THE GIRL CAN DANCE

Elena Carroll demonstrates a perfect single pirouette for her class. Her long, limber legs are controlled in perfect posture. She prepares herself again with her left leg forward and her right leg behind.
      
Carroll, a sophomore advertising major, raises her hands, one in front and one to her side. Complete control, complete balance. She tries for a double pirouette, spinning rapidly. Her first spin is perfect, but as she tries for her second, she stumbles. She falls gracefully but quickly picks herself up. Quietly, she looks back up to her beginner’s dance class, which she has been instructing since September.
      
Her class’s eyes on her, she opts for a side leap. Toes pointed, she raises her head and leaps, grinning as she lands safely to the ground.

Carroll, a native of Santa Fe, N.M., began dancing when she was 3 years old, when her mother first enrolled her in dance classes. 

‘Dancing was a high,’ Carroll said. ‘I couldn’t get enough of it.’

When she was 12 years old, she had to make a decision. 

‘I played tennis, I played soccer and I also did horseback riding,’ she said. ‘And when I turned 12, I had to make a decision if I wanted to go with the dance route, or pursue sports and do the regular high school experience.’

THE BALLET GIRL

Instead of sports, she chose to dance.

Every summer after that decision she attended a different dance camp. She traveled to Seattle one year. New York the next. At 16, she attended a summer intensive program with the San Francisco Ballet Company.

‘I remember her calling me to tell me that she loved it there and her instructors thought she had a shot at being accepted into the yearlong program,’ said Sherri Carroll, Elena’s mother. ‘I told her not to put all of her eggs in one basket because it could end at any moment. I knew how competitive it was. But it was what she wanted to do.’

Her instructors were right. That same year Elena was accepted and moved to San Francisco by herself, living in a house with the other girls accepted into the program.

After she arrived, Elena began experiencing pain in her right ankle, resulting in a sprain.

‘Instead of stopping and letting myself heal and moving back home as I should’ve done, I kept dancing on it and aggravating it,’ Elena said.

Three tears in her tendon followed, including a tear in her Achilles’ tendon and a stress fracture in her metatarsal.

She then had to start sitting out during rehearsal.

‘It was so frustrating because you want to do well and you want to be able to do what everyone else is doing, especially when you know you are capable of doing it, but you are being held back by this intense pain,’ Elena said.     

Still, she wasn’t ready to let go of her dream. ‘I would ice it, I would soak it, I’d have Epsom salts, I’d take Advil, I’d go to doctors,’ Elena said. ‘I couldn’t get rid of the pain unless I stopped dancing.’

She was given an ultimatum. Her doctors told her that without necessary surgery, she could no longer dance.

‘They basically said you are going to stop and get surgery, stop and do something else, stop … just stop,’ Elena said.

Following the doctors’ report, Elena rested for three weeks. Things weren’t looking up. They then told her that if she wanted, she could get surgery, heal and then retrain back to where she was. But that process would take about three years.

‘I began to realize it was so painful, it just wasn’t fun anymore. It wasn’t the same dancing I loved,’ Elena said. ‘I had the right body, I had the perfect feet, I was tall, I had the right technique, but I was weak. I had hyperextension in my legs. I had beautiful arched feet. It was very pretty to look at … but weak.’

‘I told her, ‘This isn’t healthy,” Sherri said. ‘She never complained about injuries, she never complained about pain. The fact that she was complaining meant something was seriously wrong.’

When summer came, Elena decided her health was more important than ballet. She informed the San Francisco Ballet that she wouldn’t be returning that summer, but staff members told her they would call and check on her in the fall.

The phone call never came, confirming what Elena already knew. It was over.

EVERYTHING HAPPENS FOR A REASON

‘I was always ‘the ballet girl’ in high school,’ Elena said. She said she thought, ‘I can be normal. I don’t have to be ‘the ballet girl.”

Elena applied to colleges and eventually chose Syracuse University as the destination of her new life.

Elena now teaches a beginner ballet class at SU every Sunday for a group of 20 students.

Today, she said she has no regrets.

‘Everything happens for a reason, and I knew when I got injured, it just wasn’t my plan anymore,’ Elena said. ‘It wasn’t what I was supposed to be doing. And I am fine with that now.’

tjmill02@syr.edu
 

Published on April 24, 2010 at 12:00 pm