The audience seated in folding chairs stares curiously at the dancers in front of them. Perhaps, the performers aren’t what these families and elderly couples think of when they hear the word “ballet.” After all, there are no tutus or pink-ribboned shoes in sight. Instead, seven boys of varying heights, ages, and races stand before them on the carpeting, barefooted and wearing khakis and bold-colored T-shirts. Some are still prepubescently skinny, but all have strong, sinewy muscles and the awkwardness and sweetness of youth—the oldest ones experimenting with trendy hairstyles and the little ones young enough to have cowlicks and sneaky smiles that tease the corners of their lips.

“What are we in for?” the audience seems to be wondering this day in April. When the boys begin to move, it all makes sense. Their motions are controlled, graceful, and musical, and their bodies appear weightless as they fly through the air or lift high up onto their toes. Their artistry combines strength, vivacity, and masculinity, and the audience murmurs in amazement during one section as the boys lift the smallest of their troupe and hold him suspended in the air while they prance through the room. Even one of the youngest audience members, who has been fussing, stops and asks his mother, “How’d they do that?”

This unlikely performance at an unlikely place—a conference room at a library in Prince George’s County—exemplifies the mission of this unique group, which is nothing less than a complete revision of what it means to be a ballet dancer.

The dancers are part of the Estelle Dennis/Peabody Dance Training Program for Boys, which gives young men ages 9 to 18 tuition-free admission to Peabody Dance, the after-school dance training program that is part of the community school affiliated with the lauded Peabody Institute. Now 101 years old, Peabody Dance is one of the oldest continuously operating dance training centers in the country and, since its inception, has developed talents that go on to some of the top dance companies in the world. In 2009, as a way to attract boys to the program, advisers and instructors decided a scholarship program could encourage families who couldn’t afford training, or who otherwise might be hesitant. The small proportion of boys to girls in ballet has been noted nationally, and though statistics on the subject are hard to find, for years teachers have reported that they often only have a single boy in their classes, if any.

“There has always been this underlying thought from fathers—and mothers, too—that they didn’t raise their boys to be ballet dancers. It still exists to some degree, but much less,” says Barbara Weisberger, who is Peabody Dance’s artistic adviser. “This program is helping to remove that stigma, because these boys are wonderful talents. They’re a joy to watch.”

“My teachers wouldn’t let me stop, even when I wanted to. Now, I won’t stop until I’m in one of the top companies in the world. that’s my goal.”

Last school year, 31 boys attended Peabody Dance (which can cost thousands a semester) tuition-free, breathing new energy and life into the mirrored-walled studios and bringing economic, racial, and social diversity to a world that “hasn’t always been that way,” says Melissa Stafford, Peabody Dance director and department chair. “I love that boys from rough neighborhoods are in class with someone whose parents are doctors, and their progress is all based on what they can do in the studio. The boys get exposed to other people and other parts of the city that they would probably never see.”

In its eight years, the program has gotten results, with the students going off to dance company training programs, or getting full rides to college dance programs. The training has opened their minds, and their futures, to opportunities they didn’t know were possible.

“My teachers wouldn’t let me stop, even when I wanted to,” says Antrel McDowell, 20, who grew up in Park Heights, danced at Peabody, and is now in a pre-professional training program. “Now, I’m dancing in Sarasota [at the Sarasota Cuban Ballet School] and I won’t stop until I’m in one of the top companies in the world. That’s my goal.”

Barbara Weisberger still remembers the first auditions she oversaw for the Estelle Dennis program in May 2009. Walking into The Mount Royal School and Roland Park Elementary/Middle School that day, she drew her breath in amazement as she saw dozens of boys, 60 total, who were black and white and of all ages, waiting to show her what they could do.

Though most of them were hip-hop dancers, it didn’t matter to Weisberger— their enthusiasm was contagious—and it didn’t seem to matter to the boys that she was showing them a completely different style of dance. They were just excited to move. “They enjoyed themselves so much. They were so musical, they were such fun, they were so natural,” Weisberger says. “We were in tears it was so wonderful.”

Brought on as an adviser at Peabody in 2001, Weisberger—now 90, who has been involved with ballet since age 3, and has the distinction of being the first child student of the legendary choreographer and ballet master George Balanchine—immediately noticed what she calls the “dearth of boy dancers” at the school. She, along with then artistic director Carol Bartlett requested a change to the Estelle Dennis program—named for a Roland Park resident and leader in the 20th-century contemporary dance scene—which previously gave one scholarship to a male dancer from Maryland each year. The thinking behind the change was that “we should up the training of boys in ballet so we have more boys who are strong enough dancers to join companies,” Weisberger says. “And whatever form of dance you choose to follow, you would do it better because you have ballet. It’s like learning your ABCs.”

