In this episode, Kristie Zurmehly describes how she taught herself the ins and outs of brand + web design to help boost small businesses all around the country. What I love about this episode is how Kristie shares how her side hustle as a designer has actually positively influenced her life as a professional dancer with Ballet Met today!

SHOWNOTES

Instagram:

@kristielatham

@jordannicoleh

This episode is supported by:

Jai Dee Dancewear

A sustainable leotard company celebrating the beauty, value, and wisdom of women who dance. Shop with the code FALLACCESS to receive $50 off your purchase from now until Dec. 2nd

Come Back Stronger Course

An online course & community designed to help injured dancers navigate the emotions & mental hurdles of recovering from an injury. 

How Vanessa Woods used her background as a professional ballet dancer with St. Louis Ballet to create, Vitality Ballet, an artistic exercise program designed to share the benefits of ballet with the senior population. 

SHOWNOTES

this episode is supported by:

Jai Dee Dancewear : a sustainable leotard company celebrating the beauty, value, and wisdom of women who dance. Enter the code FALLACCESS at checkout to receive $50 off your purchase from now until Dec. 2nd  *founded by Katherine Hartsell featured on episode 009

Come Back Stronger Course : an online course & community designed to help guide injured dancers through recovery so they can truly "come back stronger" mentally, emotionally, & physically. *created by Kirsten Kemp featured on episode 015

Come Back Stronger Course 

It’s hard to believe, but 9 years ago, in October of 2010, Instagram emerged onto the scene.

Serendipitously, at the same time that Instagram was undergoing its development process, our guest on todays show, Oliver Endahl, was also developing ideas of his own surrounding ballet and photography. 

In early 2010, when Oliver was completing his final year as an upper level student at the San Francisco Ballet School, he had this idea to bring his brother’s cannon camera into the studios, taking pictures of him and his friends jumping around.

Unbeknownst to him, when he posted them in a gallery on Facebook, they started traveling around the internet and gaining a lot of recognition! 

Then October 2010 Instagram comes onto the scene. However, Since Facebook was working well for Oliver, he was a bit skeptical at first to jump on the platform initially.

But after his younger sister, Alanna, encouraged him to not just upload photos taken on his iPhone 1, but upload his actual photos taken on his DSLR camera, his account, Ballet Zaida, blew up.

He began accumulating thousands upon thousands of followers and truly pioneered the way for many ballet photographers that we see on social media today.

SHOWNOTES

Sponsors:

Jai Dee Dancewear

Enter the code FALLACCESS to receive $50 off your purchase from now until December 2nd

The Come Back Stronger Course

An online program that is specifically designed to give injured dancers the support and strategies they need in order to make a strong come back, both mentally and physically!

Happy 3 Months of the Ballet to Business Podcast!

We are taking a pause from the regular interview format this week and answering some of your questions! 

QUESTIONS:

3:10 - How do you handle when body image issues come up? How do you work through it?

10:20 - Do you have any advice for young dancer who doesn’t know if they want to become a professional yet?

13:50 - During your training, how did you deal with teachers you didn't particularly like?

17:40 - What was your social role, so to speak, in your company? How did you find yourself interacting socially with your peers and what were you known for?

21:30 - What do you think we should do to combat the negative energies in the ballet world to help people flourish? 

25:50 - What’s it like for you teaching adult ballet?

31:55 - How did you cope with your injury and not being able to dance?

Instagram: @jordannicoleh

Jai-Dee Dancewear use FALLACCESS at checkout to receive $50 off your purchase until December 2nd. 

Art Emotion Summer Intensive for Adults

Come Back Stronger Course

Use “50OFFCBSC” to receive $50 off your program and early access to Modules 1 & 2 : Offer available only through November 5th-November 13th!

From an outsiders perspective, you can't help but admire a dancer's grace and effortlessness. However, if only people knew what was actually going on in that dancer's mind...

"That was horrible. I'm an awful turner. I'm never going to be good at that step." 

Many dancer's struggle with a negative mindset, and yet we fail to understand how these thoughts really cost us and actually limit our dancing.

But combating these negative thoughts is exactly where Kirsten Kemp thrives. 

Hear the story of how navigating her knee injury while dancing at Oklahoma City Ballet was absolutely necessary in giving her the wisdom and heart behind her coaching business for dancers today.

