In America, many ballerinas fear becoming mothers. In her book Balancing Acts, Lucy Gray traces this fear back to the 70s with George Balanchine, who expected an ethereal quality from his dancers. They were to be elevated human figures, not ordinary people with real social situations. Even today, a ballerina’s physical desirability is essential to being cast, and having a baby increases the possibility of injuries. Then there’s the anxiety of being replaced while on leave or timing the birth to the season where she can still get paid.
“Their careers represent one of the toughest possible situations for a working mother,” writes Gray. “If these women could balance work and parenthood — and succeed at both — then surely many of us, among the tens of millions of working mothers in this country, can do so, too.”
Gray spent 14 years photographing the lives of three prima ballerinas and their children. The following excerpt from Balancing Acts: Three Prima Ballerinas Becoming Mothers includes interviews with one of those ballerinas, Kristin Long, and her son’s father, Michael Locicero.
Kristin Long | April 2002
I came out here to San Francisco when I was fifteen to study with the San Francisco Ballet. I had a great time, and I loved it, and then I got a full scholarship for the year. My parents knew from my ballet teacher that if I was going to pursue ballet, I needed to do these sorts of things.
It happened perfectly. I couldn’t ask for anything more, because I got here, and Helgi [Tomasson] really, really liked me, right away. He saw me in our student demo, which happened in May, then I started working with the company. A dancer got injured before they were going on a tour to the Kennedy Center, and so they took me. Then they were going to Hawaii, and someone else got injured, and I essentially did a soloist part. Helgi had faith in me. He liked the fact that I was gutsy and I seemed so natural.
When I was about twenty I went through a really hard time because I suddenly realized: Oh, my God — this is all I’ve ever done all my life, and I don’t have another life. When I was going through that period, it was bizarre to me that the only place I really felt comfortable with myself was onstage. Outside of that I didn’t know who the hell I was. I didn’t have Kristin without the ballet. That was really scary. It was a horrible time for me.
By the time I was twenty-three, I thought, You know what? I don’t love to dance. I was dancing only to be thin. I’d go to aerobics class before ballet, at six o’clock in the morning. So I took a leave of absence. I said to Helgi, “I don’t want to dance. I’m not happy dancing. I need to be happy. I need to figure this out.” That’s when I got to know that Kristin could be someone other than a ballet dancer. I didn’t need to be so overly obsessed with dancing, because it brought me down. Balance was good. And then it was thrown in my face when I had Kai, because I had to have balance. Had I not had Kai, I might still be obsessive.
Michael Locicero | August 2013
We decided once Kai was born that Kristin wanted to continue dancing, and I wasn’t too thrilled with the idea of working on Wall Street for the rest of my life. It was a very stressful job I had. It had taken its toll.
So I thought I needed to step up, and I thought it would be better if I raised him. I wanted to be in Kai’s life 100 percent. It worked out because Kristin was so passionate about dancing — she wasn’t ready to give it up. It was so much fun to be an integral part of Kai’s life. I made sure Kristin saw him several times a day, so he was spending a lot of time at the ballet. Kai was surrounded by seventy new friends from all over the world. They loved him. They spent time with him. They cared for him. They were so generous with him and loving toward him. He ended up having a pretty extraordinary life. He has an intimate relationship with dance and music and how productions are put on, and he understands the discipline and the passion these dancers have. He got a chance to travel the world with the company and see the world at a very young age.
Balancing Acts: Three Prima Ballerinas Becoming Mothers by Lucy Gray, published by Princeton Architectural Press, is available from:
Lucy Gray is an award-winning photographer whose work has been featured in numerous books as well as the New York Times, the Independent, Mother Jones, Dance magazine, Brick and Salon.com. Her projects with homeless residents of San Francisco, tango dancers, and families facing foreclosure in central California have been exhibited across the United States.