She and Bartlett picked about 20 boys, ages 9 to 15, that first year based on their bodies’ flexibility and coordination, as well as their musicality, but many didn’t have any formal dance training—which was intentional. As Weisberger experienced that first day at auditions, once the dancing bug caught them, their bodies—and minds—were flexible enough to try different styles and types of training. Still, the requirements were strict—classes twice a week, which would increase as they got older to up to five days a week. But the boys would be together in class, and wouldn’t have to worry about being the only boy amid a bunch of girls, though they would attend coed classes after the first two years of training.

The teachers saw attrition that first year, which they knew would come as some of the boys realized the focus and commitment necessary to continue. LaTanya Cherry-Lyle, whose 15-year-old son DeVonté Tasker has danced with the program for six years, remembers the adjustment her son faced as he encountered an environment different than any he’d experienced growing up in the Bel Air-Edison neighborhood—one with strict rules, rigorous classes, and high expectations. She recalls how tired he was when she would pick him up from rehearsal, sometimes as late as 9 or 10 o’clock at night. “As soon as he would sit down in the car, he was out,” she says. “But now, he’s more disciplined, focused, and driven. DeVonté wants to succeed and he’ll practice more and more until it’s good enough for him.”

And, the boys were making their own mark on the school. “There’s a different, masculine culture that they’ve brought,” says Stafford, who became director and department chair in 2013 after Bartlett’s death from cancer. “When you step out for a five-minute rehearsal break, you’ll come back to the boys doing three pirouettes and trying to outdo each other in a friendly, competitive way. That camaraderie they have with the other guys has changed the energy of the school.”

As refreshing as those new dancers were, Stafford and the other instructors soon realized that they couldn’t continue to accept boys to the program who were in middle or high school unless they’d had training. “We just don’t have enough time with them,” Stafford says. But she’s also realized that the school will have to occasionally make exceptions, as there have been boys who’ve surprised her.

“When I finish dance class, everything is hurting. but it pays off because when I perform, people say, ‘Ooo, he’s really good.'”

Take the student who, after being kicked out of his house during his senior year of high school, lived with a family friend so he could continue classes and ultimately received a full-tuition scholarship to the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Or the 15-year-old who wrote Stafford an e-mail after he’d been rejected from the program, asking her to reconsider, writing, “I know I don’t have any training—that’s why I came to you.” “He wrote that, not his mom,” Stafford notes. She told the boy he’d have to come in the summer and take classes with the 8-year-olds, which he agreed to do. “He was eager, he asked questions, he worked hard,” Stafford says. “He took the bus, and his mom only came once. He’s doing this for himself.” Now, he dances while attending Point Park University in Pittsburgh.

“This is their way to see something different, their way to make their own way in the world, and probably not a lot of kids they grew up with had that opportunity,” Stafford says. “I think about how important it is for these boys to feel like, ‘I’m good at something, I’m really good at something,’ because they may not have gotten that message elsewhere. This really is changing lives.”

Beyond Peabody’s exquisite, museum-like façade in Mount Vernon are twisting, winding hallways that lead to the dance department, which has an atmosphere a bit like an elementary school. On any given day there, the walls echo with the chatter of girls and boys, who dash to and fro.

One afternoon this spring, the boys gather in a studio in their usual black tights and shoes and white shirts. They listen quietly and professionally as their teacher tells them the steps and positions for the class, always in French— échappé, changement, and piqué are words they hear often. When they begin, with live accompaniment on piano, the teacher walks around and gently corrects posture, straightening an arm or a leg. After work at the barre and balance exercises, it’s time for stretches and pushups. Sometimes, the younger and older boys take classes together, but mostly they are separate. Sometimes, like on this particular day, alumni like Antrel McDowell stop by.

After class, McDowell joins current student Keon Wagstaff, now 12, in joking about class, talking about YouTube ballet videos, and discussing what companies they’d like to join. Antrel places an arm on Keon’s shoulder and says confidently, “I’m going to the Royal Ballet [in London] and you’re going to Bolshoi.”

Stafford loves this kinship between the boys. “[The older boys] were once these little guys, and they know what they would have wanted to hear,” Stafford says. “And that’s not something you can teach them to do.”

