Ballerina Jennifer Welch Cudnik is enthusiastic about Saint Louis Ballet's Innovation Series, which runs March 7 to 8 at Washington University's Edison Theatre. "There are no stories, no narrative—it's just pure dance, like watching a moving painting," gushes the 31-year-old principal dancer.
The Florissant native and full-time ballet dancer and teacher is happy to dispel a few ballet myths. First of all, dancing en pointe hurts your toes, but not as much as you might think. "It is painful," she admits. (She should know, having studied dance at New York's prestigious School of American Ballet at age 15 and performed with the Pennsylvania Ballet before returning to St. Louis in 2003.) "You have to develop those muscles. Students get put en pointe at the age of 11 or 12. Eventually it gets easier, pain-wise. But even still, we get bloody toes sometimes."
So will dancing ballet for a couple of decades turn feet into misshapen stumps suitable for the Ripley's Believe It or Not! crowd? "My feet don't actually look that bad for dancer's feet," she says. "You know how a guitar player has calluses on their fingers? Well, our feet get pretty gross-looking. But I don't care. I wear flip-flops," she laughs.
Cudnik has no problem with tarsal vanities, but she is disturbed by the gender imbalance in her ballet classes: lotsa ladies, not many lads. "Bring me the boys!" she exhorts. "If guys would only go see the ballet, they would get it. You're around these gorgeous girls, and you get to partner with them. It's a no-brainer."
One word, Ms. Cudnik: tutus.
"I don't think there's anything funny about wearing a tutu," the ballerina says gravely. "It's fabulous."
