Today we’d like to introduce you to Gavin Larsen.
Hi Gavin, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I was a professional ballet dancer for almost twenty years. Like nearly all professional dancers, I’d started taking classes very young and continued with more serious training in classical ballet all through my teens. I got my first job in a ballet company when I was 17, switched to a few different companies over the years, and retired from full-time performing at 35. Around that time, I started writing about dance, culling my memory for episodes, experiences, thoughts that I wanted to preserve before they disintegrated and fell away from my consciousness. Eventually, I had several short essays. I did not set out to write my memoir, but as I kept creating these written snapshots of my life in dance, I realized that if I strung them together just right, they’d form a sort of collage that illustrated the overall existence of being a dancer– not just my own life, but that of all dancers. The book was published in 2021, titled Being A Ballerina: The Power And Perfection Of A Dancing Life. Along with working on that book, I was doing freelance journalism for various dance publications and literary journals and teaching ballet. Today, I continue all those things and have just published my second book, a collection of photographs and essays about dancers titled Infinite Steps: Thirty-Three Dancers And Their Lives In Ballet.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It’s been relatively smooth in that I had a lot of things going for me: a very supportive family, access to excellent dance training, innate talent and drive, the luck of meeting people who gave me opportunities, and the courage to step through those open doors. But even so, I’ve had challenges, too. I was stagnating in my first dance company job and decided to quit instead of continuing to be under contract and unable to seek other work, which was a scary leap of faith. But it did pay off. Because I made myself a free agent, I was able to accept an offer at a small company that offered me exciting growth opportunities very much larger than the organization’s size. I moved to Canada, where this company was located, and took a severe pay cut. It was hard to be in a completely new city where I knew nobody while also finding my footing in a touring company under rather rough conditions. But the roles and ballets I got to dance were so valuable that nothing else mattered. I now see that decision as the proverbial fork in the road that absolutely defined the rest of my career and life.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
As a dance writer, what sets me apart is my perspective as a former professional dancer who’s analyzed the psychology of the dancer and the experience of the dancing life. I bring that insight to everything I write, whether it’s my memoir, essays about other dancers’ lives, or journalism that provides information and guidance to those in the dance community. I also teach extensively, primarily in ballet conservatories but also privately, in person and online.
Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
There are a lot of myths about the ballet world that I am on a mission to dispel. The general non-dancing public tends to form their view of ballet and ballet dancers from what they see on television or movies or read in melodramatic novels and biographies. There is always a kernel of truth in the way ballet is portrayed in the media, but historically the art form has a sheen of mystery, eroticism, exoticism, and dysfunction that is played up and greatly exaggerated– or outright invented. The truth is that we dancers are ordinary people with ordinary human drives: ambition, purpose, truth- and meaning-seeking. We just happen to have the compulsion to express and elevate our spirits through the rigorous beauty of classical dance.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.gavinlarsen.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gavinalarsen/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gavin.larsen.58
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gavinlarsen1/
- Other: https://floridapress.org/author/gavin-larsen/
