Kale Lazarick was close to his dream of becoming a ballet dancer at the Alberta Ballet when they offered him a job, but COVID-19 has made it impossible for him to work.
Lazarick began his first ballet classes at age nine, and at the time, he did not think he would pursue dancing as a career. He believed it would be something he would do for fun, but fell madly in love with dance as time passed. Now he can’t imagine what it would be like not to spin and leap across the stage.
Lazarick says ballet has molded his entire personality and helped him create a strong sense of discipline in his life. He also notices that it has made him a skilled artist and gifted him with a high self-esteem.
“It’s basically made me exactly who I am,” he said.
When the news of the pandemic hit, Lazarick was studying in Stockholm at the Royal Swedish Ballet School. He was hoping to land a career there, but the virus forced him back to Calgary with only three months of school left.
While isolating, Lazarick tried to continue his training online, but the time difference between Sweden and Calgary forced him to dance at odd hours.
“I couldn’t do classes at four in the morning every single day.”
With nowhere to practice, he began to worry about his future. It is already difficult for a ballet dancer to find work, and the pandemic was making it next to impossible.
Kate McDonald, Lazarick’s friend and classmate at Alberta Ballet, also lost many opportunities to find work because of the pandemic.
“I actually didn’t get to do any auditions at all,” McDonald said. “Most of them have been shut down due to COVID.”
Fortunately, Lazarick had auditioned to be a company dancer for Alberta Ballet when he was in Calgary during Christmas of 2019. He was offered the job weeks after he arrived back to Canada from Sweden. He was euphoric that he could finally do what he loves and be paid for it.
But as the pandemic worsened, Lazarick realized that his luck was going to be turned upside down. He was told that he could not begin his career because of the pandemic. He would have to wait until safer times.
“It’s like I can reach it, but I can’t touch it,” Lazarick said. “Even though I got the job, it wasn’t like I did. Instead, they couldn’t hire me because of the virus, and they terminated my contract until they could re-hire me again.”
Lazarick was worried he wouldn’t have a place to continue practicing his skills, but Alberta Ballet offered him a place in their classes. They wanted to take care of him through these difficult times because he has been dancing with their school since he was 10-years-old.
“I wouldn’t know what to do if I wasn’t at school right now, so I’m very lucky that they gave me a place to dance,” said Lazarick.
“I just love to dance. I don’t care if I have the smallest, shortest role as long as I can be on stage.”
Kale lazarick, dancer at alberta ballet
McDonald agreed Alberta Ballet has been there for their dancers through these unprecedented times. She doesn’t know how she could have properly practiced and continued to develop her skills if they had not been there to give her what she needed.
“Alberta Ballet has definitely helped me because we’re actually allowed to go into the studio and train with the teachers,” said McDonald.
Lazarick is looking forward to a post-COVID world where he can dance on stage again. He is excited to begin working with the company of Alberta Ballet so he can officially say that his career as a professional dancer has begun.
“Some people want to be the best and to rise up in the ranks and maybe I will too, but I just love to dance. I don’t care if I have the smallest, shortest role as long as I can be on stage.”
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
We would love for you to republish our student work!
Just scroll down to copy and paste the code of our article into your CMS. The codes for images, graphics and other embeddable elements may not transfer exactly as they appear on our site. It's free! We only ask that you follow some simple guidelines when doing so:-
You've gotta credit us. In the byline, we prefer “Author Name, Calgary Journal.” At the top of the story, include a line that reads: “This story was originally published by the Calgary Journal.”
-
If you’re republishing online, you must link to the URL of the original story on calgaryjournal.ca.
-
You can’t edit our material, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style. (For example, “yesterday” can be changed to “last week,” and “Abbotsford, B.C.” to “Abbotsford” or “here.”)
-
You cannot republish our photographs or illustrations without specific permission. Please contact managing damclean@mtroyal.ca for more information.
-
Any website our stories appear on must include a prominent way to contact you.
-
If you share the story on social media, we’d appreciate a shout-out @CalgaryJournal (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram)
- If we send a request to change or remove Calgary Journal content on your site, you must agree to do so immediately.
This policy was adapted from ProPublica and Wisconsin Watch.
If you have any other questions, contact our managing editor Archie McLean at damclean@mtroyal.ca