Nicholas Ade of Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet On The Self-Care & Exercise Routines Of Professional Dancers and Performance Artists
An Interview With Maria Angelova
Patience. It still took me three years to really change my body! I worked every day for any improvement.
Professional Dancers and Performance Artists have to perform at the highest levels. While not all of us will share their athletic and performance skills, we can learn insights from their self-care routines — movement, mindfulness, discipline, eating, sleeping, and so forth. — about how we can improve our own performance levels. In this interview series, we are talking to Professional Dancers and Performance Artists about the self-care routines that they use to help them achieve top-level performance. As a part of this series, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Nicholas Ade.
Nicholas Ade is the Chief Executive Officer of Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet, a ballet school located in Carlisle, PA that is known throughout the world for providing the finest in classical ballet training.
Thank you so much for joining us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and the story of how you ended up at Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet (CPYB)?
Sure! I was born in Los Angeles, CA and grew up in Southern California loving all things sports (particularly my Lakers!) and ballet. Being determined to see how far I could take my journey in ballet, I left home at 15 and attended the North Carolina School of the Arts for High School. Following that, I went to the San Francisco Ballet School where they changed my life, truly. I then signed a contract with Pacific Northwest Ballet (PNB) and stayed there for ten years, all the while learning how to teach. After dancing, I was offered to become the school principal at PNB. I was a guest teacher at CPYB from 2004–2012, when I got the call to come to CPYB full-time!
Can you share with us the most interesting story from your career? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘takeaways’ you learned from that?
Can you share with us the most interesting story from your career? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘takeaways’ you learned from that?
The most interesting story is the one I’m still living. I always wanted to dance, but then I found teaching, then I found teaching with Marcia at CPYB, then I became a CEO and a teacher at CPYB. What I take away from that is that if you keep moving forward, progressing, and pushing for more knowledge with all your passion and drive, the next dream presents itself for you to realize.
You have had a successful performing career. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success?
- Grit
- Persistence
- Vision (What do I want success to look like?)
It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest or most interesting mistake that has occurred to you in the course of your career? What lesson or takeaway did you learn from that?
The funniest ones happen when I am teaching. My mind will be two steps ahead of what I want to say and then I’ll say the wrong exercise and I see it on the kid’s faces…that, “What did he say?!?!” kind of look. They will call me on it, and we fix it and have a good laugh. I’ve learned that you must show your humanity when you teach. You’re not perfect. It’s not about you, it’s about them. Making mistakes is part of life. Deal with it, own it, move on, but you must LEARN from everything you do…right and wrong. If you show the kids this, then they’ll take chances, listen to you more intently and it makes you believable when you push them to take chances.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that might help people?
Yes! We just finished our Founder, Marcia Dale Weary’s dream of building our own theater. This will help our students have more performing opportunities, our community to be better educated in the arts, and have a place in the world of dance that anyone can call home.
Ok, thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of our interview about the self-care routines of professional dancers and performance artists. Can you share with our readers the routine that you’ve used in the past to help you perform at peak levels, or what you’ve encouraged your students to do? Can you help articulate how each part of your routine or recommended routines contributes to peak performance?
As a dancer, I was a fiend about stretching. I had to be, because my muscles were so naturally tight. For me, it was always about trying to have a larger range of motion so that I could dance bigger and create the correct lines of a dancer. If I could do that, then my dancing could look more effortless and free. So, that started every morning with at least an hour of stretching. Also, when dealing with injuries, I used contrast baths as a tool to help in healing.
What do you recommend for dancers to prevent injuries?
Cross train. The specifics will be different for people’s bodies, but cross training is essential. Pilates, yoga, weight training, resistance training, body weight conditioning, rowing, all of it is so important. I didn’t learn this until halfway through my career…it is essential.
What type of regimes do you recommend to help rehabilitate from injuries?
I’m a big proponent of listening to a good physical therapist and then being diligent about any exercises they give you. I also think there has never been a better time to find the right natural recovery tools to help speed up the healing process.
Do you practice mindfulness or meditation as part of your overall self-care routine? Can you explain what you do?
I do! I started this while I had an achilles injury in my twenties. I was reading Phil Jackson’s book Sacred Hoops when I was introduced to the book, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. Loved it ever since. It really taught me to cut out the noise and be quieter in my thoughts.
As a Pilates instructor, I’m particularly interested in this question. What exercises do you teach to your dancers to strengthen their cores?
In ballet, just the way you stand engages your core, so if you think about dancing for 4–5 hours a day, it’s really built in! However, I am known for throwing quite a few planks into my classes for the older students.
Can you please share “5 Things You Need To Create A Successful Career As A Professional Dancer and Performance Artist?”
- Training. Get the right ballet training. That is how CPYB was founded. Marcia didn’t get the right training and then never had the chance to be a professional. She made it her mission to say that none of her students would ever go through what she went through.
- Dedication. You must love this and be undeterred when obstacles are in your way. I was told at 20 years old, while a professional, that I didn’t have a great body for ballet and that I wouldn’t be cast in certain roles. Well, that poked the bear. I became obsessed with changing my body and in three years was being cast in roles I never thought I’d get to dance.
- Patience. It still took me three years to really change my body! I worked every day for any improvement.
- Sensitivity to open your heart to the art. When I see one of our students go from something they couldn’t do, to eventually dancing freely with abandon and all the technique to support it, that brings me to tears.
- A continual good mindset. You are going to hear no. You are going to get frustrated. But you must focus on keeping your mindset and mentality a healthy one. It is a balance of staying hungry, pushing, but staying focused on what you are trying to work on instead of beating yourself up. It is easy to get into that mindset. Focus on the journey and enjoy the process! The work is where you should be happiest, not only thinking of the finished result.
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I’d love to see a movement where people, whatever your passion is (mine happens to be ballet), take what you love and inspire the people around you to love it as much as you do. Teach someone why it’s important to you so that they see the beauty in it. I’ve seen kids become wonderful surgeons, entrepreneurs, and ballet dancers because of what they learned in a studio. That’s transferrable to so many things in life…but you have to be willing to SHARE YOUR PASSION, not keeping it for yourself.
What is the best way for our readers to continue to follow your work online?
https://www.instagram.com/cpyballet/
https://www.youtube.com/user/centralPAyouthballet
https://www.tiktok.com/@cpyballet
https://www.facebook.com/centralpennsylvaniayouthballet
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent on this. We wish you only continued success.
About The Interviewer: Maria Angelova, MBA is a disruptor, author, motivational speaker, body-mind expert, Pilates teacher and founder and CEO of Rebellious Intl. As a disruptor, Maria is on a mission to change the face of the wellness industry by shifting the self-care mindset for consumers and providers alike. As a mind-body coach, Maria’s superpower is alignment which helps clients create a strong body and a calm mind so they can live a life of freedom, happiness and fulfillment. Prior to founding Rebellious Intl, Maria was a Finance Director and a professional with 17+ years of progressive corporate experience in the Telecommunications, Finance, and Insurance industries. Born in Bulgaria, Maria moved to the United States in 1992. She graduated summa cum laude from both Georgia State University (MBA, Finance) and the University of Georgia (BBA, Finance). Maria’s favorite job is being a mom. Maria enjoys learning, coaching, creating authentic connections, working out, Latin dancing, traveling, and spending time with her tribe. To contact Maria, email her at angelova@rebellious-intl.com. To schedule a free consultation, click here.
Nicholas Ade of Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet On The Self-Care & Exercise Routines Of… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.