(piano music) Hi, my name is
Zoe Lucage, I'm 18 years old.
Hi, I'm Joshua Price, I'm 19.
I'm training to be a professional ballerina.
I'm a professional dancer with the San Francisco Ballet
and this is a day in my life.
(high energy music)
(music fades)
People have absolutely no understanding
of the athleticism that goes into our art form.
(flute orchestral music)
This is what I've wanted for my whole life
to be a dancer.
I think I was just born to do it
and nothing else really calls me.
It was extremely tough for me
growing up in a small town where if you didn't surf
and you didn't play football, where do you fit?
(orchestral music continues)
And I just think of all of those people
who doubted what I was capable of and they're prayin' now.
(Theme to "The Nutcracker" playing)
(music stops) At the end of the day,
it's all work that, it's hard, it's not easy.
(audio retracing backwards)
(hip hop music) I first wake up,
the most important thing for my morning
is to get my coffee going.
(whispering) Good morning.
My mother, are you grinding any coffee
because she's teaching a ballet class in the other room.
(contemporary music)
The school I've been training at is called
San Francisco Ballet School
and it's attached to the San Francisco Ballet.
I've been trainer for five years
going to six years, now.
This year, I graduated.
I'm not going to college in the fall.
Most dancers don't go to college
until they get their professional career on track.
I don't really know what I would want to do in college,
so I would have to think about that.
Getting into San Francisco Ballet School
was kind of a dream cone true in a way
because it felt so right.
(violin orchestral music)
(hip hop music) I joined the school
as a trainee which is the same level as Zoe is, currently,
and from there, I was picked to be an apprentice
which is kind of the middle ground
between the company and the school.
Now I'm getting ready to make a FaceTime audio call
to my friend, Jacob. Hello.
He's currently living in San Francisco,
he's in isolation, and I'm sure he could use the call.
It's 9:30 now, and I'm gonna do some yoga
to open up by body so it's ready for class.
I've been really lucky I'm back in the studio.
It's kinda back to normal, but every day I go in, I just,
I don't know what I'm doing there because I don't
really know what I'm working toward.
I started dancing when I was eight years old.
I was in a small town in the far north coast
of New South Wales. (piano music)
I didn't directly tell my parents.
I think that they really saw that I loved to move,
I mean, I was always dancing around the house.
So when I came to them and said that I wanted
to participate in a few classes with my friend,
I didn't think they were at all shocked
and extremely supportive.
They didn't really know a lot about ballet, at the time,
especially in Australia, it's not an extremely normal thing
for a male to do.
(salsa percussion playing)
I signed up to the local dance school
and initially, I started with tap,
and after a week, I was like, "No, I need more." (chuckling)
So I started jazz and ballet pretty much
within the next week.
And as much as I could after school, I was participating
in dance classes.
(soft piano music) It was extremely tough for me.
I was 11 years old
and I was being bullied on the school playground.
We were taken to the principal's office
and the child was disciplined and we talked through it
and everything was okay by the end of the meeting.
My classroom teacher turned to me and she said,
"Well, why do you think that these people
"are questioning what you're doing?"
And at 11 years old, I don't think that anyone
is really thinking about their sexuality
or how that plays into dance,
or why people connect those two things, at all.
So I just finished my call with Jacob,
(hip hop music) I'm gonna do some stretching
and then get ready for my morning run.
I usually run for around 40 minutes.
I find that it helps me to get through long ballets.
It's 10 a.m. now, and I put up my hair
because we're about to start our ballet class.
Dancers usually do this almost every day.
It's the basics of ballet, it's what warms us up for the day
so we can dance to our full potential.
(brisk piano music) I developed my passion
for ballet when I came into this world
because my mom was a dancer.
I was a ballerina, I was hired at 18 years old
at the National Ballet of Canada,
and then I retired at 36 with the San Francisco Ballet.
(ballet piano music)
She is a very good dancer.
I think she's much better than I was at her age.
She's always got that little thing that is very special.
She's a very emotional dancer and it's very important
because it makes a difference.
She's able to grab the attention of an audience.
I think her biggest strength, her grace and fluidity.
(jive punk music)
My mom's not a dance mom, at all.
She's really great that way.
But she does give me directions.
We have an on and off relationship.
Sometimes, we wanna kill each other
because we won't agree on something.
But also, it's really nice to have
someone that understands what you're going through.
I know, developmentally, you're a teenager
and you're supposed to be pushing me away,
but in the studio, you can't do it.
You can do that with me at home.
Lately, we've been doing some classes together.
It's been great, she'll demonstrate the class I'm teaching
on Zoom, which is wonderful for my students to see,
someone like Zoe training them.
It's really easy for me to be like,
"Oh my god, am I putting on weight?
"Am I not in the right shape?"
I think my biggest obstacle and in life
is really stop tearing myself down and enjoy the moment
and enjoy life.
(hip hop music)
It's 11:30 and I'm just eating breakfast.
I've just finished my run and I'm now gonna make
my usual breakfast which is my oats.
They give me a lot of energy and they keep me full
through my ballet classes.
I not getting hungry halfway through class
because there is nothing worse than trying to focus
while you're hungry.
I finished class and I'm going
to rehearse some variations.
Today, I'll be rehearsing Aurora's First Act variation
from the "Sleeping Beauty."
It's a really hard solo, it takes a lot of control
which I really need to practice.
I'm out of shape right now, just because of the conditions
and the pandemic, but I'm trying my best.
I was definitely disappointed I couldn't
go and audition for some companies I wanted to
because of the pandemic.
Usually, when I'm normally dancing
from 9:30 to four, I'm burning so many calories,
I'm working super hard.
And right now, with the pandemic, it's a little different.
