Turning Positivity into Perfect Pirouettes: High Point Ballet
A ballerina is more than a pair of pointe shoes twirling under stage lights. Behind a ballerina’s graceful performance and dazzling poise is a labor of love, crafted through years of dedication, discipline, athleticism, and most importantly, mentorship. Luckily, High Point’s aspiring dancers have incredibly devoted instructors like Rita and Gary Taylor. Rita, the founder of High Point Ballet, and Gary, the studio’s artistic director and choreographer, have learned through decades of their own combined experience in dance that it takes an extraordinary amount of hard work to make ballet look so effortless.
Rita, before founding the studio in 1979, spent the formative years of her childhood sampling dance studios across the country, moving whenever her father’s military commitments required. Across 11 states, her mother sought out the dance communities whenever they moved.
“I saw the first time, a production of The Nutcracker when I was seven years old,” Rita says. “And when I saw the snow scene, it inspired me to dance forever. It's funny, you don't think that young people can make those decisions, but it was a turning point in my life when I saw that snow falling. It was such an inspiration for me that became my life's mission.”
Her ambitions have come to fruition, as High Point Ballet has been a non-profit, pre-professional company since 1987, and dancers from all over the city have found their passion for dance supported by Rita and Gary ever since.
Gary grew up here in High Point, where he would eventually meet Rita and join High Point Ballet. However, his childhood relationship with dance looked much different from Rita’s–he had none. Until, as fate would have it, The Nutcracker drew him into the world of ballet too. Gary’s athleticism led him to trying out sport after sport until high school, when he was asked to join his high school’s production of The Nutcracker in his senior year.
“It opened up my eyes to this whole new world I didn't realize there was,” Gary reflects. “The Nutcracker is what kind of flipped my life there. I was supposed to go into the military, but decided not to, and started dancing. So, my parents thought I'd lost it.”
Gary went on to graduate from North Carolina School of the Arts, freelancing dance for 16 years before he found his way back to High Point, and to Rita, who would become his wife. His talent is currently a source of inspiration for the next generation of dancers through his choreography and instruction.
Together, teaching at High Point Ballet, the Taylors help aspiring dancers understand that athleticism is art. Even standing in wait, a ballerina’s body is taut with each muscle working to hold a seemingly effortless stance. As Gary describes, hundreds of hours go into a single production, all to show an audience something that looks completely natural.
“It’s the illusion of dance,” he says. He describes that “when you see someone just standing there, they’re actually churning with kinetic energy.”
So how do Gary and Rita teach extreme athleticism and unwavering grace? To these mentors, dance is taught through positivity and community. With a growth-based framework and a constructive environment, dancers can take leaps of faith based on their aspirations, rather than fear of critique. When a dancer struggles to learn a new technique, they look to their teachers for guidance and careful training.
“Everything is taken from a standpoint of how to make it better. It's their experience, not ours. We've already done it. We want them to have the experience and grow from it,” Rita says.
The power of positivity pays off for High Point Ballet. In the 44 years of dance that Rita has overseen, she has never felt a dancer did not achieve what they set their minds to. Success has come to the studio in many forms.
“I think that if you want something, you can accomplish it in a way that will make you happy,” Rita says. “We know that building a dancer is going to take 10 years. We're not in any hurry.”
Having a philosophy of patience coupled with a positive outlook has been High Point Ballet’s recipe for creating more than just amazing dancers; they foster amazing members of our community too. In an artform that has distinct skill levels, where the front and center of the stage is saved for the most precisely skilled dancers, you might assume that ballet would foster a sense of competition, each dancer vying for the spotlight. But Rita and Gary create an environment of collaboration instead. Each dancer competes, not with one another, but to be a better version of themselves.
Rita says that “in reality, our dancers feel competitive within. How can I get better? How can I work with my coach, with my teacher? How can I work with the ballet master?”
As the best version of themselves, able to perfect their own parts in a performance, the dancers inherently become a better ensemble. Each dancer can have the ambition to be a star on stage, knowing that if they’re all stars, they will perform as a constellation.
“The dancers know that the stronger that I am as an individual, the better the piece will look, the better the group is going to look. They have their responsibility and each one of them is holding each other up in performance,” Rita says.
The breadth of High Point Ballet’s style and instruction allows any myriad of future careers. Rita and Gary make sure to incorporate styles of dance, such as Ballroom, Fosse, and Celtic into otherwise classical training, so that their students get a broader understanding of the world of dance. And dance isn’t just a method to create professional dancers. It’s a surprisingly broad vocation, which can lead individuals to all kinds of bright futures, like sitting with perfectly professional posture and inspiring a sense of leadership and self-motivated confidence in whatever career comes after dance. As teachers, the Taylors have seen their students go on to dance in prestigious university programs, perform as Broadway dancers, or become successful corporate leaders. Regardless of the paths their students take, they want to leave their students with a sense of joy and fulfillment in their dance careers.
For those who prefer to enjoy dance from the audience rather than the stage, High Point Ballet is a welcoming cornerstone of the High Point community. Their season rotates from their Nutcracker, a Christmas holiday staple, to a unique and changing spring program, produced by Gary’s creative choreography.
Whether you’ve seen a million dance performances, or none at all, High Point Ballet has audience accessibility in mind. Gary’s choreography is carefully crafted with each audience member in mind, regardless of their personal knowledge of performing arts. His mentorship throughout his dance career has taught him the importance of welcoming audiences from all backgrounds.
For those who want to devote themselves to ballet, and explore the world of dance, Rita and Gary Taylor are always ready for the next cohort of students. For those in need of storytelling that looks like breathtaking leaps and turns, mark your calendar for the next High Point Ballet performance.
Recalling his mentor’s advice, Gary says, “You have to understand that if a kindergartner cannot understand what you're doing, then you haven't done your job making the performance accessible. Now that seems minimalistic, but within every one of us as a child learning something for the first time, if you're not used to coming into the theater. That's the foundation of what I do.”
"Dance is a language. It’s another way of telling a story that we can’t say in words.”
Rita Taylor, founder of High Point Ballet
Rita and Gary see dance performance as an outlet for storytelling, which gives High Point Ballet its timeless quality. Dance is culturally embedded in being human.
As Rita says, “I think dance is always going to be here because it is a part of life, whether we’re dancing socially as toddlers, or at a high level of ballet. It’s such a beautiful way to express emotion. Dance is a language. It’s another way of telling a story that we can’t say in words.”
Discover our High Points,
The HPD Team