Former NYCB Soloist Savannah Lowery Proves You Really Can Have it All

June 20, 2018


Savannah Lowery is about as well acquainted with the inner workings of a hospital as she is with the intricate footwork of Dewdrop.

As a child, the former New York City Ballet soloist would roam the hospital where her parents worked, pushing buttons and probably getting into too much trouble, she says. While other girls her age were clad in tutus playing ballerina, she was playing doctor.

“It just felt like home. I think it made me not scared of medicine, not scared of a hospital,” she says. “I thought it was fascinating what they did.”

Now after 17 years with NYCB, returning to the familiar halls of a hospital just feels right.

On June 3, Lowery graced the Lincoln Center stage one last time with her strength and fluidity in George Balanchine’s Agon. Her next chapter will take her to Los Angeles, where she’s enrolled in a pre-medical post-baccalaureate program at Loyola Marymount University. After she completes the year-long program she’ll take the MCAT and apply to medical school to follow in her parents’ footsteps.

On Leaving NYCB

Although she had settled on the decision to retire last summer, it didn’t make her final bow any less bittersweet. “I’ll dance again, but never like that, and that was weird and almost incomprehensible,” she says. “This ballet career is so crazy. Those people, you really rely on them, and so to leave that was scary and sad.”

She officially announced her retirement in February, which came as a shock to many of her colleagues. “Some people think it’s too soon. Some people asked if I wanted to wait and see with all that’s happening at City Ballet right now,” she says. “I made the decision before all the drama and that was just a weird coincidence that happened at the same time.”

Despite her colleagues skepticism, Lowery knew if she was going to make the leap into medicine, it was now or never. “It got to the point where I was like, ‘Well if I’m going to do it, I need to do it now,’ and all of a sudden it felt right,” she says.

On Her Next Chapter

On Monday, Lowery starts her classes at Loyola Marymount, and she’s been road-tripping across the country in a rented RV to get there. Lowery knows that medical school will be rigorous, but she’s never let uncharted territory intimidate her before. “It’s a long road ahead of me for medical school but it was a long road when I left home to go to SAB,” she says. “It feels very similar to that 14-year-old move I did way back when.”

While some medical school students may have spent the last few years studying biology or shadowing doctors, navigating the difficulties of a professional ballet career gave her experience that is just as valuable.

“Ballet life is hard. You have to find ways to stay positive,” she says.You have to keep yourself going, and I think I’m going to need that a lot in medical school. I think those skills are going to help me when I want to cry and crumble and can’t stand the pressure of studying.”

On Whether She’ll Keep Dancing

Of course, everyone wants to know if we’ll ever see her onstage again, and while she can’t promise she’ll be headlining any ballets, she’s certain that dance will still be a part of her life somehow. “I think it’ll happen naturally,she says.I love dancing. Class has always been probably one of my favorite parts of that job. I know, in some capacity, I will do that. I just don’t know what it’s going to look like yet.”