NYC Ballet Dancer

It's, it's really the meaning of of my life, and it's sharing it with other people is— gives me purpose.

Oh my gosh, it feels so good to be back. It has been nearly 8 months since I have posted anything. I've recorded here and there, um, but I haven't actually put something together, so this is so exciting for me. Okay, let's do a quick recap though. Welcome to The Red Door, rebranded, transfigured, same mantra. Here to give you a voice, sharing real stories, raw, unfiltered, no bullshit. I'm your host, Kristjana Hillberg. Because this is real life, my almost 2-year-old will probably run in here screaming at some point. Disregard. He is currently trying to watch Toy Story. We will see. Lily is also working on a project. Yep, here he comes. The last episode I scheduled out was back in early, early October, and since then a bunch has happened. So we found out that we were expecting again about 3 weeks later, and So obviously I've been pregnant and I am 35 weeks. So I only have 5 weeks left. Thank heavens. This last part is always the hardest for me. I'm just so ready for those, those babies to get here. Let's see. Obviously, fucking COVID, right? We've been now living in it for the last several months. Some people experiencing it on a way more severe level. Than others. My guest today lives in New York City, so his experience is a little bit different than ours has been here in South Dakota. He is also the uncle of my mother-in-law, and I have been hearing stories about him for the last several years and have just been craving to chat with him. He just has this incredible life and spirit and passion about him. And so I was so excited to finally take just a little bit to sit down and ask him a few questions. We chatted, obviously, about this pandemic and what it has been like for his life, and then kind of, you know, my scares and how it's been dealing with it here. And then we get to chat about his— a little bit about his life experience and moving from South Dakota to New York City and getting into the beautiful world of ballet. So today I bring you Paul Booze from South Dakota, but really from New York City, and he is Oh my gosh, so amazing. I can't wait for you to listen to a little bit of his story.

Well, it's— here we are, you know, I'm in New York and we're in the midst of this terrible pandemic and New York City has been hit worse than any place. In the world, and we are, we're really suffering. It's, things are beginning to open up a bit, but we're not able to tell that because we've been in self-isolation since March 10th, which is almost 3 months now. So we're, we're managing and we're doing the best we can. And, you know, luckily we have our health and so things are good.

Right. Absolutely. And you guys are both pretty busy and active. So how— I mean, like traveling the world. So this has really helped. I mean, put kind of like a halt. On your normal life?

Everything, yes, for both of us, everything is in pause except a lot of our work we are able to do through, you know, through the computers and internet. I do a lot of editing work for archival work with the ballet, with the George Balanchine ballets that I stage. And Issan is doing a lot of his translations and transcriptions with the Buddhist Dogen texts. So we're keeping very busy ourselves.

Okay, so work hasn't really slowed down. It's just that life now is in your apartment.

Yes, we are completely— we have our little universe in two rooms. Here, you know, right in the midst of Times Square. Wow.

I was just telling Kurt that. I mean, we've talked about this multiple times in the last 3 months, but it just doesn't— here in South Dakota, life is so different than in bigger places. And so for us, I can feel that it's real, but we can't see it. We don't, we don't have like big trucks of bodies and we don't, everything is still kind of open. We haven't really shut down a ton. And so to us, life doesn't really seem like it's been halted too much. But my heart has just been so full thinking about everybody else and how it really is truly affecting millions of people.

Well, you know, I appreciate that, and it means a lot to me. You know, New York City, we were hit at 9/11, and now we're hit with this, and both times it just seems so surreal. Um, this is a little bit more real because, um, with 9/11, we could walk out on the streets. We, we had each other that we could look at. We could commiserate with, we could share our experiences. But here, you know, we're locked into our homes. And for me personally, I look out the window and I see, for the most part, people are being diligent and they're wearing masks and they're keeping social distancing. But there's a certain amount of fatigue that has happened, and I see more people without masks, and I see— there's a bar across the street from us, and I can see people at happy hour. They're standing there without masks. They have smokes and drinks, and they're having a great time right on the sidewalk. And it's really— it's very troublesome to me that people are so reckless, and they're they're not, you know, I really don't know what's going on in their heads.

Yeah, I think there's a lot of emotions that are being felt and people, you know, feeling like the sadness and feeling the loneliness, but also like that huge yearning for connection because as humans, that's like, that's what you crave, that one-on-one, not even one-on-one, but just that connection of other humans. And so I think that people can maybe let that guard down when they're, when they're really feeling that lonely emotion and just be like, I have to get out, I have to, you know, see people, and they're not really thinking about the effect of even just one time going out. I don't know, I just feel like our emotions are taking over and when we're really in that lonely, that lonely stage.

