These New York City Ballet dancers (especially the high-spirited Amar Ramasar) capture exactly how we feel on a summer Friday.
Andrew Eccles via Cole Haan
Last month, members of New York City Ballet teamed up with designer Cole Haan to create a comfy, yet stylish line of shoes that are wearable from the stage to the streets. Because in a career where you're almost constantly working on your feet, it's vital for dancers to have supportive and safe footwear, even when you're not in the studio.
To ensure your feet are always feeling performance-ready, we asked two podiatrists who've worked with dancers what to look for—and what to avoid—when shopping for new springtime kicks.
Video: colehaan.com
The NYCB principal uses cross-training to lengthen and support her body without wearing it out.
Mearns, here in Allegro Brillante, starts her warm-up with a hot shower. Photo by Paul Kolnik, courtesy NYCB.
A few years ago, Sara Mearns’ weeks were packed with gym visits and Gyrotonic training. But as her schedule at New York City Ballet became more intense, she found the additional strength training only made her asymmetrical body (Mearns’ spine has both a scoliosis curve and a twist) tighter and more muscle-bound. Then, after landing from a jump during rehearsal in 2012, she severely strained the back muscles on the right side of her body. It took eight months for her to fully recover, and the jarring injury forced her to pay more attention to the very particular needs of her own body.
“Ever since my back injury, I had to stop doing all that,” Mearns says of her intense cross-training regimen. “Through physical therapy I developed my own daily ritual of preparation and stretching.”
Her 45-minute warm-up now consists mostly of rolling out and stretching, though she also does standard core exercises to make sure her back remains supported. After a hot shower, she spends 15 minutes on the roller, focusing on her trigger points. Once she’s loosened up, she performs a series of stretches to target her psoas, glutes, hamstrings and back. “I have to lengthen those things before the day starts,” explains Mearns, “and then I return to them continually throughout the day on my breaks.”
But Mearns is quick to point out that she is not doing the kind of extreme overstretching that strains the joints. When she puts her leg on the barre, she keeps it no higher than 90 degrees and adds in a side cambré to get at her quadratus lumborum muscle in her lower back which sometimes gets tight. During lunging psoas stretches, she also makes sure to perform them both turned in and turned out. “You get weak if you only stretch one way,” says Mearns, who has learned to complement instead of compound the demands of her ballet career. When she began private Gyrotonic training five years ago, her repertoire wasn’t as demanding. “We would practice barre together and talk about how to be grounded, how to stand, where my shoulders should be,” says Mearns, “and I still think about all those things I learned. I just don’t do it as a separate workout.”
Fueling for Performance
“I’m not into big meals or overly sweet stuff—it just makes me thirsty and shaky,” says Mearns, who instead opts for cashews, Greek yogurt and bananas pre-show and saves her dinner of veggies, pasta and protein for post-curtain.
Photo by Nathan Sayers.
Psoas Stretching, Two Ways
The psoas is one of the primary hip-flexor muscles and in ballet, it is often overworked from daily battements and développés. Here are two ways Mearns lengthens this hard-to-stretch muscle.
Sit on the floor in a fourth position, with one leg turned out and bent at a 90-degree angle in front of you and the other leg completely turned-in and bent to the side. From this position, try to get the sitz bone of the back leg to be as heavy on the floor as the sitz bone of the front leg.
Take a lunge stance with one foot forward and one back. Bend your front knee so that it is above your ankle and press your back foot into the floor. Focus on lengthening the tailbone down and lifting the front of the hips up. Mearns suggests trying this with the back leg turned in, as well as with a slight turnout.
What makes a great choreographer? The elements can sound like a collection of superpowers: The ability to evoke the most intense human emotions with just a simple gesture. A gift for “seeing the music.” A creativity that can transform how audiences perceive their world. A talent for turning dreams into onstage realities.
Left: Sara Mearns rehearsing Karole Armitage’s A Dancer’s Dream. Photo by Chris Lee.
In the case of breakout choreographer Kyle Abraham, the appeal of his work lies in its power to surprise. A rippling hip-hop duet might melt into a pair of smiles and an unexpected hug, which somehow unfolds into an upsetting scene of police violence. He can skillfully pair smart humor with disturbing observations about racism, or a romantic tutu with a 1980s boom box. This agility has helped him rack up an impressive collection of commissions, tours, grants and awards over the past two years, seemingly coming out of nowhere to become the new darling of the dance world. Now with a MacArthur “genius grant” worth $625,000, Abraham has the resources to take his vision even further. (Are you a choreographer looking for your own opportunities? Be sure to check out “Choreography Knocks,” a detailed list of workshops, festivals, residencies and more, at dancemagazine.com.)
Our annual choreography issue also talks to a handful of today’s most interesting dancemakers about one of the boldest tools they can use onstage: nudity. In “Baring It All,” Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Jonah Bokaer and others talk about what goes into their decisions to present dancers naked. We also hear a performer’s view of what that experience is like. And in “A Muse’s Vision,” New York City Ballet principal Sara Mearns shares her perspective on the creative process, and talks about the magic—and pressure—of stringing together series of movements until they become something more. Because ultimately, choreographers’ number-one tools are their dancers.
