Paige Nyman started ballet when she was three years old. She loved it from the very beginning. “We have videos of me, a militant four year old, marching around in a tutu having the time of my life,” she said, laughing.
Now, Ms. Nyman has been with the Texas Ballet Theater for 15 years, and started performing principal roles in 2018 for “Cinderella.” She loves working for the company because of its strong sense of community. “The world of ballet has the potential to be a divisive environment—there’s pressure, pain, and sweat. But we encourage each other, and we are excited when other people receive opportunities,” she said. She also loves the dramatic artistry of the ballets directed by Ben Stevenson: “He’s an amazing storyteller and his ballets are some of the best I’ve ever seen.”
American Essence spoke to Ms. Nyman about Cinderella’s diet, her pre-performance prayer, a pair of sentimental (and extra sparkly) stage earrings, and her most special moments on stage.
I like to be at the theater about an hour before our morning class starts. That gives me time to prepare shoes and settle in for the day. Then class warm-up starts: stretching and stabilizing exercises. We start with big muscle groups and move toward more particular things. Then we have ballet class, which is standard every day.
We usually do two shows, so the class feeds pretty quickly into the matinée show. I usually like to talk to my partners and figure some things out before the show, and then we get ready: hair, makeup, costuming, hydration, snacks. Then the curtain goes up!
Post-show, depending on how long the ballet is, there are usually about two hours before you need to start getting ready for the next show. We’re often on stage for six hours a day.
Mondays are our “dark days.” That’s the day you grocery shop, do meal prep, whatever you need to do.
I love Clif bars—those are such a nice energy hit. I usually wait until the end of a show to eat something. By the time your adrenaline is going, hydration is more important than food.
Post-performance and on dark days, that’s when you get the curry, the fajitas. That’s when I eat onions! I love Thai food.
I also love a twist where you lay on the ground and send your knees one direction and your upper body the other direction. My arms are out in a T shape, but I drop my opposite shoulder down to the ground to create a greater sense of spiral. That one gets all the way through your spine and the sides of your legs. For anyone with sciatic problems, that is such a good one.
I also do a lot of visualization. Because we work so much in a regular space where there are mirrors and normal lighting, a transition to the stage is sometimes disorienting. So I like to see myself on stage through my own eyes. That’s really hard; it takes a lot of energy, but it has really helped me to be calm on stage.
The morning of a performance is a lot of talking myself through the waiting process and trusting my preparation. I’m a praying person, and one of my prayers before I’m on stage is that not only will my work honor God, but also my response to my work will honor God. It’s really easy to respond in a negative fashion when things don’t go as expected.
I used to be much more militant about perfectionism. Making a switch from perfectionism to excellence has been really fundamental to me mentally. You can be really good at this, and yet you will never be perfect. There’s often so much grace given—everyone recognizes that we are human.
Ballet master Anna Donovan gave me that advice around 11 years ago and it’s had a profound impact on my work.
Water bottle: You’ve gotta have that on hand, pretty much all the time. I use an 18-ounce aqua Iron Flask.
I have a back wrap that helps support my core: SX Climax waist trainer belt, courtesy of Amazon.
Chocolate is very important. That’s got to be on hand too, in case I need a little pick-me-up. I love Dove dark chocolate!
Finally, I have this pair of sparkly earrings. They were given to me by a retired dancer. I would often borrow them from her, and when she retired, she gave them to me. They are an absolute staple of my performance routine: They are fun, sparkly, they do not fall out, I don’t have to worry about them. There’s a rosette that covers my lobe and then there’s another drop. In most of our full-length ballets, we have freedom to choose our own earrings.
This one show, they just left me; they didn’t drag me off stage. I did not know where to go—I went off the wrong wing, I was completely lost! They were off stage laughing so hard because they had left me! It was absolutely on purpose. From the way they tell it, I’d been getting more and more dramatic and so it was time to change things up.
Another time, my 4-year-old niece came to see “Cinderella,” and there’s a moment when I artistically run away from my partner and he comes after me and grabs my hand. My niece goes, “Oh, silly, silly Aunt Paige. She went the wrong way!”
My favorite moments on stage are the ones when I get to make eye contact with the other dancers. Those are really special moments because it’s our secret.