It's hard to keep in the same shape.
So I'm trying intermittent fasting
and I'm not gonna do this when I go back to dancing.
You're staring in the mirror all day.
You're looking at your body in tight-fit clothes.
The stereotype's kinda crazy.
I've been trying really hard to maintain
a good mentality towards my body and the way I dance.
(hip hop music) I have to now,
head off for ballet class at my old dance school.
How you don'?
Hi. You ready for class?
Always, I'm always ready.
You know me. (chuckling)
(1970s funk music)
Restrictions are easing here, in Queensland, Australia
which is really awesome.
This arm's what gets you 'round.
So even though I'm in the same building as my teacher,
I'm not in the same classroom.
However, I'm gonna see her through the Zoom platform.
(orchestral waltz music)
When I was 12 years old, my family and I sat down
and decided that home schooling would be
the best alternative for me.
I tried to go back to school and I think
that the trauma of my event was just so set in
that I couldn't attend regular school, anymore.
I stopped going to school in the middle of eighth grade.
I can do ballet, been on point about two years, now.
It got to a point where it's too hard.
I felt like I was living two different lives.
I just, I couldn't handle it.
It was too much for me.
I pulled her out and I home schooled her
for half a year, which was terrible. (laughing)
(music continues)
So we found a public, independent study program.
The San Francisco Ballet was very gracious
in giving us one morning where she might've missed
a floor bar or a conditioning class,
not her technique class.
She was in dorms last year because she's just
training so hard that she wasn't living at home.
(piano music)
We saw a competition called the Prix De Lausanne.
The Prix De Lausanne is basically, for dancers,
the Olympics of ballet.
(piano music continues)
Joshua straightaway pick up everything
was very eager to understand, to have challenges,
and take risks.
That's what I love about him, he's not afraid of anything.
(piano music continues)
And that I invited him to
San Francisco Ballet School as a trainee.
And when I received an offer from him
on a full scholarship to be a trainee,
I really didn't think twice.
It wasn't until I had this opportunity
and I was able to go that I realized,
"Wow, there's all these people behind me
"that want to see me succeed."
17 years old when I moved to California
which I felt, for me, was the perfect time.
This year has been my first year in the Crops De Ballet
which unfortunately hasn't been
a very long year. (chuckling)
It's been kind of cut short due to the COVID-19 crisis.
(orchestral wedding ballet)
We were doing the Midsummer Night's Dream
and we had actually just opened our first show
and at the end of the show, we were all called
back onstage, and they delivered the news
that unfortunately, the run of the Midsummer Night's Dream
had been canceled.
(hip hop music) I started getting messages
from the Australian embassy
that travelers should return home because they don't know
how much longer flights are gonna be able to run for.
So this is what my home dance studio
looks like at the moment.
It's not a lot, but it's better than nothing.
For the first three months, I was practicing in my kitchen.
You don't practice leaps and jumps, you can't.
Practicing ballet at home is good and bad.
Obviously, it's keeping us in shape.
We have to stay conditioned for our job.
It's extremely demanding.
It would probably be impossible to be able
to just return after a six month break.
So what is it like to be a professional, male dancer?
I think that
it's challenging for us in a sense that
we don't feel the support from other people
when we initially start, but once we find that community
where we fit in,
once we find that group of people
and that place where we feel like we can express
(piano music)
then something really magical happens
and it almost feels like the bullying didn't even matter
because I have found a place where no one judges me
for who I am.
You mean, you're stronger.
Exactly, yeah.
(funky music) It's part of our job
to be able to filter criticism,
but I think that now, ballet dancers have a unique
responsibility, as well, to inform people
that we are extremely important,
we are a lot stronger than you think we are.
All right, we're all good.
It's just on 2:30 and I'm getting ready
to take a Zoom class with my former teacher,
Mrs. Janice Heal from the dance center,
and I'm super excited because I haven't seen her
for a while, and this is a great way to connect with her.
(ballet piano music)
So what's the next step for you?
I am going to be a trainee.
(smooth jazz music) We'll be working
with the company, intensely, and then I'll spend
most of my year auditioning for companies.
I'd love to be in the San Francisco Ballet
but you never know what's gonna happen.
That's the sad thing about the dance role
is that you can't really choose where you wanna be.
It's really who wants you and who admires the way you dance.
(hip hop music)
So it's 6 p.m. and it's dinner time.
Cheers.
Once a week, my family make an effort
to come together from wherever we are
to make sure we have one family meal a week.
It's my turn to make dinner, tonight.
I'm going to be making a quiche with an almond flour crust.
I found all these beautiful, colorful chard
so I'm gonna put that in the quiche and then also
some mushrooms, I think.
(music continues)
It's really great to be home with my family
because it's been probably about three years
since I've spent this much time at home.
It's 8:30 and now I start to wind down for the night.
I love to stretch just one more time.
It really helps me to wake up feeling refreshed
and almost like rid of all of the tension from the day.
We're about to play Pictionary.
(laughing) We'll see how that goes.
Little Red Riding Hood.
(laughing)
Oh, Alice in Wonderland.
What do you want other teens to know
about studying dance and what it takes
to do what you're doing?
It's really hard, it's much harder than people think
and it's not just physically hard,
it's really, really mentally hard.
I would love to have my career and come back to Australia
and travel to these small towns and be able to show people
the journey that is involved with becoming a dancer at all.
Male or female.
Thank you for following along and for being
a part of my journey.
It's been fun, but it's been long, and I'm tired,
so I'm gonna head to bed.
I hope that I've been able to give you
a little bit of insight into what it's like
to be an artist during COVID-19.
I hope you all are doing well during this crazy time
and until we meet again.
(music fades)