Listen to Ballet Help Desk ad-free on Patreon:  Riley Weber is back on the podcast. Since leaving a corporate dance brand job,  has been speaking more openly about how the influencer side of the dance industry actually works. In this… click here to listen

Listen to Ballet Help Desk ad-free on Patreon:  Jenny and I are taking a much needed vacation with our families so we’re rereleasing one of our most popular episodes. We sat down with Francis Veyette, former principal dancer with Pennsylvania… click here to listen

Listen to Ballet Help Desk ad-free on Patreon:  If you’ve been paying attention, you’ve noticed: Japanese dancers are everywhere. Winning competitions, yes, but also filling the upper ranks of major ballet companies around the world. We’ve been… click here to listen

Listen to Ballet Help Desk ad-free on Patreon:  Your dancer has decided to pursue the college path. But which program is the right fit? What’s the real difference between a BFA and a BA? What does a video pre-screen actually need to accomplish?… click here to listen

Listen to Ballet Help Desk ad-free on Patreon:  Does your dancer need elite training to have a shot at a top college? But what does elite actually mean? Is it competition wins? A company-affiliated school? The right summer intensives? And does… click here to listen

Listen to Ballet Help Desk ad-free on Patreon:  In this host-only episode, we draw on our combined years of navigating ballet summer intensives to break down how to make the most of every program — for your dancer and for you. We talk through… click here to listen

Listen to Ballet Help Desk ad-free on Patreon:  Artistic Director Samantha Dunster and Executive Director Julie Diana Hench join us for a conversation that gets refreshingly honest about the post-graduate pipeline, the job market, and what it… click here to listen

Listen to Ballet Help Desk ad-free on Patreon:  The corrections never stop. The casting is always uncertain. And somewhere along the way, many dancers learn to keep all of it behind a smile, because showing weakness feels like handing someone a… click here to listen

Listen to Ballet Help Desk ad-free on Patreon: Every ballet company’s tax return is public record. Most dancers have never seen one. Liza Yntema, founder of the Dance Data Project, and Griff Braun, National Organizing Director at the American Guild… click here to listen

What does ballet training look like when it’s housed inside a 100-year-old university, with the Semperoper Ballet as your next-door neighbor? We sat down with Rector and Vice-Rector of in Dresden, Germany, for a close look at one of Europe’s most… click here to listen

What happens when a dancer who traded pre-professional ballet training at the John Cranko School and the Joffrey Ballet Studio Company for a Harvard degree? Or when a dancer who received offers from the training programs at Joffrey, Colorado Ballet,… click here to listen

Jason Beechey has spent his career shaping pre-professional ballet training. After 18 years as rector of Palucca University of Dance in Dresden, he now serves as Director of and Head of Dance at the Zurich University of the Arts. He walks us through… click here to listen

What happens when a dancer skips the postgrad route entirely and still lands a professional contract? Paityn Lauzon, now in her fourth season as a company artist with Nevada Ballet Theatre, did exactly that. She grew up at a small competition studio… click here to listen

Timothee Chalamet said no one cares about ballet anymore. Fran Veyette disagrees. He’s back on #NoThirds, and this episode goes deep into one of the most debated questions in the ballet world right now: are the classical, full-length ballets still… click here to listen

How long can your dancer stay home before it starts to matter? It’s one of the most common questions ballet parents face, and one of the most consequential. Jen Sommers, Director of joins us to talk through exactly that, along with everything else… click here to listen

Author, teacher, and former principal dancer Gavin Larsen has spent her post-performance life doing something she loves just as much as dancing: drawing stories out of other people. Her new book, Infinite Steps: 33 Dancers and Their Lives in Ballet,… click here to listen

What does it really take to go from pre-professional student to professional ballet dancer? Charlotte Junge, a company member with Madison Ballet, shares the unfiltered version of her journey from competition dance roots in Houston to training at… click here to listen

Madison Ballet’s Ja’Malik didn’t arrive to tinker around the edges. He came to change things, and four years in, it’s working. He shares a journey that started with Michael Jackson’s Thriller in his front yard and led him through the Joffrey Ballet… click here to listen