SHOWNOTES

Follow @TwinTalksBallet on Youtube and Instagram

private coaching services kirstenkemp.com

Come Back Stronger Course

As a 23 year old woman living in New York City and freshly departed from ballet, Allison Parc began going out on dates. But on these dates, she found herself being extremely nervous because she didn’t know how or what to drink.

Thus, she began educating herself, going to tastings and art galleries around the city, learning more about wine, beer, and spirits.

And through her learning, Allison became intrigued by terroir, a term used to describe a sense of place in the small and taste of a liquid. 

Which made Allison curious,

Did terroir exist in whisky?

And as she continued following her curiosity, she realized she couldn’t find anyone who was making the kind of whisky she envisioned could be made in her head...

One that would embody French terroir, made in the heart of Cognac, France. 

So, she continued investigating by traveling to France and meeting farmers and distillers, asking if there was anyone who would make this whisky for her… and their responses were flat out no’s. 

But amidst all the no’s, it only takes one yes. And when Allison found her yes, she was willing to put her whole life savings on the line and patiently wait years until her whisky, Brenne, would be ready to be presented to NYC and beyond in 2012.

SHOWNOTES

When Rachel Cossar entered into working in major gift fundraising at Harvard University right after her career with Boston Ballet, she quickly realized not everyone in the corporate world had this awareness of their posture and body language that was so second nature to her as a ballet dancer. 

Thus, the spark for Choreography for Business was born. Rachel employs her expertise in nonverbal communication skills that she had honed as a professional gymnast and dancer to serve those in the professional world. Choreography for Business helps working professionals by teaching them performance techniques, physical awareness, and communication frameworks to help them further embody confidence within themselves and further exude that confidence in the workplace.

SHOWNOTES

Connect with me on Instagram! 

@jordannicoleh

When our guest on today's episode of Ballet to Business, Jordan Fry, revealed that one luxury wedding cake she had been working on took her 70 hours to complete in a week, my jaw was on the ground. 

Now the time it takes to create a stunning work of edible art also caught Jordan a bit off guard at the beginning. Once she became known as the ‘baker’ at Ballet West, where she currently dances, requests for wedding cakes started rolling in.

And as Jordan continued to get more and more requests, her husband, Adrian, couldn't help but notice she was pouring countless hours into baking and encouraged her to start adequately charging for her time. It was in that moment that they both decided Jordan needed to turn her hobby into a business. Thus Ballerina Baker was born!

SHOWNOTES

@jordannicoleh 

Dancing 'En Pointe' requires years of training in precision and excellence, strength paired with refinement, and superior technique matched with artistry. And according to our guest on today episode, Alexandra Newman, the balance of all these qualities is mirrored in wine making. The same effort it takes to perfect a tendu, is the same kind of effort it takes to produce the perfect bottle of wine.

And just like there is joy in escaping to the theater to experience the ballet, Alex’s primary mission with her business, En Pointe Wines, is to bring that same joy to the dinner table, by helping her customers learn and enjoy the bottle of wine selected for them, while encouraging them to set the table, have a delicious meal, and share in the experience with all the best company one can bring together. Hear how this Bay Area native went from dancing with San Francisco Ballet to spending a year abroad in France to study at Le Cordon Bleu, to ultimately landing back in the Bay Area to launch her own unique wine club. 

SHOWNOTES

Co-Working Spaces as we know them today, originated in non other than San Francisco in 2005. With that being said, it's no surprise that the energy was buzzing around the city for this new way of entrepreneurs to work independently but not be isolated at home while doing so.

However, it wasn't until Grace Kraaijvanger was fulfilling a marketing job alone from home, that she realized she was missing that creative community she experienced as a dancer. So, she went out to find one.

It wasn't until she went looking into other co-working spaces in the Bay Area, that she noticed a gap in the market. Most co working spaces at the time were tailored toward people who liked foosball and beer on tap, which just didn’t feel like her. Instead, she longed for a beautiful, airy, expansive space with inspiring people to work alongside, a feeling much like taking class at the iconic Alonzo King Lines Ballet Dance Center in San Francisco. 

So in 2014, after much searching, Grace began experimenting with developing The Hivery, a coworking space + Inspiration Lab, in Marin. The result to her experiment was met with a resounding "YES" from her community, as women from all over the Bay Area flocked to The Hivery to call this community home.

SHOWNOTES