Well, they absolutely are, and It's— I mean, we have second and third waves that are inevitable. And it's, you know, and I'm just thinking that here in New York City, we have over 1,700 new cases reported a day. And then, you know, the death toll is just— it's unimaginable. And And it's just, I think those facts speak for themselves. And it's just, it's, I don't know. Yes, I can sit in my apartment and be comfortable and open the windows. And, you know, at 7 o'clock at night every day, there's a shift change with the hospitals and and Jacob Javits Center, where they have 3,000 beds for people who are being taken care of with COVID And, you know, that's only a few blocks away from where we live. And at 7 o'clock at night, everyone opens their windows and they hoot and they holler and they bang— and we bang pans, you know, so that anyone who's on a shift change, they know that they have the support of the city. So We do, you know, I think there is a way to emotionally let go and emotionally connect with other people. And it's at 7 o'clock at night when everybody does it in a healthy, constructive way. But by going out on the street and tempting fate, it's a side of human nature that worries me, and it, it's, it's very troublesome.

Well, I think too, um, I don't know, have you read the book The Untethered Soul?

No, I haven't.

I got done reading that book, um, late last fall, and he talks about, I mean, an underlying theme of the whole book is to step outside of your emotions because your emotions are fleeting. I mean, they come and they go, and you are not. Your emotions. And I think the older I get, the more I understand that. And I remember being young and just letting my emotions— it was like almost like a huge wave. I would just ride it and like be that emotion. And so I, I'm really hoping that this, that this, um, this pandemic will help people really get back into like slowing down, really thinking breathing deep, like understanding. But yes, there definitely is that whole other side, like you said, of human nature that just like takes over. And maybe you do just let those emotions ride. And it really is scary to think, to think of what's to come. But you can also not be scared and just kind of settle in and I don't know, find that the blessing and the happiness through it all as well. I don't know. It's a very hard time. And like I said earlier, I feel like it's extremely hard to relate, especially people who are in New York City or, you know, somewhere like I'm from Arizona and the reservation. I was just listening to a podcast the other day that was saying that the reservation there was like the number 3 hotspot as far as like cases and deaths that come with the cases. And I was thinking, oh my gosh, like that's where my entire family lives. And when they're going out and getting groceries or going out, you know, at any point, it's, it's really scary for me to think, you know, my grandma who's 87 or my mother who is almost 60. And I don't— I just— it's very hard to explain, you know, the scary, the scary side, but also be so thankful that I'm here safe with Kurt and our kids and we're able to, you know, find solitude and being together in our, in our home.

Everyone is dealing with it in their own reality. And unfortunately, those who are asymptomatic are, you know, I mean, and if they're not tested, they don't know, they don't know that they're actually, you know, a Typhoid Mary running around infecting people. It's, it's Yeah, it's very— for each of us, we have to be responsible for ourselves and for those around us. And anyway, I— it's so— it's a very strange and hopefully, as you say, there is something to be gained from this. And You know, I just hope that those I love and care about live through this so that we can learn from it without having too many, too many deaths.

Yes, I agree. I wanted to talk a little bit about— I mean, I've really only heard like stories of you through Teresa and Kurt and all these people here who just love you and look up to you so much. And it's So it's just, I, you know, I like have this vision of you and just like how magical and amazing you are. And I would love to hear just kind of a little bit of your story as far as like what sparked that like yearning in your soul to leave the States and move to New York City and just kind of start this life that you had dreamed about.

