Biological engineering freshman Emily McConnell keeps a balanced routine and has high goals, but her life wasn’t always so structured.
Ever since McConnell’s aunt showed her a picture of her mom wearing pointe shoes, she knew she wanted to follow in her mom’s footsteps. By age 16, McConnell was already moving across the country to New York to pursue her ballet career.
When she was accepted into the American Ballet Theatre, she had the opportunity to dance with people she had seen in movies and people she followed on Instagram, who happened to have hundreds of thousands of followers.  
“My teacher was in the movie ‘The Turning Pointe,’ which I had seen on Netflix before moving to New York,” McConnell said. “It was insane to have her teach me something that I love to do.”
McConnell would soon find herself surrounded by the most elite dancers in America. Though she hadn’t been in any Netflix movies and she wasn’t Instagram-famous, she had all that she needed – true grit and talent.  
Though McConnell had a late start to ballet, she had natural ability. She started ballet in Lafayette at “The Ballet Studio” where she met the owner, Beverly Spell.
“One day she came and taught my class then moved me up to a higher level, and talked to my mom and said that I needed to take more classes,” McConnell said.
In that moment, McConnell’s close ones knew she was more than the average dancer. McConnell then found her high arches and hyper-extended knees helpful in the world of dancing, and she quickly leveled up at her studio and increased her classes to multiple times a week.
Two years  after McConnell started ballet, she got her pointe shoes. Her dancing career became more intense, and she began performing in her teacher’s original ballets.
McConnell was also involved in a traveling dance company, known as “Ballet Magnificat!” She did performances with them until she tried out for summer intensives, which were made to find new talent for large companies. She was never rejected by a company, so she chose to work with one of the most prestigious dance companies in the country, American Ballet Theatre.
“I assumed that I wouldn’t go because the Ballet Theatre was in New York and didn’t offer dorms and it was expensive, but thankfully, my mom’s friend convinced my mom to let me go,” McConnell said.
McConnell and her family lived in an apartment in Brooklyn that summer in 2015, when she was only 16.  Every morning she would get up, walk to the subway and go to classes. Every other day she had pilates, making her routine in New York strictly ballet-driven.
“I was in New York for months but I didn’t see the statue of liberty and I didn’t see the Empire State building,” McConnell said. “I was so focused on ballet and improving that I didn’t have time to think about anything else.”
While she was at the American Ballet Theatre, she became close with its artistic director and world-renowned dancer Franco De Vita, who paid special attention to her abilities.
“He yelled at me a lot and told me what I needed to fix,” McConnell said. “I was more than OK with that because I knew that it meant he was looking at me.”
McConnell didn’t have the funding to stay in New York, so she moved back South. However, she said it was a blessing in disguise because she is currently signed with the Baton Rouge Ballet Theatre and finally got to dance in her dream ballet, “The Nutcracker,” in 2017.
“I’m so glad that I get to dance and enjoy it instead of being forced to do it as a career,” McConnell said.

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Sophie Granzow

Biological engineering freshman and ballet dancer Emily McConnell practices her jumps on Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2018 on LSU campus.