Ballerina moms: how five ballerinas remain fast on their feet while combining motherhood and careers.

Lourdes Lopez: "I feel that I have what I've always wanted... and it's not about having and getting; to me, it's about being and becoming."

Laura Desiree: "I wouldn't change a thing because I think he's so wonderful."

Susan Clark: "If there's any wasted time in rehearsal, I get very upset. It's like, |You're wasting time I can be home with my baby. Let's do it!'"

Cheryl Yeager: "Now that he's born, I wouldn't give it up for the world, for twelve opening-night Sleeping Beautys. Nothing compares."

Carla Stallings: "You have to feel fulfilled in your career before you can let it go without having resentful feelings toward the child."

As recently as a few years ago many ballet directors made it difficult for a ballerina to have both a career and a private life. As in The Red Shoes, a film that inspired many young girls to dance, we were told that we had to choose between the two. These five passionate mothers, however, are plunging forward into hitherto hostile territory while feeling the full weight of the responsibility of nurturing their children and their careers.

"There's a little bit of pressure that the ballet world's watching to see if we can really pull this off," says Cheryl Yeager. Some ballerinas have done it before, but they were the exception. Now an increasing number of ballerinas are scoffing at the "Red Shoes mentality." Instead of thinking about having it all, they are doing just that, due in no small part to the present generation of company directors. Most of them were dancers themselves, and in American companies. These directors believe that art and life are not mutually exclusive but exist to enhance each other. "I mean, why not?" asks Kevin McKenzie. "The more experiences you have as a human being, the better you are as an artist." In his first days as artistic director of American Ballet Theatre three of his dancers announced their pregnancies. Bruce Marks at Boston Ballet also had three future moms. Dane LaFontsee at Milwaukee Ballet has two new mothers on the roster. Helene Alexopoulos of New York City Ballet recently had twins, a boy and a girl. One gets the sense that this is just the tip of the iceberg.

"It used to be unheard-of," states Patricia Wilde, director of Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre and a dancer who waited for her career to wind down in the late sixties before having children. Few dared to come back and fully resume a dancing career in those days."Not to name names," says LaFontsee, "but I know that there were directors who were insulted that their ballerinas would become pregnant. [They said,] |You're going to lose focus and you're no longer going to be dedicated to the art form.'" What's different now is that directors trust their ballerinas to be adults and take responsibility for their lives. When Lourdes Lopez announced her impending parenthood to NYCB ballet master in chief Peter Martins, he expressed his full confidence in her ability to return to the stage by saying, "You have the three things I consider will get you back. You have the discipline, the desire, and the determination." The three D's are no mean feat. Laura Desiree reports that the pull to stay with the child is so great that "to return to dancing ... has to be a need, almost like you can't survive without doing that." All five ballerinas interviewed for this article said that their directors never pressured them to return quickly.

In fact, some directors had to advise putting on the brakes, as these five women unanimously pressured themselves mercilessly to return. Susan Clark of Milwaukee Ballet made it back onstage in five months, Desiree (Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre) in three (dancing Theme and Variations, no less), and Carla Stallings (Boston Ballet) in two and a half! Lopez, whose pregnancy had coincided with a prolonged injury, was not as successful. She had been off a year and a half with the injury, surgery, and baby. "When I came back, I said yes to everything, which was a huge mistake. I tore my calf the day before what would have been my first performance back. It's a really nasty story." After a period of rest, retearing the calf, and more rehabilitation, Lopez took a more careful approach to performing, one ballet at a time. Then Martins kept steering her toward roles that helped her past the fear of reinjury while rebuilding her more difficult repertoire.

Yeager had planned to be back for ABT's new Nutcracker. "I wanted to go back and work for Kevin. [This Nutcracker] is his choreography, so it would be a good way for me to get back in and find my niche. Because I don't really have one right now."

One of the biggest fears is losing one's status within the company hierarchy. Says Stallings, "The company moves on, and I had made my choice. I was glad to see that when I came back I was treated pretty equally." Clark says, "I think how your director is going to deal with it [influences] how you're going to be able to handle it. Dane was much more patient with me than I was with myself."

States Marks, "You don't want to say, |Okay, if you're going to have a baby we're going to punish you and we have to hire someone to fill your spot.' We don't think of it that way. We think of Carla - anyone having a baby - as still part of the company, because it's their decision."

