By Greg Silver
Since her first ballet class at the age of four, Abby LoSole has been a dedicated student of dance. Yet it wasn’t until this past August that the third-year dance student at UC Santa Barbara would consider teaching dance to younger students as a way to engage with her passion.
UCSB dance student Abby LoSole works tirelessly to perfect her technique in ballet. Photo by Abby LoSole.
LoSole has performed in many different parts of the country, including at the American Ballet Theatre in New York City. She always pushes herself to perfect her craft and hopes that one day she will be accepted into a professional dance company. But since entering the dance program at UCSB, she has become increasingly aware that constantly striving for perfection in dance is highly demanding for her mind as well as her body.
At a time when LoSole started to question her future with dance, she received a surprising opportunity to instruct high school dance classes at Santa Barbara Dance Arts (SBDA), a studio located in downtown Santa Barbara that has taught classes for more than two decades to people as young as two and as old as 72.
In a recent interview, LoSole discussed how this teaching opportunity has refueled her motivation to perfect her craft.
Q: What about dance has led you to dedicate so much time and effort into it?
A: Dance, specifically ballet, strives for perfection, which is a struggle every day because the technique in ballet is very demanding on the body. Yet knowing that I can attain perfection gives me the drive to master that technique. I simply enjoy expressing my love for the movement and how effortless it looks on stage. Ballet as a style is a very beautiful and expressive form, which always brings me happiness.
Q: What are some of the main challenges you have personally experienced throughout your 17 years of dancing?
A: I doubt myself every day, from start to finish. Since I mainly focus on ballet, and since ballet dancers constantly strive for perfection, it is very challenging to look at myself in the mirror and be pleased with my movement while dancing. Although it is common to feel a sense of doubt, those feelings have always been overpowered by my desire and love for ballet.
Q: How has teaching at Santa Barbara Dance Arts impacted your relationship with dance?
A: Santa Barbara Dance Arts has ignited a fire in me for teaching. For my entire life as a dancer, I was always the one being taught or corrected. As I am conducting my own class, I find it humbling that the technique I learned throughout years of dancing has finally paid off. This experience inspires me every day to be a better dancer for my students by not only finding new ways of movement that could potentially help them find more ease while dancing but also by pushing myself to improve in my own classes at UCSB.
Q: Is teaching dance something you would heavily consider after college?
A: Throughout my dance career, I never strived to be an educator. I always wanted to be accepted in a professional company and then retire within it. After receiving this surprising offer from SBDA, I have found myself not only growing as a teacher but also as a person. I realized that I find myself correcting my students with positioning that I could also be working on myself. The professionalism that I learned at SBDA has helped me both as a dancer and a student and while there are many paths one can take within dance, I would recommend teaching at some point in life.
Q: What do you believe is the purpose of teaching dance?
A: Personally, I love seeing the students’ eyes light up when mastering a step. Inspiring the generations below me has given me another purpose to dancing. Throughout my 17 years of dancing, I have always looked up to my teachers, and I hope that my students look up to me in the same way. I aspire to make just as great of a positive impact on my students so that they too can take my advice and pass it on to future generations.
Greg Silver is a third-year student at UC Santa Barbara majoring in Communication. He wrote this article for his Writing Program course Journalism for the Web and Social Media.
UCSB dance major Abby LoSole performing with her local ballet company, Juline Regional Youth Ballet in Modesto, California. Photo by Christopher Tio.