Life in the fast lane

TRUE BLUE Lane performs Princess Florine in The Sleeping Beauty

Photograph: Rosalie O’Connor

[Ed note: This story has been extended with online bonus content.]

In the three short years since she joined American Ballet Theatre, Sarah Lane has turned out so many memorable performances that it’s hard to name them all: George Balanchine’s Theme and Variations, Twyla Tharp’s Sinatra Suite and even a Goat in Frederick Ashton’s Sylvia (one afternoon, she was thrown onstage so quickly that she didn’t have time to apply makeup). But what really sticks is the first time New York audiences caught sight of her, at the Youth America Grand Prix. As she performed a variation from Paquita, the sound system destroyed her tape, leaving her with two choices—run offstage or dance. She danced.

Lane, 22, is one of the brightest stars  in ABT’s corps de ballet. She first studied in Memphis under Pat Gillespie, until her family relocated to Rochester, New York, where Lane trained at the Draper Center for Dance Education. Much has been made of Lane’s small stature—at 5'2" she is the shortest dancer in the company—but more rewarding is her vivid projection, plush upper body, sharp dramatic instincts and refusal to throw away any part, no matter how limited. She may be a little thing, but size, it turns out, is relative.

Are you really the smallest dancer that ABT has ever hired?

I’m not sure if I’ve always been the smallest, but at this point I am.

How did you end up here?

I auditioned for only three companies—Pittsburgh, Boston and ABT—because I didn’t really have the time or the money to go traveling around. In March of my senior year, I auditioned at ABT; I wasn’t accepted. Kevin [McKenzie] didn’t even watch. I think they thought that I was too small. I was accepted at Boston Ballet, which was where I wanted to go, and I was so happy. After about a month, I called to see where my contract was; it turned into this back and forth of phone calls with the manager, who said that he had no idea what I was talking about and basically said that I was making it up. At the end of two days of really stressful phone calls, he said, “Well, I’m really sorry, and I hope to see you back at the auditions.”

No!

I was like, “Thank you very much for the offer, but I really don’t think, with the chaos and disorganization that seems to be going on there right now, that I really have the desire to audition.” [Laughs] So then I was like, Oh great, I only have Pittsburgh, which wasn’t going to pay me enough [to live on]. My parents couldn’t support me. So I get to go to the gala performance at the Grand Prix, where my music stopped and I performed in silence. I guess it caught the attention of Kevin and Victor [Barbee] who were in the audience.

It’s still one of the .most incredible performances I’ve ever seen. 

It was weird. I imagined what my future would be if I had just run offstage—I knew that was definitely not the thing to do. I thought that it would come back on as I danced, but it never did. So after that, ABT asked me to come back and audition at the Met. I took a company class, and they offered me a Studio Company contract.

You have to back up for a second. Was the problem your music?

It was their system. Everybody’s music was messed up—to this day, things go wrong at that competition.

I know. Sergey [Gordeev]…

Yeah. [Laughs] At the end of the performance that night, I was leaving with my mom, and he saw me outside and said, “Here’s your tape.” It was all eaten. “You can put it in a frame and hang it on your wall.” I was like, Yeah that’s just what I want to do.

How did you have the courage to just keep dancing?

I remember being so nervous before I went on because they hadn’t announced the winners. I was very self-conscious. I didn’t know what my status was, and I was the last one to perform and it was a crowded audience. My stomach was in a big knot and I was balancing in passé forever and ever because I was so afraid I was going to mess up my pirouettes on the diagonal. I got onstage and when my music stopped, it just kind of completely distracted me—it was like I was in another world. All of the tension left me, and it was the most peaceful I’ve ever been onstage before. I felt like it was just me and everything else was  a haze. And I just waited for my music to come back. [Laughs] Actually, after that, I would strive to reach that same beautiful, relaxed feeling onstage, and I think it helped me when I did ballets like Theme and Variations to really concentrate more on how I felt than, Am I going to be able to do that pirouette? It’s something that I still really work on, because I think that’s when I feel natural onstage.

Thank God they were there to see you. What would you have done?

I don’t know, I really don’t. I could have possibly waited until [another competition] in Jackson to see if I was offered any more contracts. I would have gone anywhere; I needed a job. But I’m so glad I got one here. The style of ABT is exactly what I like. I was kind of out of the loop—my family never took me to ABT performances when I was younger.

And you didn’t go to the School of American Ballet, so you weren’t really plugged in? 

No. My family didn’t have a lot of money to send me to places—I was just kind of in my school. I never even watched a lot of ballet videos. The first live ballet that I ever saw actually was ABT. I was 16, and my friend took me to see Giselle with Amanda McKerrow. I walked into the theater and I remember being so excited and thinking, Maybe I do want to join ABT. But I didn’t think I could ever get in. I thought I’d be lost in the company.