Gillian Murphy's Cloud & Victory Session

January 1, 2016

Cloud & Victory is a ballerina’s go-to for the cutest classwear, as well as amazing pictures of some of our favorite dancers holding pizza (see below). What makes C&V even cooler, though, is C&V Sessions—a collection of interviews with some of the dance world’s brightest stars. Most recently, American Ballet Theatre principal and all-around superstar Gillian Murphy sat down to dish on everything from her start in ballet to her husband, former ABT principal Ethan Stiefel. The cool thing about C&V Sessions is how candid and real they are. Gone are the generic questions and cookie-cutter answers. Instead, we get to see the dancers as their relaxed, reflective and authentic selves. Below are some highlights from Murphy’s interview. Be sure to check it out in full here!

There’s no time like pizza time (photo via C&V)


C&V
: You
strike me as someone who’s quite sure of herself from a young age – after winning a Prix scholarship you chose to stay back to train at North Carolina, and you deferred joining the ABT to finish high school. It takes a certain amount of faith in yourself to say, hold up, I think maybe this approach would be better for me as opposed to jumping headfirst into every opportunity.


Gillian Murphy
: I think I’ve always had a fair amount of confidence. But I’ve also always had a sense of priorities

In the case of choosing to go to North Carolina School of Arts for my final year, it was a priority for me to be in an environment I loved with my friends and a teacher who was phenomenal, who was looking out for me and helping me. It wasn’t so much that I didn’t want to go to one of the more famous schools of the world. I knew NCSA was the best place for me.

In terms of asking ABT if I could join a few months later and graduate from high school, I just felt strongly that I needed a high school diploma.

So I guess it wasn’t confidence – maybe a little bit! I think I was confident that if they wouldn’t agree to that then I could dance in another company, even if it was a smaller company. But it was that important to me to graduate from high school.

I think you need a certain level of confidence to get out there and perform but every dancer also has his or her share of insecurities.


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