(75) Elizabeth Claire Walker, Los Angeles Ballet Soloist and Harvard Graduate

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This week on the podcast we are tackling a subject that we find of immense interest to students and parents in our travels to schools across the country: does having a career in ballet mean forgoing college?  Our guest this week is a Harvard Graduate and an Los Angeles Ballet Soloist who shows that it’s possible to do both.  This week we talk with Elizabeth Claire Walker, who always dreamed of a career in ballet, and had parents who strongly valued her education.  She trained as a teenager at American Ballet Theatre’s Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School.  After being accepted at Harvard, she pushed on with her ballet career, attending company auditions and being discovered by Los Angeles Ballet in their inagural season.  Liz defered college and headed to LA to start her career.  An experimental summer-school stint in Cambridge in 2007 made Walker fall in love with Harvard and gave her the push she needed to pursue her degree. She continued dancing while attending college, suffering an injury that made her hesitant to re-enter the world of professional ballet so soon.  After graduating, she was re-hired at LA Ballet, and was recently promoted to soloist.  We talk with Liz as a part of our time at the Vail Dance Festival in August of last year.  We have such an enlightening talk with Liz that we truely reccommend for all parents with children who wish to pursue a career in ballet.