That spirit of togetherness is crucial in today’s ballet world, known for its cutthroat competition, and where the color wall is just starting to come down. Last year, ballet dancer Misty Copeland (who is also an Under Armour ambassador) became the first African-American principal dancer at the American Ballet Theatre in New York City, one of the most elite dance companies in the world. And after years of discussions about increasing opportunities for people of color in classical ballet, American Ballet Theatre’s Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School and the training program at the New York City Ballet have started programs to recruit young minority dancers (though critics are concerned that professional opportunities do not await these dancers).

There’s also the question of the stigma that has existed among the general public about boys who dance—mainly that they are less masculine than boys who compete in team sports, for example. In an effort to expose boys, and their parents, to dance early—when they are, perhaps, more receptive, and haven’t formed opinions about ballet—boys-only classes and scholarship programs similar to Peabody’s have sprung up at places like the Metropolitan Ballet Academy in Pennsylvania and, most recently, the Nashville Ballet.

Stafford has personal experience with this. Her brother, who went on to become ballet master of the New York City Ballet, didn’t tell all his friends that he danced when they were growing up in central Pennsylvania. So she keeps an eye out to make sure the pressures aren’t getting to her students. She is encouraged when she hears boys like Keon talk about how they overcame their own brushes with teasing.

“At first, my friends weren’t happy that I was doing ballet,” Keon explains. “They don’t see boys dance, just girls, and they thought of me in a tutu and pointy shoes dancing around. But then, they saw me dance and they said, ‘Oh, you’re good.’ Now, they don’t see me as the boy that dances. They see me as Keon.”

The boys finish the performance that April day in Prince George’s County sweaty, breathing hard. After a rousing ovation from the audience, they take their own seats at the front of the room to answer questions.
The first few are fairly basic: “How often do you practice?” “How old are you?” Then, it gets a little more in-depth. “What motivates you?” asks one woman. “And what obstacles do you encounter and overcome?”

Noah Schwartz, a 17-year-old who lives in Guilford, takes the microphone first. “Dancing is a lot like sports,” he says. “It’s demanding, you have to do a lot with your body, and it takes a lot of energy. We have to dance together as one, like a team has to know what each person is doing for it to work well.”

Next, it is DeVonté Tasker’s turn. “Motivation-wise, you have to think, ‘Is this really what I want to do for a career?’ I have to try my hardest at every class, no matter how tired I am. I’m sure there’s times where all of us don’t want to take class, but we still have to because we want to get better. It’s like math or science—practice makes perfect.”

The audience murmurs in awe at the professional, focused answers, and someone else stands to ask a question, but Keon reaches for the mike. “I wanted to say something else on the motivation thing.”

A few years ago, before he started the program, Peabody Dance teachers would watch Keon pirouette through the halls, and they told his mother, who works as the registrar at Peabody, “He has to be in the program.” Since starting dance, his grades in school, and his focus, have improved. And now, he tells the crowd, he has discovered what he wants to do with his life.

“When I finish dance class, my legs are hurting, everything is hurting,” he says. “But it pays off because when I perform, people say, ‘Ooo, he’s really good.’ I try my hardest so I can keep doing dance and make it my career.”

The audience applauds, and Keon looks around at his teachers, who are beaming. Keon himself can’t keep a sneaky smile from playing at the corners of his lips.

When Afro House stages act one of the performance formerly known as “Afro Punk Ballet,” which sold out shows and received rave reviews when it was performed this past October, audience members may experience a little confusion. The Afro-futuristic opera-ballet being formed on March 28 is now going by the name “Cease & Desist Ballet” following a complaint from the AFROPUNK LLC, (the company behind the AFROPUNK Festival in Brooklyn and beyond).

Afro House managing director Alisha Patterson says the arts collective received a cease and desist letter from AFROPUNK’s legal counsel February 26 and was given just one week to stop all usage of “Afro punk” in their name and promotional materials. In addition to the problems created by being ordered to scrap all their planned marketing efforts just one month before their performance of the ballet at WTMD, Patterson was shocked to learn that the term “Afro punk” was trademarked at all.

“We’ve been working on this piece for the last five years or so, and I believe that Afro punk had been trademarked prior to that, but we didn’t realize that when we selected the name,” Patterson says. “We were so inspired by the movement, the culture, the genre, that honestly it wasn’t even a thought. Kind of like if we would have named like ‘bluegrass ballet.’ Would the bluegrass people come after us? Or, you know, the hip-hop ballet. It didn’t even occur to us.”

