This video popped up one day in my youtube suggestions and I’ve been hooked on this ballet dancer ever since, following her video log diligently every day, checking out what’s she’s been up to.
What grabbed my attention about Joy Womack was not so much her ballet skills (even though quite impressive), because in this video she’s still only 16 years old, still in training; it was her perseverance and sheer passion. I don’t know many Americans who would, in their right minds, leave the paradise that is the USA (especially when they are still kids essentially) and go and make a life for themselves on the other side of the world in Russia, a country so different in every single respect. Joy Womack did it out of her immense passion for Russian ballet and that I cannot but respect.
She went there, learnt the language (and what a difficult language) and at the tender age of 15 she tried to survive in a very conservative country that I bet must have been somehow put off by an American showing up and stealing the show, so to speak. But she fought her way into this difficult country and into this competitive field and, see her now, she’s a principal dancer at the Kremlin Ballet Theater in Moscow! And she’s still diligent, working harder it seems to me than all the rest (maybe because she still in a way needs to prove herself in a country that is not her own), creating her own business (the Prima Bar), doing her daily video blogs (personally, I think they are her way of connecting with a world outside of Russia and a way of maintaining her humanity), roaming the world dancing and teaching.
I really look up to her and I am, what, almost 20 years her senior. I guess I have huge respect and admiration for people who pursue their dreams against all odds and who never rest on their laurels, but continue to work hard at what they do in an effort to constantly create a better version of themselves.
I wish Joy great things in the future. And maybe one day I get to see her perform live.
