By Ben
April 2026
Coming off the high of the Merry Widow production, where I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to perform in a full company member’s role, I launched into my daily classes with renewed intensity. The company’s next production of the season was Romeo and Juliet, where I had also been given a role in the first cast. The ballet had brought in a guest choreographer to create a world premiere, and I was excited to begin working on it.
Unfortunately, however, the last few months of intense training had taken a toll on my body, and while taking off for a jump that I’d done hundreds of times in my normal ballet class, I ended up breaking four of the five metatarsal bones in my foot. All of the doctors I spoke to were not completely sure how that could have happened from a jump takeoff; they had only seen this sort of injury in motorcycle accidents or high falls.
I had surgery to repair my misaligned metatarsals two weeks ago. I now have titanium screws and plates in three of my metatarsals (see photo below) and the plan is for them to stay in place permanently. While the exact recovery time is still to be determined, the doctors told me to expect to be mostly back to normal function by this summer.
As I’m writing this, I’m back in North Carolina, after coming home to have the surgery. I am slowly getting used to a dramatic change of pace. In my initial gap year proposal, I planned to primarily focus on ballet while also continuing to explore music composition. For the time being, my new plan is to focus on recovery. Though I am very disappointed to have to miss out on dancing in the spring productions, I hope to be healed enough to travel up to Philadelphia to see the show and support my friends. I’m also trying to take advantage of the opportunities available to me. For one, I’ve enjoyed getting to reconnect with my piano teacher and get back to regular lessons.
It’s also been nice to see many family members who I wasn’t able to see very much during my previous short breaks. For the previous two-thirds of the year, I was only able to come home for three and a half days at the beginning of January because The Nutcracker production ran all the way through the 31st. This surprise time has allowed me to reconnect with friends and family who I hadn’t been able to see since I left in August.
This injury was a significant setback to my plans, and I’m still trying to figure out how to make the best use of this newfound time. For the next few weeks I’m excited to continue to explore music composition and enjoy the time with my family.