The term “Afro punk” originated with James Spooner’s 2003 documentary Afro-Punk, which exposed viewers to the oft-overlooked community of black musicians and fans in the punk, hardcore, and metal scenes all over the country. After the documentary’s success, Spooner led the early festivals, however he dissociated from AFROPUNK after the 2007 festival due to deviation from the event’s punk roots.

As for the trademarking of the term he popularized, Spooner has mixed feelings.

“On one hand, no one was using the name ‘Afropunk’ before my film,” says Spooner. “Now all these people are using in it part because of the festival, which the people in charge worked hard to turn in to what it is. I’ve seen a lot of cool scenes ruined by people using the name for their own agenda, emo and straight edge both come to mind, so I get [AFROPUNK’s] position. On the other hand, I think that trademarks aren’t punk.”

Spooner also points to AFROPUNK’s past issues with inclusivity, including the exclusion of trans performers and staff, and several lawsuits as reasons not to want to be associated with the company, saying that Afro House is getting “a better name and story in the end” from the situation.

In addition to the short-term effects of the name change for Afro House, the changed ads and explanations via social posts and an open letter from the collective, the experience has made Patterson and the rest of the Afro House team reexamine their own situation as an organization named for a genre and larger community.

“Since learning that Afro punk has been trademarked, we’ve wrestled with what it means to trademark a genre and brand a particular experience,” read the open letter penned by Alisha and co-founder Scott Patterson. “We’ve also struggled with what it means to be an organization founded and run by people of color that operates within the confines of capitalism. While we can appreciate the business side of protecting one’s brand, we also understand that the genre of Afro House music belongs to all of us, and therefore should not be owned by a person, business, or institution.”

For now, the future of “Cease & Desist Ballet” is uncertain, and the question of “what’s in a name?” remains partially unanswered. Patterson says she’s unsure whether the new name will stick around or be swapped for something that better describes what they’re trying to accomplish with the piece.

Act one of what is now “Cease & Desist Ballet,” which blends Afro punk, 20th-century French music, and black southern gospel in its soundscape, follows two sisters who take vastly different paths following their brilliant father’s cataclysmic decision. The Afro-futuristic opera-ballet will be performed March 28 at WTMD and is suitable for all ages.

Scott and his collaborators are currently in the process of writing act two, and the collective is looking for residencies where it can perform and workshop it further in hopes of eventually touring with the opera-ballet. In addition to seeking out performance opportunities, the situation has forced Afro House to consider a rebrand to both protect themselves and keep the community accessible.

“We’re considering what the whole rebrand of Afro House would look like and what the extent of that is going to be,” Patterson says. “We really feel like we’ve built a brand for ourselves with name Afro House, so what does that mean to shift and change the name? Not so much our identity, because that won’t change who we are, but what does it mean to change the name? It’s definitely something that we’re going to be doing simultaneously as we continue to develop the opera ballet.”

As Tyde-Courtney Edwards shifts her feet into first position, she closes her eyes. When she starts to feel familiar emotions creep in—doubt, shame, embarrassment—she glances down at her bare feet on the dance floor and then shuts her eyes again. With practiced precision, she slides her right leg out to the side and slowly peels her heel off the floor until all of the energy in her petite frame is concentrated in her perfectly pointed foot. Her mind is now quiet; there is no room in her thoughts for anything beyond her next movement.

As she eases her foot back into first position to complete her tendu demonstration, she opens her eyes to see 15 women and one man looking back at her expectantly, nervously shuffling into place. She cracks a wide smile and guides her students through their first exercise of the night.

When she calls out her signature line—“Suck in the guts and squeeze the butts!”—and hears laughter echoing around the Mt. Vernon studio, she remembers why it was worth all the work of rebuilding herself. And now, through Ballet After Dark, her ballet-based workshop for sexual and domestic assault survivors, she’s hoping to help others become whole again, too.

“I don’t claim to have all of the answers, but I know some things that worked for me, and they might work for you, too,” she tells the class. “It all started with having to rediscover and re-fall in love with myself.”

“I had to be smart about how I was going to make my dreams happen, but I was getting there.”

Ballet was Edwards’ first love. She started taking classes at the age of 3 and decided to become a professional dancer the day she received her high-school acceptance letter into the dance program at the Baltimore School for the Arts.

At BSA, she worked her way through the rigorous curriculum, finding her strengths in quick, sharp movements at the ballet barre, as well as slow, drawn-out adagio work that always made her feel powerful. She felt captivated by the quiet control she had over her body while mastering a new exercise or combination. During certain sections of class, she often found herself smiling, “because I was so happy,” she says today.

