Sean Bennett
To start off, is there anything in particular that you would like to share about your experience as a male ballet dancer?
“I think we're very lucky to live in the city that we do. San Francisco is known for being very inclusive in a lot of different subjects and people…[but even here] there's not really much exposure to ballet…In my experience, I’ve encountered a lot of people that are like, ‘Okay, well, that's lame. Why would you pick ballet?’ But then I would show them what I'm doing, or explain to them what ballet is really all about, or just outdo them in a basketball game, and that would change their whole perception. They'd be like, ‘Oh, my god. How did you even do that? You just do ballet,’ and I would respond, ‘Well, we train like that in ballet.’"
“I remember at one point, I challenged one of my friends, who was part of a crew team, to play a game of football…something that neither of us really specialized in…I got a group of my ballet friends, and then his group of crew friends together. And they were just these big, strong dudes. And we just destroyed them in football. It was so much fun…And they just saw the amazing, athletic abilities that we all have as ballet dancers.”
When was it that you were first introduced to ballet?
“It was when SFB came into my school. I was in third grade, and they made us do a few things…to see how we moved and see if we even enjoyed dancing. But it wasn't until I was actually brought into the ballet studio, that I began to understand what ballet was.”
What was your experience seeing The Nutcracker as a CSP student?
“After the first act, I was probably not paying much attention to the show. I remember trying to figure out what the story actually was, because…I wasn’t used to being told a story through movement and not words…I just don't think I had the attention span for the full two-hour ballet, but I still appreciated the experience, and I thought about it a lot afterward.”
What was your experience going through the Community Scholarship Program? Were you immediately attracted to the art form? Did a lot of boys from your school also go through the program?
“When I first started, I might have had a couple of friends join. But, I do remember that I was very sporadic and all over the place when I was younger. But, I learned to be very good at concentrating and focusing when I had to…ballet taught me that. When you take class, you get into a certain mindset and you stop thinking about everything else in the world.”
“Moving my body in a way that you never did before was super interesting to me…ballet opened the door to a whole new world…[but] I never was like, ‘Oh, I want to do ballet for the rest of my life.’”
“We had to do a performance at the end of the year, and I remember my stomach hurting so much…[but] I remember just wanting to do it so bad, so I still tried to go out there and do the best I could to show my parents everything that I had been learning.”
You said that when you initially got into ballet, it was just a hobby. At what point did you realize that you wanted to pursue ballet as a career?
“I don't think it was until high school that I was like, ‘Oh, people are looking for jobs, and I love [ballet], so why not make this my life?’ Many people were trying to figure out what they wanted to do with their lives, and picking random careers, and I’d think, ‘That's what you want to do. That's the path that makes you feel the same way that I feel about dance?’ And it was interesting because a lot of the times my friends would be like, ‘No, that's not how I feel, but I feel like that's the path I feel obligated to go down.’
What do you think is the best way to engage young dancers?
“I didn't have appreciation for ballet initially, because I wasn't exposed to it. Other sports, you just turn on the TV and there it is and you're like, ‘Oh, this is exciting.’ But for ballet, it’s not as simple.”
“During COVID, we did videos like Colorforms…and it allowed us to engage with a crowd that maybe wouldn't have had the opportunity to go to the theater…so I would love if that could be something that could be expanded upon to make the arts more inclusive and accessible, and just get the world to even know that ballet world exists and there’s a place for everyone in it…I did a Q&A after one of the Colorforms screenings, and it was cool to see the young students engagement with it and the questions that they had…I think it’s important that they have the opportunity to actually ask questions, rather than just watch a performance, have no idea what just happened, and then go home and think to themselves, ‘Huh. What happened? What the heck was that?’...and then also having the opportunity to meet a dancer face to face…It's not just somebody that's just all the way over there or on the screen.”
In general, what was your experience growing up as a male dancer? What did you find most challenging about pursuing it?
“It’s tough advocating for yourself and finding a way to be happy as you are. I think that's very true for a lot of people, but especially in ballet.”
How have the skillsets that you acquired from dance translated to other aspects of your life?
“It's interesting talking about that now because I feel like I'm in a part of my career where I'm probably not going to dance for much longer, to be honest…and I’m looking to move onto another career path. But it’s becoming apparent how uneducated the public is as to what ballet really is and what kind of skill and dedication it requires…We can't tell all these people who are not in the ballet world, ‘I did Rothbart in Swan Lake.’ They're going to be like, ‘Okay, that means absolutely nothing to me. You did ballet. Got it.’ I'm learning how to translate what we do in ballet into real-world vocabulary. But I know that for sure, the determination that we have, the grit, the focus, the ability to work through really hard conditions…When we put our minds to it, we’re going to do the best that we can, because why else would you be doing it? We can go do something else—something a lot easier, and make a lot more money doing that…But we do it because we love it.”
find more about Sean Bennett here
interview by William McClure Stout