You know, it's funny because I really, I think that things happen for a reason. Or things happen not so much because you have volition and you purposely set out to make them happen, but I think things happen because they're the right thing. And for me as a youngster, you know, I didn't know if I had talent. I didn't know if this, if the ballet world was, what, where I belonged, but I wanted to find out. So I did take the initiative to, to find out, well, I'm 14 and I don't know if I have talent, but the only way to find out is to, to write, to approach the best schools in the country, which I felt were in New York City. So I contacted every school that I could could. And unbeknownst to my parents, one of the schools wrote back and said, well, we can audition you in Chicago, and if you can make it there, we'll give you an answer. So I did, to a certain extent, force the issue at 14. The, the audition went well, and I was invited to New York, and Once I was there, once I was here, I really didn't want to return to South Dakota. I felt that I had found a place where I absolutely fit in, where I belonged, and where I was appreciated. And, you know, I felt that it was the right place to be. And throughout my time of being accepted into one of the best training programs in the country in New York. I transferred from one school to another in the middle of my junior year in high school. And, and towards the end of my high school year, I was invited to take the company class of the New York City Ballet. And the New York City Ballet, for those people who don't know, was run by a man named George Balanchine. And George, and Mr. B as we called him, he really is the Mozart, the Picasso, the, you know, he is the driving force of ballet in the world at that time. And he handpicked his dancers, and I was one of those, um, towards the end of his life that he chose to be part of his company. And so I just happened to be in the right place at the right time, and I had the right amount of a physical, um, gift, and that was, um, That was the beginning of my real career. And from there, as a dancer in the New York City Ballet, we toured the world as well as having two very long New York City seasons at Lincoln Center and one season in upstate New York in Saratoga. And within a season, New York City Ballet performed over 50 ballets, and each ballet was performed 4 to the most 5 times. So it was a huge amount of repertory that each of the dancers was expected to learn very quickly and to assimilate into our bodies, all under the eye of Balanchine, who was this trained genius from Russia who was trained in the Imperial School in St. Petersburg before it became Leningrad, and then, then recent, not so recently, but then returned to being called St. Petersburg. So the lineage that we are part of is part of this great over 300-year-old art form of classical ballet. And I just— a kid from South Dakota found himself in that situation. So, you know, thanks to my parents allowing me to live this dream, I was really able to see the world, and so much has opened up to me. So I'm just a very lucky person.

Yes, and that led you to now, are you, you choreograph, is that correct?

Well, the person who choreographs is the person who actually makes the dance. The person who initially, he's the first person whose idea it is, who finds music and has and assembles the people and makes it happen. So Balanchine is the choreographer and I'm the stager. I'm the person who takes his information, his material, and it's like Shakespeare. So Shakespeare has written the words and somebody else will be the director who puts, you know, the actors on stage or on a movie set. And so my job is to take already made information of steps and put them on dancers. And put it onto a stage with orchestra at different theaters all over the world.

Wow. As a spectator and somebody who's always been moved by and through music and dance, I mean, I've always— I feel like dance and music just touches my soul in a way that nothing else could ever, could ever do. So I'm wondering, as a spectator, I mean, I can sit and watch and be so full, like my entire body and soul is just full by watching. Do you feel that as somebody who has been a performer and now somebody who kind of brings that to life? Do you get that as well, like from music and dance? You're just so full.

It's, it's really the meaning of my life and it's sharing it with other people is gives me purpose and to see what the new generation does with the material that, that I, I'm so familiar with is you know, there can be disappointments when people are not able to rise to the occasion. And then there are the wonderful miracles of, you know, somebody turning it into something even greater than I'd ever imagined or seen before. So yes, it does fill me. It does. It, it it makes my life have meaning that I'm able to share it with other people and also to extend the legacy, you know, the legacy of these ballets, I believe will, as long as there are people who perform dance, these ballets will be relevant and they will touch people and even abstract ballets that don't have apparent narrative or meaning, they strike people. You know, Mondrian's paintings will always have a meaning, even though to many people they're just squares of color. Balanchine ballets, he has a repertory of over 400 ballets. 75 of them are are arguably, um, will be here forever. And, uh, this, um, this legacy of his and my involvement with it is just, um, something— bringing beauty to the world is really very, um, fulfilling. As you say, it It fills my heart, it fills my soul, and it gives me so much back.

Yes, no, I absolutely love it. I remember being a little girl having a dream of living in New York City, and we went in 2000, and I remember standing on Broadway just dreaming, dreaming of, you know, being a dancer, and I had never even really danced other than like in my house. And so to hear these beautiful stories and now being able to like attend plays or attend— I've never been to a professional ballet before, but no matter when I have viewed a dance or a performance of any kind, it's almost like I can just feel the passion of the dancers. And I have so much love for all the work that they put in because I cannot even imagine the, the work that goes in and, and all of the, you know, all of just all of it. I just, it's very, very beautiful. And so when, you know, hearing stories from Teresa, I just, I wanted to, you know, meet you and connect with you. And I just wanted, I was like, oh my God, this is just amazing and such beautiful work. And so I'm so, so glad that you took the time to even just let me in just a little bit into your life. And I know it's a little different than it was a year ago, and who knows what life is going to be like in a year from now, but I really do hope at some point that Curt and I can come and meet you and both— it's Hodgin, right?

Yes, yes.

Yes, oh, we would love to come to New York City and spend a few days with you guys and just relish in all of it.

Well, when we're not in lockdown, that will happen. And It will be wonderful to meet you and, you know, our— my new— the new children. And it's really— no, absolutely. I really look forward to it.

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