Ballet Help Desk and its founders Brett and Jenny provide dancers and dance parents with invaluable insights into the world of high-level ballet training. A world that’s often left a mystery, behind a big, scary curtain. Borne from their own experiences learning to navigate this confusing world, Brett and Jenny are pulling back the curtain and providing anonymous reviews of training programs and schools through Ballet Help Desk.
Beyond their reviews, Ballet Help Desk has a podcast and blog that connects you with industry experts. Brett and Jenny had so much to share that we’re posting this article in 2 parts. Here’s part 1, keep your eyes out for part 2!!
What is the Ballet Help Desk? Can you tell us a little bit about your mission/what you do?
Brett: Ballet Help Desk’s mission is to serve as the definitive guide online for parents of dancers about to embark on the path of serious ballet training. Jenny and I launched Ballet Help Desk in April of 2023 in response to all the questions we had been getting from parents of younger dancers.
Since both of our kids are now dancing professionally, parents kept asking us the same thing: “How did you do it?” Jenny and I kind of looked at each other one day and realized that we had amassed a ton of knowledge about ballet training.
We also realized that there was almost no transparency around ballet education. Unless you had grown up in that world, you were kind of locked out. So, we decided to start documenting all of the steps dancers typically go through on the path to becoming a serious dancer. That was really the beginning of Ballet Help Desk.
We offer all the resources parents of dancers need to guide them down the serious training path. Jenny has really been the creative and strategic force behind what we do and how we’ve grown. It was her idea to launch the three things we’re most proud of — our podcast, our summer intensive reviews, and our year round training reviews.
In the spirit of bringing more transparency to the ballet training world, we thought the lack of reviews was a big missing piece, and we’re thrilled to now have over 1,200 reviews that cover almost 200 programs worldwide. We also offer rich content in the form of articles and podcast interviews with leading experts in the ballet training world.
We try to group our content offerings around key milestones in ballet training, and the information is available in written form as well as through our podcast. We have deep content on subjects like ballet competitions (which is always a hot topic!), injuries and cross-training, college and university dance programs, full-time training programs as well as post-graduate ballet programs.
In addition, You can also find a comprehensive guide to summer intensives, called our Summer Intensive Boot Camp. It’s been a wild ride so far, and we’re excited to see where things go in the next year.
Jenny: BHD was borne out of frustration with the lack of transparency and feeling woefully lost on how to help my kid navigate the path to X. Being ballet parents with zero performing arts exposure is like trying to navigate a maze in the dark without a flashlight. Everything in ballet is an oral tradition: the training, the path, the secrets to success, how to do it, when to go away for summer, how to take the next step, the casualness of how offers are made. And above all, there’s no network to tap into.
It all was foreign to us. While our kids were in ballet class, Brett and I would hike several times a week and have the same conversation over and over about how this path is shrouded in so much secrecy and vague innuendo.
We started to formulate an idea that there has to be a better way to do this, and finally, Brett gave me the push and said, “Well, let’s just try and see what we come up with.” A few months later we launched Ballet Help Desk. Think of us as your ballet best friend.
You are both dance parents… Did you ever struggle knowing how to support your dancer?
Brett: All the time, and I still do today. Because I had a male ballet dancer, support was limited. There just weren’t very many boys in our area who were dancing, much less doing ballet. It was always a delicate dance between getting really involved and then stepping bac
Every day was a balancing act. Looking back, I think I underestimated how much support these kids needed. I always said that I just drove and wrote checks. But, whether we like it or not, ballet demands parental involvement.
That may mean volunteering at your dancer’s local studio, driving props to the theater, working backstage, or fundraising. And then there’s the mental load! Is he good enough? Is he getting bullied? Does he have any friends at ballet? Is he happy? I always asked myself if I was too involved or not involved enough. Hopefully, I was able to strike a balance, but you’d have to ask Sam if I was successful at that!
Jenny: Not having a resource to look at or rely on. My husband, Frank, and I were always really worried that we were making too many mistakes and that her trajectory would suffer due to our ignorance. I would have devoured a resource like the Ballet Help Desk if this was available while Abbey was going through training.
Over COVID, Abbey developed a bilateral impingement in her heels that was misdiagnosed by her original team of doctors. It wound up being a 2.5-year nagging injury that, in her final year at San Francisco Ballet School, she and the school decided that she should have surgery right after Nutcracker and the doc thought she would be back dancing in 6–8 weeks give or take. Well, the surgery wound up being much more involved, thus her recovery was much slower than anticipated, so 6 weeks turned into 5 months.
