Article April 23, 2001 Issue

A PASSION FOR DANCE

By Haley Henderson

Haley Henderson, a 17-year-old from Oxnard, California, has danced in the summer ballet programs of prestigious companies like Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle, Washington, and American Ballet Theater in New York City. This is an article she did for the magazine The Herald of Christian Science, just a few days before she sped off to Denmark. That's where she's spending a year as an apprentice with the Royal Danish Ballet.

I was always interested in ballet as a child. My mom found a wonderful teacher for me and my sister in our small hometown. We started dancing and taking more and more classes, until I was dancing six days a week and having at least two classes a day. By the age of ten, I knew that this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

The competition is a hard thing to handle when you're so young. I had to deal with other students who directed their jealousy or hate toward me. There were different things that helped me to pray about this. For example, this: "No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn" (Isa. 54:17). And this: "Clad in the panoply of Love, human hatred cannot reach you" (Science and Health, p. 571). To me, these passages said that I was protected from jealousy and hate by feeling and expressing the love of God toward the other dancers. And I think those girls may have begun to see we couldn't be competing for the same spot, because there isn't only one spot. There's a place for all of us. I still have to remind myself of that, and to know that it's because God loves everyone equally.