The Misty Effect: Alexandra Terry, Former Second Company Member, Ballet West

February 8, 2018

Alexandra Terry didn’t always dream about pointe shoes and tutus. Though she took dance class as a child, it was competitive gymnastics that originally captured her interest. (She credits the powerful strength that undergirds her ballet technique to years of repetitive routines on beams and mats.) At 13, Terry started commuting an hour and a half from her home in Connecticut to NYC, so she could study at the Joffrey Ballet School. After training with Karin Averty and Irina Dvorovenko, she realized that ballet was her calling, and following a vigorous summer intensive at Ellison Ballet, she transferred to that school year-round so she could fully immerse herself in the art.

Now, Terry is excited to be a part of the professional ballet world. “I was watching demi-soloist Katlyn Addison, who’s also black, in rehearsal in 2018, and I got so emotional seeing someone like me out there performing a lead role,” she says. While Terry appreciates the racial progress the ballet world has made recently, she also recognizes the need for a constant push towards diversity. “You look around the room in some auditions and you don’t see anyone who looks like you, which is just so isolating,” she says. “I think the ballet world needs to give every dancer a chance to work hard and prove herself, no matter what she looks like.”