The 2-year audition.

Usually, the longer you're kept at an audition, the better your chances. But few last quite as long as Katie Dehler's did: almost two years. Growing up, Dehler was told by teachers that she didn't have the technique to dance professionally, and she believed them. She never once attended a formal audition. "I didn't have the self-esteem to listen to someone tell me I wasn't good enough," she says. Dehler knew that she had a special talent for performing, but her modest personality never stood out among other dancers in the context of a ballet class.

She received her BFA in Ballet Performance from the University of Utah in 2000. Living in Aspen, she became an office manager for the Aspen Santa Fe Ballet so she would be able to take class with the company and continue working on her technique. When the company hired extra women for The Nutcracker, Dehler got a chance to perform. "She really shocked us," says artistic director Tom Mossbrucker, who had been impressed with Dehler's work ethic in the office, but never before noticed her as a dancer. "She stood out onstage, and was strikingly beautiful." Just one of many in the "Waltz of the Flowers," Dehler abandoned her ordinarily demure persona and showed off an ability to be that girl in corps you simply can't stop watching. However, the contemporary company only performs classical ballet at Christmastime, so Dehler continued her efforts, taking class in the morning and doing office work in the afternoon.

It wasn't until contemporary choreographer Nicolo Fonte came to Santa Fe to set a piece on the company that Dehler got her big break. He picked up on the office assistant's talent and asked to use her in his work. This time she surprised everyone with the amount of energy and diligence she put into rehearsals in order to grasp the unusual choreography. "When there is down time during rehearsal, most dancers will go get water or sit down and stretch. Not Katie. She would keep working on the material, going over and over it," says Mossbrucker. Dehler knew she had to work harder than everyone else in the studio if she was going to succeed with movement that was foreign to her classically trained body.

After granting several more choreographers' requests to use Dehler in their work, and then watching her shine while performing, the company directors eventually decided they needed Dehler to be a dancer, not an office manager. "She really molded herself into the kind of dancer our company uses," says Mossbrucker. He admits that she most likely would have been cut from an audition--she's too short and wasn't initially familiar with the company's style of movement.

Seven years later, Dehler still exhibits the same meticulous work ethic as she did before she secured a permanent place with the company. What's her advice to succeed in landing a job as a dancer? "Don't listen to what anyone else tells you. If you really want it, just make it happen--any way you can."

Jennifer Stahl writes about dance in New York City.