The school said they wanted to handle her PT and created a reintegration plan for her. Frank and I were not included in the discussions or planning of this rehab plan. Abbey had to advocate for herself to receive the treatment that the school promised her. She begged me not to get involved and said I would only make it worse. It was very difficult to sit on my hands and do and say nothing because she wanted to handle her recovery plan with the school. We supported her and talked her through how to have a productive conversation and who she should follow up with. In the long run, it has given her some great life skills, but it was really difficult at the moment.
I think Frank and I were not prepared for the extreme cutthroat nature of very high-level ballet training. Every year so many of her friends were cut from her program that it seemed like she had to make a new batch of friends in the studio. We struggled to figure out what kind of support she needed from us to help her navigate this type of learning environment. The pressure in ballet training can be astronomical.
We struggled to help Abbey navigate her new friendships where many of whom come from a very different world than we do. We are not wealthy people. We made and continue to make financial sacrifices to support our children. We cannot afford a closet full of Yumiko leos, Lululemon/Alo/Aviator Nation cover-ups, or buying condos in San Francisco for our 16-year-old to live in. We did what we could to help her feel like she fit in, but we had to have several hard conversations about what we as a family could afford and where we put our financial priorities.
What is some advice you have for other dance parents? Things you wish you knew or would have done differently?
Brett: There are so many things I would have done differently. First, I would have said no to more things. In ballet, everyone feels like it’s a huge sprint to the finish line. So, you sign your kid up for every master class, winter intensive, summer intensive, you name it.
There is this belief that everyone is running full speed and if you don’t do the same, your dancer will fall behind. In fact, doing this led to a fairly serious injury with my son, along with some pretty intense burnout. By the time he was in his last year at San Francisco Ballet School, it was 50/50 that he was going to stick with ballet. So, my advice is to slow your roll. You don’t need to have your kid in ballet every minute of every day.
In addition, I would never have allowed him to move into an apartment with no supervision at age 15. We were just coming out of COVID in the fall of 2020, and he simply wasn’t ready to handle living on his own while managing full-time ballet training as well as online school.
Ironically, Sam and I have talked about all of this in detail and he tells us that, despite everything that he went through, he wouldn’t have changed anything. I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree on those issues!
Some other advice I would give all parents is this: This is your child’s journey, not yours. It’s fine to be involved and it’s great to be supportive. But, too often, I hear parents talking in the “we.” What I mean by this is, “We are auditioning for these summer programs,” or “We are going to this school.”
This is your dancer’s story to write, not yours. I know it sounds harsh, but when parents are overly involved, it can put undue pressure on kids. Let them walk this path on their own. Cheer for them, console them, drive them, and even pack a lunch or two. But let them fly on their own — they’ll thank you for it when they’re older.
Jenny: I prefer to say I have some hard-won information I’d like to share. First, enjoy every stage of their dance journey. Everything builds on itself, so celebrate when they are a mouse, a rock, a clown, or a lamb, not just when they are Clara or the Sugar Plum Fairy.
I was beaming with pride when Abbey was 10 and an angel in Cinderella (she was on stage for 30 seconds at the end of the wedding). She was so excited! We went out to dinner, and so many friends came to watch. It was an incredible experience. We did not downplay it or dismiss the excitement because it was a tiny part. She did not feel like she had to earn our approval because she was cast in a part worthy of our attention.
This past year she tried to dissuade us from coming to one of the programs in her season because she only had corps roles and “Isn’t doing anything special.” We continue to show up and cheer her on when we are able because she has value and is worth cheering on. The sentence I say to her before every performance is “I love to watch you dance,” and in the end that is what it is all about. Supporting your kid doing the thing that they love.
My friend who was on Broadway and taught at ACT in San Francisco for years gave Abbey some fantastic advice when she was just starting ballet. She said, “Be easy to work with. There are lots of talented people. If we decide between two artists, the director’s question to us is: which one is easier to work with? Also, know your part and everyone else’s part so you are useful and if something happens last minute you can step in.” These are pieces of information that she follows to this day.
Your dancer is never too good for a role. Your dancer is never too good for a class or a level. There are always things to work on and nuggets of information to mine from every class level or experience.
Say YES! You never know where yes will lead to. Abbey had so many opportunities because we said “Sure, why not?” including her audition at SFBS.
Come back for part II next week and in the meantime, check out Ballet Help Desk here!