After graduating from the program in 2005, Edwards spent the next several years working temporary jobs around Baltimore to support her frequent trips to Philadelphia and New York City for dance auditions. Between stints as a Baltimore City police cadet, a Comcast salesperson, and a manager at a Westminster doctor’s ofice, Edwards trained with the Peabody Conservatory, the Joffrey Ballet, and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. She performed in music videos and graced the stage in multiple productions with the Maryland Ballet Theatre in Annapolis.

“Being a freelance dancer was such a hustle and a grind,” she recalls. “I had to be smart about how I was going to make my dreams happen, but I was getting there.”

That hard work would eventually pay off, when by the end of October 2012, Edwards was invited to audition for the renowned Bloc Talent Agency in New York City. She was feeling especially hopeful, as her boyfriend had also just proposed.

But then one night, less than a week before her audition, Edwards was reaching into the trunk of her car outside of her Howard County apartment when an unknown man came up behind her and hit her over the head.

“I went through phases where I wished he would’ve just killed me instead of having to go through this.”

Though she was barely conscious, Edwards felt herself being dragged behind the building and into the woods, where the stranger beat, raped, robbed, urinated on, and spit on her before fleeing the scene. The next time she opened her eyes, there was light peeking through the trees. Her arms were covered in scrapes, and sections of her hair were matted with mud. “The first thing I felt when I came to was shame and embarrassment,” she says.

With Edwards in a state of shock, her mother called an ambulance from that same parking lot to transport her to Howard County General Hospital. She then went to the police department, where she reported the attack and answered hours-worth of questions. She completed a rape kit and submitted all of her belongings—including her coat, tennis shoes, and empty purse—into evidence. But as she moved through each step, she couldn’t shake the grumbling comments she overheard from the officers during her ambulance ride—that they didn’t feel like dealing with all of the paperwork this would mandate, as she recalls.

By the time Edwards learned that her case was being handled as a robbery, the rest of her life had already started to unravel: her family expected her to move on within a matter of days; her fiancé stopped returning her calls. Shortly thereafter, she discovered she was pregnant as a result of the rape and had an abortion, crying to herself on the way home alone. The police department’s robbery detectives didn’t respond to her requests for updates on the case, leaving her overwhelmed with anger—both at them and with herself. She started drinking heavily and using drugs as means of coping with her trauma, and that winter, she hit her breaking point and checked herself into the psychiatric ward of the Howard County General Hospital.

After two weeks, she moved back into her mother’s home and spent the next eight months dealing with depression and agoraphobia, which developed after the attack. Terrified to leave the house, she avoided mirrors, showering, and any form of physical contact. “I went through phases where I wished that he would’ve just killed me instead of having to go through this,” she says. “That was very, very tough.”

Eventually, with a recommendation from a Howard County General nurse, Edwards started visiting TurnAround Inc., a counseling and service provider in Towson for victims of sexual assault and domestic violence. Working with a counselor there, along with weekly one-on-one and group therapy sessions, helped her navigate her emotions in a way she had not yet been able to. But Edwards still felt distant from her own body. She had dedicated her life to learning how to control her form through every leap, turn, and stretch, but the abuse and its aftermath broke the connection.

Finally determined to reclaim her body—and life—she stepped back into the dance studio for the first time since the attack. “I thought getting back into the studio would cure me,” she says. “I needed something to think about and focus on other than what
happened to me.”

Her worries about having to answer questions from classmates about her hiatus faded away once the music started. “When you’re in the studio, it’s okay to be so focused that you don’t talk to anyone,” she says. “Everyone is just there to dance, and I needed to feel that again.”

She gradually increased her studio time to multiple classes per week, slowly but surely relearning how to let people into her personal space, allowing her teachers to correct her hips during a battement kick or adjust her arm in an arabesque.

“Ballet was the only thing I could do outside of traditional therapy that made me feel like I was on the way to becoming myself again,” she says. “Getting stronger through the physical movement of dance therapy is what saved me.”

Years into her healing process, Edwards still found herself frustrated by the lack of recovery resources for trauma survivors. Therapy had helped her mental health, and ballet had improved her physical well-being, but she felt a desire to create a new alternative practice—one that would strengthen survivors through a mix of physical, mental, and spiritual healing.

“I knew I could use ballet as a tool of empowerment when it came to restoring feelings of grace and elegance in women who had suffered horrible traumas,” she says. “There are people who prefer to move rather than talk, and I understood that.”

