Lauren Grant Photo by Stephanie Berger
Candid stories about balancing the roles of dancer and parent:
Graham Brown
I’d like to share a little more about this aspect of the journey. Lehua and I were in no way planning on having a baby so soon (I was a sophomore and she a junior when Bella was born). To be honest I was devastated when I found out. I thought my career as a dancer was over, and I had no idea what I was going to do instead. The same year Bella was born, David Dorfman came to the U of U to set a piece and he brought his young son, Sam, with him. Just seeing someone balancing dance and family was all I needed to let me know that it was possible. Now, at the time I hadn’t pieced it together that David had already established his career before his son came into the picture, but in this case, ignorance was bliss. David set a work called Familiar Moments: the Family Project which included a family member on stage with each cast member. The piece began with nearly-1-year-old Bella sitting alone on stage, stoic in a pool of light. I took the process of making and performing this piece as a message that it was not only possible to juggle dance and a family, it was literally spotlighted.
I want to say that while the initial news was a shock, my relationship with Lehua, Bella, and each subsequent kid has defined me as an individual and an artist. They have charged me with a level of maturity, love, perspective, responsibility, as well as creative drive and professional pluck that I’m sure I would not have developed otherwise. When unexpected things come your way you have to improvise, so I guess that’s what I did.
Lauren Grant
I performed while pregnant with my now almost 2.5 year-old son until about the 4th month or so of pregnancy. Doctors didn't want me to but I somehow felt it would be fine and I stubbornly followed my instinct. I needed to keep dancing. I started to show a bit, but Mark (Morris) and our Executive Director, Nancy Umanoff, were very supportive. I had a lot of fittings to widen the waist and rib-cage area of my costumes. I expected my belly to grow, but never realized how much my upper body bone structure would expand as well.
When I could no longer perform Mark's highly demanding work, the company continued to employ me by both having me teach youngsters in our school and also administrating our Pre-Professional Winter Intensive (our school director was on maternity leave). Those were great opportunities to A) practice teaching a level and age of student I was not as experienced with and B) have a chance to practice my computer and administrative skills.
After an unexpected and unwanted C-section I put a lot of effort into healing and retraining. I took about 2 months at home and then did just a bit of teaching work. Teaching work increased, and then 5 months after the birth of my son I rejoined the company as a full-time dancer–training, rehearsing, performing and touring. I wasn't sure I would return to dancing after giving birth, but to my surprise, I found a surging second wind. As a muscle-bound person the hormones from breast-feeding seemed to free my body up and although I had a really stiff back, my legs never felt better. It was a delight to experience my job with such an invincible feeling. I am now feeling human again, unfortunately! This summer I sustained a calf tear while on tour in Taiwan and, although I've been dancing throughout the remainder of the summer season, I'm still dealing with pain and working towards a full recovery.
I took my family on tour starting when my son was about 6 or 7 months old. My husband David (who danced so beautifully for many years with MMDG and now is the director of the company's Dance for PD program) watched our son while I was on stage and tried to get his work done when I was back in the hotel room. He also was able to schedule Dance for PD master classes and training workshops in whatever city we travelled to. This model worked for close to a year. Eventually, we realized it would be better for both David and our son to stay home. Now I mostly tour without them. This summer MMDG had extensive international touring which tested our family. I am beginning to pull out of some tours so that I can be around more for my family. David travels quite a bit for his job so we do a lot of passing of the baton. We are making more efforts now to schedule our lives in a way where we can find more time together as a family.
Patricia West Sotelo
As a mother, I am now very particular about how I spend my time. There's my time with my family, there's time for my creative side to flourish, and then there's work. I always try to make my work fit into fulfilling my creative self. I choose the time to dance wisely. If I'm not with my family I need to be doing something that I feel 100% about emotionally, spiritually, physically, and mentally. I believe that we'll always be trying to find a balance. Immediately after I had my son, I didn't feel like a dancer at all — I wasn't dancing in the least — although I had performed all the way into my seventh month of pregnancy. But I had reminded myself that my focus just shifted. That was my time with my baby, and that time in itself was temporary so I had to savor it for what it was. Now – I have more time to take dance classes and have committed to a couple of performances here and there. The main difference? Although I will always be a dancer, my priorities have shifted to family first.
———
Life as a Modern Dancer 
Leave a comment