got to a point where there was nothing that I could look forward to in ballet. So the passion aspect was falling apart.
And I saw it almost as a disservice for not being able to commit 100%. I got too curious about other things in life. You want to see a dancer on stage who is full-heartedly committed to her profession rather than half in. So passion was no longer a factor for me.
The third one is helping people and making a positive impact on society- so this is something that kind of bothered me about ballet. As a dancer, sure you’re helping people by enriching people’s lives and culture and inspiring people through the art form and all that kind of stuff, which would be really rewarding if dancers actually had direct interaction with the people in the audience. But that was so rarely the case. We have so little contact with people in the audience that sometimes I really wondered whether all the work that we’re doing is even worth it.
I’m not saying art is unimportant, it’s very important. Art and culture have always been what enriches our lives, they also play a huge role in driving economic success and making cities attractive to live in. But the impact is very indirect. It’s not as direct as if you were to become a doctor and save people’s lives or things like that. And so it becomes very difficult to measure the success of your performance. And personally, for me, I’m someone who is really interested in what the audience has to say, how they perceive the performance, what they liked and didn’t like, and things like that. Because in the end, I think that’s really what counts. And I was missing that from the traditional form of ballet.
This is part of the reason why I started social media because this is a way I can directly communicate with people. For example, when I posted a video of me talking at Harvard about my personal struggles with depression and nihilism and stuff like that, I got comments from people who went through the same thing saying how much that video actually helped them. And that’s a very small example where I was like, wow, it’s actually refreshing to have a direct impact on people’s lives in a way that I couldn’t as a professional dancer.
The fourth one is deriving purpose and meaning. And this has a lot to do with your values and beliefs which I don’t want to get into too much but if you’re interested, you can watch my other video here, but as we saw, one of my values was helping people which would give me purpose and meaning but that wasn’t fulfilled. There were also other things like the lack of autonomy and more specifically flexibility with time. As dancers, you are totally dependent on the company’s schedule. You are told when and where to be at all times, you can’t make independent decisions for yourself regarding time and schedule. Sometimes I couldn’t even schedule a dentist appointment because we needed to wait for company decisions to be made and by the time their made, the slots were already booked. So this lack of autonomy was driving me crazy, it felt really restricting for me especially because I was concentrating on my Harvard degree and my businesses and so this created a sense of dependency where my life revolved around the company and not vice versa.
And the fifth one is, in my opinion, the trickiest one, social status associated with the job. So a lot of people choose certain careers not only for financial reasons or any of the other stuff we mentioned but rather to gain respect and a sense of prestige in society.
And I think that most dancers including myself wouldn’t want to admit this, but there is a certain comfort about being a professional dancer. I’ve experienced this myself, people treat you in a special way as soon as they hear that you’re a dancer because it’s quite special. Very few people actually make it to become professional dancers which makes the the job quite prestigious.
So we grow up always telling people that we are professional dancers and so it becomes a big part of our identity. This identity as a dancer becomes a core part of our self-concept. And I think that’s why it’s so difficult to let go of this identity as a dancer. You start to think, I’ll be a nobody if I don’t have dance. Nobody will care about what I have to say anymore.
So it’s this fear of letting go of a big part of my identity that I personally struggled the most with. And so when I quit, it really felt like a huge part of me died. There’s this quote by Martha Graham that says, “A dancer dies twice—once when they stop dancing, and this first death is more painful.”
So as you can see, according to this, it didn't make sense for me to stay in ballet anymore. So I already knew in my gut and also rationally that I should quit dancing professionally and the only thing that was holding me back was losing the identity of being a dancer. I was really struggling to let go of my attachments.
But thankfully, when I was going through all of this, there were three concepts in particular that really helped me to let go and move on. So I want to share them with you.
So the first one was a quote from Zen Buddhism called “shogyoumujou 諸行無常” which basically means that nothing in life is permanent. And that we are only heading towards one direction which is death. And as harsh as this sounds, it really was a wake-up call for me that said, people are not immortal, we don’t get younger, we get older. It's like a stream of water. It only goes in one direction. And so rather than resisting this natural flow of change, we should accept this impermanence and let go of our attachments.
The second one was just plain research that basically said performance decline is inevitable and that on average, peak performance starts declining 20 years into a career, especially for creative professionals and athletes. And it was so interesting because I started ballet when I was 6, and exactly 20 years later, at age 26 was when I was at the point in my career where I was thinking of quitting. This sort of helped me accept the reality of what I was going through. It was kind of like yeah, there is evidence, it's not just me, it's kind of a normal thing. So that really helped me as well.
And the third concept that helped me move on had to do with basic economic concepts. So in economics, we have something called the opportunity cost which is what you give up when you choose one option over another. And there is also something called the marginal benefit which is the additional satisfaction you receive from something. So in the case of what I was going through, I realized that the opportunity cost outweighs the marginal benefit of staying in dance. Which basically means every day I spent in ballet meant a lost day I could have spent starting a new career. And this realization was huge. I realized that the more time I spent in ballet unhappy, the more difficult it would get later on to start entirely new. And as soon as I realized all of this, the answer was just so clear.
Now looking back, I ask myself, Was it the right choice? I'd say Absolutely.
Do I have any regrets? No. If anything, I regret the fact that I didn't quit earlier as soon as I felt unhappy. Because I stayed in ballet for another year being really unhappy. But I think had it not been for that extra year of being really unsatisfied with the company, I would probably have always questioned myself whether my choice was right.
As a final touch to this video, I want to share with you what I wrote in my notebook on the day I took my last bow:
The day has come.
Today is my last performance as a ballerina.
I knew this day would come one day.
But I never thought that it would come like this.
Ever since the age of 3, I have been doing the splits.
Everywhere I went, the language of ballet was universal.
Every country I landed in, there was a studio for me to go to and ballet for me to dance.
Ballet has been the one thing that has remained consistent in my life.
But somewhere along the way, I started to take this consistent presence of ballet in my life for granted.
I fell out of love with ballet.
It feels like a marriage where you start taking each other for granted because you see each other too often every day.
I started wanting to explore my own identity without this very special thing.
My ambitions wanted to prove that ballet doesn't define me, that I am more than ballet.
Ballet has become so autopilot now that I question whether I have any feelings for ballet left at all.
But I still cry and cry because I feel it's too early to let go.
There is a deep sadness in my heart to realize that nothing in life is permanent.
the bright green leaves eventually decay and fall to the ground,
the classmates that you go to school with eventually graduate and move on one day,
the friendships you once have eventually end,
the ambitions you once have eventually die,
and the love and passion you thought would last forever eventually burn out.
Alright, that’s it for today, you guys. Thanks so much for listening to my story, I hope that MY personal career transition helps you and inspires you or even gives you the courage to make a big change in your life as well. Life is too short for fear. Thank you for your support and thank you for listening!