It’s the summer before her senior year and Lila Tallman ‘24 is studying ballet in Arizona at a summer intensive. Before she knows it, that experience will lead her to move across the country to pursue her dance education.
“This last summer I went to a summer intensive [at the School of Ballet Tucson in Arizona which is where] you go away for like a month,” Tallman said. “So basically, they asked if I wanted to come back for the fall semester and I was like ‘Oh, I kind of just want to go back to school [and] just get settled in in the fall, stay for like one last fall, go to homecoming, all that stuff. And then I’ll see about in the winter.’”
There were other factors to Tallman’s decision to move or not including her job and finishing her schooling at City High.
“Then I was thinking I also have a job at Petland here, too. But other than that, I was like ‘Well, I think I can move away from my home studio here like I’m gonna be okay because I’m gonna go [to Arizona] for college anyway’,” Tallman said. “[Then it was like] so let’s just go a little bit earlier. I’m wrapping up with school, I can do it online. So yeah, and then they were just like ‘Yeah, you can come down for the winter if you want’. And that’s what I’m doing now. It’s basically the same place I trained for the summer but it’s like a year-round training program. And then after that I’ll go to University of Arizona. I’m going to major in business and then possibly double major in dance or minor in dance.”
Tallman began dancing after seeing a friend dance in the annual Nutcracker production put on by Nolte Academy.
“I first saw my friend Shay [who’s] also a senior here. She was in the Nutcracker. It was like a school show,” Tallman said, “All the second graders went and so I saw her do that. And I decided that next year, I would audition for The Nutcracker and start dance. I started to dance like that last summer after seeing her in the winter.”
Starting out attending dance competitions focused on Tap, Modern, and Jazz styles, Tallman pivoted to focusing mostly on ballet.
“I decided to move just to ballet, focus more on ballet,” Tallman said. “It’s not that I didn’t prefer the [other styles of dance] but it was more just like the competitions like in Iowa were more focused on like winning awards than dancing and just performing.”
Tallman’s time dancing has given her many opportunities including chances to study ballet in cool places and performing numerous times in ballets like the Nutcracker.
“[Some of the opportunities I’ve gotten through dance are] summer intensives which are when you go away for like a few months at a time, and you get to meet new people, you get to train with new teachers in a new place, and also just like explore wherever you go to. I went to Denmark, I went to Florida, and I just got to meet a lot of new people that also love dancing,” Tallman said. “Last year, we went to YGP which is like a competition for ballet and I got top 24 of all the classical seniors in Kansas. That was so cool.”
Tallman believes that dance has changed her life in many ways.
“I would say [dance has] changed my life because I’ve met a lot of people through it. And it’s kind of changed like my focus around school and stuff because I was never really involved in sports through city or anything like that because I’m always at dance,” Tallman said. “So like, I guess my main friends kind of come from there because I’m always hanging out there but it’s then also hard to keep on top of all your school and stuff while being [at dance] all the time.”
To train for any type of dance requires lots of time and discipline, and regular school hours can be a barrier to getting that training.
“I feel like it was hardest freshman through sophomore year. But like it was easier I’d say last year and this year just because I loaded my schedule like freshman and sophomore year. So it was just a lot more classes but then because I loaded it those years I can take less this year so it’s a lot easier to dance more,” Tallman said. “Freshman year since we were online, I would go to the studios in the morning and then I would do school in the afternoon. And then sophomore year I would go like all night [because] I’d be at school all day. Junior year same thing I’d be at school all day. This year I’m doing mostly kirkwood online classes so I’m not really coming here very much.”
One of Tallman’s issues with the traditional school system was their handling of her PE credits and attendance.
“I would say with PE it would be kind of like if you’re doing sports here at City it would be like ‘oh, you’re in athletics you don’t need to do PE’. But I’ve had to get doctor’s notes because I was dealing with injuries and stuff and like take time out of school for competitions and then get my doctor or my PT to sign off on all these letters. And sometimes it’s hard to miss a lot of school if like the school isn’t thinking it’s actual school-related curriculum,” Tallman said.
One of Tallman’s biggest role models in dance has inspired her next steps in life.
“One of my biggest inspirations is Leslie Nolte who founded Nolte and the James Theatre, and she’s doing a bunch of big things with like business and dance. So I think that would be really cool to do somewhere or just do anything related to like marketing, social media, ticketing for a big ballet company, or something like that,” Tallman said.
