Thank you for the question, Frederikke_staghoej
Let’s get the worst part out of the way. 😉 The worst part is that the KGL Teater is located 4,053 Miles or 6,523 Km away from my family. Copenhagen is really, really far away from “Home”. When I had my first show with the company… no one I knew was there. When I had my first solo… no family members were in the audience.. When I got promoted to soloist… no one was there… Even when I got promoted to Principal Dancer… not one family member was there…
I have gotten to share these experiences with many wonderful people, including fantastic audience’s but the fact remains that as much as my family wishes to be a part of my career, there is a distance because of the literal distance.
The people that sacrificed so much of their own lives in order for me to follow my dreams, without any sort of guarantee that anything would ever happen, missed all the glam. Not just my parents, but supportive friends throughout the years and even my ballet teachers that taught me what ballet is. None of it was shared directly with them, since becoming a professional.
Now, did I call my loved ones on the phone as soon as anything exciting and life changing happened? Yes! But isn’t there nothing quite like getting a hug from your own mother, while she whispers in your ear, I’m so proud of you, right in the moment? Or at the very least, that same evening. For them to be there, with you, sharing the atmosphere.
It doesn’t get easier over the years… you just get used to it. It is what it is.
The Best part of working for the KGL Teater is the company, the Royal Danish Ballet. I am so fortunate to perform in absolutely drop dead gorgeous, customized costumes, on a big, historical stage, surrounded by around sixty other talented dancers whom are all dancing the most infamous ballet steps that have ever existed or the steps that will be the future’s most infamous ballet steps.
It takes a big theater, a large, financially supported company in order to be able to dance some of those biggest dream roles. The dream of Swan Queen in Swan Lake is to dance the entire thing. White and Black Swan. Beginning to end. To go through every emotional feeling til the very last step. For that, you need to be part of an exceptional organization that can create the production and have enough people to fill every role and enough money to pay everyone from the stage hands, to the light designers, to set designers, to costume designers, to ballet masters, to…. etc.
The Royal Danish Ballet was so fortunate to put on Christopher Wheeldon’s, Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland in 2016 & 2018. That production was expensive… millions of Kroners expensive. The Royal Danish Ballet shared the cost of the production with another well established ballet company, The Royal Swedish Ballet in order to be able to perform it. It was a sensational production. Absolutely mind blowing. So in my opinion worth every penny.
It’s the type of production that I wouldn’t even have access to if it wasn’t for the KGL Teater, and The Royal Danish Ballet. I have some of my best performance memories from this production. I will never forget the joy I felt performing as Alice.
The KGL Teater has given me the stage for my dreams to come true. Thank you will never be enough to explain the gratitude I feel for such a special place. Even if it is really, really far away.
xoxo,
-Hol