Teleflora teleflora.com and The School of American Ballet sab.org both mark their 75th birthday this year. And so they're pairing up as they both take a bow.
The School of American Ballet, the pre-eminent academy for classical dance in the U.S., is shaped by the artistic principles of founder George Balanchine, who developed a uniquely American way of dancing, emphasizing speed, musicality and expansiveness.
The School is doing much to celebrate, including a tribute performance on Jan. 14. Teleflora is providing flowers for the event and, for the month of January, we'll be featuring blog posts from various people affiliated with The School.
Today's guest post is from Megan Johnson, 19, who embarked on her professional ballet career last year. She enrolled at the School of American Ballet, the official school of New York City Ballet, in 2003. She became an apprentice with NYCB in June 2008, and joined the Company as a member of the Corps de Ballet in October 2008.
I can still remember the very first time I received a bouquet of flowers. I was five years old and had just finished playing the part of a duckling in my New Jersey ballet school’s end-of-the-year performance of Peter Rabbit. Once I finished performing, my parents greeted me backstage with a beautiful bouquet of mixed white flowers. That bouquet was such a great reward, and I remember feeling so special and glamorous.
Throughout the years, I have received flowers for performances and other momentous occasions in my life, but certain memories involving flowers particularly stand out. During my last year at the School of American Ballet, I performed the principal female part in the Balanchine masterpiece Concerto Barocco for SAB’s Workshop.
Performing a lead in SAB’s annual year-end Workshop is an incredible honor, and the performance is held in a beautiful theater at Lincoln Center and attended by some very important people. The last night of the Workshop is always the most exciting because the evening is a benefit for the school, and a big party follows the performance.
Moments before my last Workshop performance, my partner in Concerto Barocco sent a dozen red roses to my dressing room. This kind gesture was so thoughtful, and it made me realize just how lucky I was to have such a supportive partner!
At the end of the performance, Suki Schorer (above), my teacher who coached me for the ballet, received an enormous bouquet of white roses as we took our bows onstage. She then plucked two roses out of her bouquet and handed one to me and the other to the lead soloist (below).
I have so much respect for Suki, and after having worked very hard with her for months on Barocco, this small token came to mean a lot to me. I knew I could never bear to part with this rose, and I pressed it in-between the pages of my journal so I will always have a reminder of one of the best experiences of my life.
After my first performance with New York City Ballet at Lincoln Center last spring, my parents once again presented me with a lovely bouquet of white flowers. Receiving white flowers for my debut as a professional dancer was particularly meaningful to me since I had received white flowers so many years ago for my very first performance as a budding ballerina duckling.
I love receiving flowers when I perform. I keep each and every one of the bouquets for as long as I can, and every time I look at them all the special emotions and excitement from the performance come flooding back. To me, flowers are a symbol of the great memories I have of past performances, and I look forward to many more special occasions – and beautiful bouquets of flowers – yet to come.
