For millennials and denizens of generation X and Z, it seems to have become deeply unfashionable to treat a job with any intense seriousness. The ideal job today shouldn't represent a grind, but merely a chillax adjunct to a chillax lifestyle. Yes, there's passion, but in the modern aspirational sense, not the classical one where you're willing to suffer for a dream. But then you meet Mayfield Myers, a 19-year-old who seemingly embodies dedication, discipline, and the sanctity of work.
On a recent sweltering afternoon, when the beaches were packed, she was in a studio at Hampton Ballet Theatre School in Bridgehampton. Wearing a deep burgundy leotard and gauzy skirt, she was twirling like a whirling dervish on the tips of her toes, perfectly balanced and in control. The next minute, she was dynamically leaping through space with a Michael Jordan-esque defiance of time and gravity, before landing, in one liquid motion, softly on the pads of her satin slippers. Her arms raised, shoulders sloping in perfect epaulement.
But she was not happy. "I'm not dropping into the soles of my feet when I land," she said, cheeks ablaze and catching her breath. "I have to go down in order to go up. Let me try that again."
Ms. Myers is an East Hampton native and a professional dancer with Philadelphia Ballet (previously Pennsylvania Ballet), who completed her first season with the company in May. She's home now with her family for the off-season, but trains six days a week in the Bridgehampton studio. Her single-minded focus and all-consuming discipline have paid off. A couple of days before we met, she was in the studio for another grueling session when she received a phone call from Angel Correa, the artistic director of the Philadelphia Ballet.
"He informed me that I was promoted to the corps de ballet. I was slated to start this coming season as an apprentice after completing my first season in the second company," she wrote in an email, adding that the promotion meant that she had precociously jeteed over the apprenticeship and landed in the company's main ensemble. "And the timing of getting this wonderful news at the very place it all began (Miss Sara's studio) is apropos and poetic indeed," she wrote.
Miss Sara is Sara Jo Strickland, the founder and director of the Hampton Ballet Theatre School, where Ms. Myers (a self-described sporty kid who thought she would be a tennis player), found herself at age 9. "Miss Sara saw my passion and something in me -- maybe that I really loved ballet and was dead focused," she said.
After graduating from the John J. Marshall Elementary School, she joined the School of American Ballet in New York City and was homeschooled. "Four incredible years learning the [George] Balanchine style, which is very unique: fast foot work and the speed and elegance of his choreography is just amazing," she explained. As a student, she performed with the New York City Ballet in "The Nutcracker" as well as in Jerome Robbins's "Circus Polka" at Lincoln Center.
Then, in 2020, after stints at youth ballet companies, just as she began sending audition videos to various companies in the United States, the world shut down. She returned to East Hampton, where Ms. Strickland let her use the studio every day for classes on Zoom. In the summer of 2021, a stronger dancer, she reckoned, because of her dedication to practice, she got a call from Philadelphia Ballet, who had received her audition video. "A week later I was living in Philadelphia. It was August 2021 and I was hired into the second company."
Her average weekday involves around eight hours of classes and practice sessions. On Saturdays, officially a day off, she's back in the theater because, "I don't like taking two days off." Performances in the evenings run until 10 or 10:30, she said. "And then we do it all again the next day."
As a professional, her repertory includes, "Swan Lake," "Snow White," a pas de deux in "Le Corsaire" and "Arabesque No. 1," which was choreographed especially for her. When she returns to Philadelphia in August, she won't know what roles she'll land, as casting isn't assigned until a few weeks before show day. "It keeps us on our toes," she said, with a smile. And while on her toes this upcoming season, she will be wearing custom-made pointe shoes, fitted for her specific needs by the legendary Freed of London, each pair bearing her name -- a perk of being in the corps (in addition to a pay hike).
The artistry and mystique that surrounds ballet dancing can often make it easy to forget just what it is: a job. A really tough one. Ballet dancers must possess beauty, strength, athleticism, an almost monastic devotion to the craft, and bags of energy. Modern day corps de ballet endure punishing working hours, crippling injuries, mediocre pay, and little job security -- a dancer's professional life is notoriously short. Which is why dancers are sought after by company directors in their late teens and early 20s. But it's often a life of pressure as they try to carve out a career young. None of this matters to Ms. Myers right now; she looks wonderfully happy.
"When I'm dancing -- this sounds very corny -- but I'm my most pure self. I feel like I can really bare my soul on the stage. There's also the artistic athleticism. It's just the most beautiful artistic sport you could have," she said.
It's impossible to interview a ballerina and not bring up the issue of body image. It was Balanchine who famously decreed that an ideal ballerina should have a small head, long neck, shortened torso, and long legs and arms -- an "ideal" that many say was built around white European standards and often unattainable for today's diverse bodies. Indeed, about 10 years ago, Misty Copeland, the trailblazing Black principal dancer for the American Ballet Theatre, was vocal about her battle with eating disorders, spurred by being told to "lengthen" after gaining weight and sprouting breasts.
The topic caused Ms. Myers to pause, and a couple of days after our interview, her response arrived via email.
"With respect to the question regarding body image, as a ballerina I think one has to look at it in totality. It's a tough profession and we always have to be in peak condition. There are many facets to being a professional ballerina and our body is our instrument at the beginning and end of the day. Fortunately, the ballet world has changed its outlook and now puts a premium on dancers' wellbeing, not only our physical health and conditioning but our mental health." Philadelphia Ballet, she said, offers dancers access to physical therapists, nutritionists, orthopedics, masseurs, and sports psychologists.
"When I step onstage, I've done all the physical preparation -- the cross training, Pilates, ballet, training, rehearsals, eating nutritiously. After that, it's about getting your spiritual side in tune to say, 'I can do this. I'm gonna nail it,' " she said.
There's no doubting the utmost, agonizing seriousness Ms. Myers brings to her job. It bespeaks the deep care she has for her employers and, above all, her craft. It's like a true manifestation of love. When someone cares so intensely about something, that they're willing to dedicate every fiber of their being to it, it's hard not to respect that.