McKenzie agrees. "The only thing you can do as a director is wait until they come back, see how they're doing, and they basically make the calls." According to Lopez, a week after she gave birth, she received a letter from Martins saying, "I want you to know your name is going to be on the roster. You have your dressing room. You've got your paycheck. Don't worry about it. We're behind you a hundred percent."

What else do dancers worry about while waiting for the blessed event to arrive? Well, there's that svelte silhouette and public image. Luckily, once Adriel, Noah, Pearl, Nathaniel, or Robbie arrives, priorities change dramatically. Lopez feels "there has to be a very large part of you that is not selfish." But there are major and sometimes traumatic adjustments to be made. Letting go of perfectionism, so ingrained in the nature of a ballet dancer, can be the most difficult.

Cheryl Yeager: "You're not going to look like you looked before. There's no way. Your body has got to take the time to get back."

Laura Desiree: "You don't realize that you have no control."

Carla Stallings: "I couldn't move fast for a while."

Susan Clark: "I guess [my body] will always look different to me now."

For an intrinsically organized person, letting go of controlling the day's events can be the most frustrating aspect of motherhood. "You don't look it, but inside you're just a mess, and terrified! We don't know. We've never done it before. They say husbands have never changed a diaper. Well, guess what? I'd never changed a diaper either!" Lopez adds, "Life, as you knew it, is nonexistent, will not happen again."

Yet, everyone agrees, the experience is not to be missed. They all feel that it has enhanced their dancing, a feeling echoed by their bosses. And all unhesitatingly say that given an ultimatum, their careers would have to go. In fact, Stallings will go through the grueling task of getting back in shape after the birth of her second child early in March in order to perform briefly, then retire. Following in the footsteps of the late Toni Lander, brilliant prima ballerina and former wife of Marks, Stallings feels as did Lander that it is crucial to give up one's career honestly, as a personal choice. Says Marks, "Toni got back in shape, danced five performances of the full-length Swan Lake in one week, and took off her toe shoes forever. To come back fully and dance as hard as she could and then say, 'I've done it; now it's my decision. I don't have to blame it on my children.' That was very important to Toni." And to Stallings. As Wilde comments, "It's important that children have parents young enough so they can enjoy each other. Not everyone can wait until their career has ended, past forty."

For anyone wondering just how different a dancer's physical experience is in pregnancy and childbirth from that of mere mortals, there seem to be few facts. These five ballerinas are all blessed with supportive, attentive husbands. The lengths of labor varied from seven hours for Stallings to thirty-eight for Desiree. The jury is out on whether being in dancing shape is helpful in the birthing process. The consensus is that rock-hard abdominals hinder it. Taking class up to the last minute does not guarantee the rapid return to dancing that most would like and can often lead to back problems. Stallings would like to see a study done to determine this very question. Dancers and ex-dancers do have the advantage of knowing their bodies so well that pushing is not a problem, even when numbed by an anesthetic. One obstetrician reported that a ballerina several years ago pushed so effectively that he had to catch the baby "like a football."

Clark says, "I always thought that after I had a baby, I wouldn't return; I would teach. But I missed dancing. It was a nice break, but I was ready to come back. It's healthy for me. I go there [to the studio] and this is my time, and all the little petty things at work that used to get to me don't matter to me anymore." Adds Lopez, "You come home having done what you desired to do; you come home half fulfilled. You want to spend the time with your kid. A child senses that."

"I know a joy I didn't know before, and I'm hoping it comes out of me [in dancing], because it fills me up so much," Yeager quietly comments.

Many people believe that ballet is as unnatural as giving birth is natural. To be able to reconcile the two through dedication and a capacity for giving and accepting love is a gift as great as any God-given talent. Times in the dance world have changed. States Yeager, "All our icons in the dance have pretty much passed on or are no longer active." With them have gone a lot of the rigid, old-world, controlling attitudes that forced many dancers to keep their private lives in the dark. She adds, "We don't have to cut off our heads to be ballet dancers anymore." With what we've lost in genius, we've possibly gained in humanness. With the current AGMA basic agreement containing a relatively new first-time maternity clause and directors backing their female dancers' life decisions, it is a new era, and about time. As Lopez says, "It's hard, but the rewards are great."