So in May 2015, Edwards launched Ballet After Dark, a ballet-based fitness program that includes a self-care workshop for sexual and domestic assault survivors called “Reprocess. Rebuild. Reclaim Your Life.” The three-hour program begins with physical fundamentals, focusing on strength training and gentle ballet movements for any body type, skill level, or gender. (While the workshops are predominantly made up of women, male participants are welcome, too.) Edwards and a licensed mental health professional then lead the class through empowerment exercises such as daily mantras and self-care techniques, and facilitate open discussions about therapy and personal healing journeys. The workshop closes with a guided meditation for attendees to incorporate into their everyday lives.

“As women, we tend to carry the weight of the world on our shoulders, and we often forget to create spaces for ourselves,” Edwards says. “We need more opportunities to escape from reality and have conversations that don’t revolve around pain.”

Since the first class nearly four years ago, Ballet After Dark has gained a loyal following of both trauma survivors and aspiring dancers looking for an intimidation-free way to learn ballet. After an overwhelming number of requests to bring the restorative workshop to other states, Edwards will take her program on the road this spring to one-day events in Atlanta, Charlotte, and Chicago.

The practice has also caught the attention of independent filmmakers Ayana Barber and Brittany Fennell, who have created a documentary about Ballet After Dark that will be shown at the Tribeca Film Festival this April. The film was selected as one of the first projects produced by The Queen Collective, an initiative by Procter & Gamble and actress Queen Latifah’s production company, Flavor Unit.

While she’s humbled by the program’s popularity, Edwards’ motivation comes from her students, like Maria Roxbury, who has been a regular since the inaugural workshop.

Roxbury says she discovered the program while she was caretaking for her mother-in-law and needed an outlet to focus on herself. She left her first class feeling empowered, and over time, she wrote a poem to thank Edwards, who hung it on her refrigerator as a reminder of her purpose.

“She has helped put me back on solid ground,” says Roxbury.

“We need more opportunities to . . . have conversations that don’t revolve around pain

From her place at the front of the dance studio, Edwards leads attendees through an end-of-session discussion on how to push through hardships and setbacks as part of the recovery process.

“It’s important for me to have a family, a sisterhood, and a collective of people that I can heal and grow with,” Edwards tells the class, crediting helping other survivors for keeping her afloat. “And that’s why I’m grateful for you all.”

As the workshop ends and classmates shrug on their coats, give goodbye hugs, and head off to their evening plans, Edwards is still full of energy. Smiling to herself, she pulls a black knit sweater over her sports bra and heads out into the lobby to mingle with her regulars.

Spontaneously, they break out in a rendition of the theme song from Living Single, the ’90s sitcom starring Queen Latifah herself. Edwards grooves to the beat as they sing in unison, “Whenever this life gets tough, you gotta fight/with my homegirls standing to my left and my right. . .”

Although her case is still open, Edwards now feels confident that she can dance through whatever the next chapter of her life brings. As another workshop comes to a close, she’s standing tall and unafraid as she walks out into the night.

“I’m still becoming the woman that I’m supposed to be,” she says. “I don’t know who she is yet, but I know I’m on my way.”

A year after leaving the prestigious Washington Ballet, Rebecca Houseknecht still dances. But the symphonic sounds of ballet have been replaced by the driving beats of the 14-time national champion Towson University dance team.

The Middle River native capped off her meteoric rise as a ballet student when she competed at the 2010 Youth America Grand Prix, the world’s largest ballet competition. The contest was chronicled in the recent film documentary First Position, and Houseknecht was one of seven dancers featured in the movie. Being a big part of the documentary was fun, she says, but the glare of the spotlight wasn’t really comfortable for her.

“The other kids in the movie were totally dedicated to ballet, but I think I was picked to be a part of it partly because I had a life outside of dance,” she says. “I think the other dancers were more comfortable than I was being followed by the cameras.”

After the Grand Prix, she was offered a position with The Washington Ballet’s studio company, which offers young dancers a taste of the ballet world. She eagerly accepted. But after just a few months, the reality of life as a professional dancer set in. The now 20-year-old sophomore quickly realized the total commitment that would be required to dance at that level.

“If you’re not willing to give up everything for it, it’s not for you,” she says. “I didn’t like it. It was too much like work.”

Now a health-care management major at Towson, she is having a ball with the university’s dance squad, which got to compete in a national competition in Daytona Beach, FL.

“It’s so different,” she says. “It was so cool to go on an outside stage in front of thousands of people and perform with your team. It was definitely a bigger adrenaline rush than ballet.”