Jennifer Stahl
Editor in Chief
jstahl@dancemedia.com
Headshot by Nathan Sayers
Sara Mearns working with Karole Armitage on A Dancer’s Dream
It’s not always discussed, but dancers are as integral to the creative process as choreographers. That notion gives Sara Mearns, the fearless and ravishing principal at New York City Ballet, reason to pause: “I think I’ve had maybe two questions before about my point of view.” Yet with her plush, go-for-broke dancing and spontaneous phrasing, Mearns is a muse to many, from Alexei Ratmansky (Namouna, A Grand Divertissement) to Justin Peck, who highlighted her in The Bright Motion at the most recent Fall for Dance festival. During NYCB’s winter season, she graced Liam Scarlett’s premiere, Acheron. As Mearns explores new ways to enrich her dancing, she’s branching out: Last year, she starred in A Dancer’s Dream, featuring choreography by Karole Armitage, and she has more projects planned for the future. Recently, she spoke about choreography from a dancer’s perspective.
Do you do anything special before going into the studio with a choreographer for the first time?
You want to be as prepared as possible. You want to be as warmed-up as possible. And it’s funny: I always think about what shoes to wear. You don’t want to have too-new shoes, and you don’t want to have too-old shoes; you want the perfect shoes that you could do anything in. Of course, you think about your outfit. You put yourself together a little bit more than you normally would because you want to make a great first impression. And then as the process goes along, you don’t put makeup on. Your hair is a mess, and you have sweatpants on. [Laughs] That’s because you’re just trying to make it work.
Right: Partnering with Amar Ramasar
Would you talk about the process for Acheron?
It was a little weird for me because I had an injury when Liam came. My part was made on somebody else, and then I had to learn it. We had to rethink it and redo it for my partner, Adrian Danchig-Waring, and me.
Did you have much give and take with Liam?
I did. He was very open to changing things and making each couple feel comfortable. He’s very quiet in a way; he lets you figure it out and talk to your partner about it. He doesn’t get upset with you, which is kind of refreshing. Also, Liam was here and then he left and then he came back and left again, so Adrian and I had time to work on it ourselves, to rough it out, break it down. Why isn’t this working? Let’s figure this out. Sometimes it’s embarrassing. You feel stupid doing that in front of the choreographer because you want to make it look good for him.
How does it affect you when a choreographer is upset or impatient?
I kind of close down. I can’t compete with that. You don’t want to compete with that, and probably a lot of that is anxiety; they need to get that out. So I get upset, but I’m just like, I can’t do anything about it, tomorrow’s a new day, we’ll come in here and try it again. I’m doing my best for you. That’s all that you can really do, because it’s their job to make it work on you—if they can do that, if they’re intelligent enough to do that.
What do you bring to the studio that makes you a good muse?
I like to think that I have a really good personality. I dance big, and I’ll do everything full-out, the biggest, until they tell me, “Don’t do that,” or they have to tame it down. I’d rather that than them telling me, “Do more.” People mostly choreograph really big dancing and very emotional dancing on me, so I guess that’s an advantage because I can dive into things. One time, Liam was trying to get Sara Adams to not think about 
what she was doing and just be with her partner in the moment. He said, “Do it like Sara does. Sara Mearns—she just closes her eyes. She just stands there and lets it happen.” It’s easy for me to go to that dreamy, mysterious place in the studio. And I like to work on things. I like to do them over and over again and see if I can make them work. I like to laugh in rehearsal. That’s a huge thing—obviously, you’re going to have those dramatic moments and those really tense and stressful moments, but you have to be able to laugh in rehearsal, too. You know, we’re just people. We’re not robots. We’re not perfection.
Above: "I think of it as two visions molding together" —Sara Mearns
How do you mold yourself to someone else’s vision?
I think of it as two visions molding together. It can’t be just their vision. There have to be multiple visions coming together, multiple talents, multiple inspirations, imaginations.
Do you blame yourself when it’s not going well?
Oh, yeah. Because you feel like it’s your job to bring his creation to life. And your creation to life. You want to make the best of this because someone picked you to do something completely new. It’s a moment in time that you might not ever get again. And it’s self-worth. You want to feel important, to feel like no one else could do this. No one could ever look like this.
What was the reason behind your wanting to branch out and work with Karole Armitage and others?
I’m still doing that. In April, I’m dancing one of Mauro Bigonzetti’s works for the Youth America Grand Prix gala. It’s just different movement. No pointe shoes. No walls, no boundaries. Sometimes it’s tough here at New York City Ballet because we don’t get the very modern-modern choreographers. Sometimes we do, but most of the time I don’t get picked for that stuff. So I want to look elsewhere for that on my off time. Just to see how it feels and see how my body reacts to it. I want to see if I can do it.
Gia Kourlas is the dance editor for Time Out New York and writes about dance for The New York Times.
All photos by Chris Lee
