Why I never use to wear high highs.

Some of my favorite high heels

My mom told me a long time ago that I shouldn't wear high heels around ballet directors. Although I fought her tooth and nail because I wanted to look good, she was right (Thanks mom!). When directors look at me in flats they of course see that I am tall, but when they see me in high heels I am WAY TOO TALL. I finally realized that I should appear as short as possible at all times and I stopped wearing high heels. After I retired from dance I figured that I could wear anything I wanted so I gained a collection of really high heels. Now that I'm dancing again I would never wear high heels to a first meeting of a dance director, but I am also not afraid to bust out my platform heels for a night out.

My favorite pair of high heels

It occurred to me the other day that although I am a whopping 6"3" in my highest pair of heels I'm 6'6" on pointe. Now that is tall! I'm sure that dancers who are too short still have difficultly finding jobs but the problem with being tall is that no matter how good you are if there is no one to partner you a company simply can't hire you. No matter how much they may want to. Where as if you are short it my not be an ideal partnership but a short woman can partner with a tall man.

This week I was partnered by a male dancer who is shorter than I am standing flat. We made it work but it was a real wake up call as to how hard it is to partner with someone so much shorter than me. There was one moment in particular where my partner was lifting me and in order to make the correct line, that the choreographer and our director wanted,  I needed to be more sideways in the air. The problem was if I did this, my leg dragged on the ground and I was no longer in the air. My partner and I tried to be in good spirits about the pairing but there were many times where our attempts at the piece was frustrating to say the least.

After many years of not having a partner I have decided to see if I can enlist NBA player Kevin Durant as my partner. At 6'10" with a thin build and long limbs I think he would make a perfect partner for me. Now I know he would have to take a slight pay cut, but every now and again we all need to make sacrifices for the art community. WHAT DO YOU SAY KEVIN DURANT?