My name is Collins Coffey and my dream is to become a professional ballerina. Through the wonderful training of Ann Brodie’s Carolina Ballet I am almost there, but at the age of 17 it is time to join a school connected with a professional company. That is why I am incredibly happy to announce that I was accepted into the Royal Winnipeg Ballet Professional Division.

However, dancing in such a prestigious school - internationally - comes with great cost. The total cost for tuition and boarding is $24,841, and the deadline to confirm my spot in the school is August 10th. Additionally, travel fees are expensive at around $1,000 per international flight, and we still have to pay for the day-to-day necessities of ballet life, including at least $1,500 a year for pointe shoes.

So I’m hoping to find some help to make this affordable for my family, either through donations of funds or the basic necessities that I have on this Amazon wishlist: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/dl/invite/Nn-oXLQl4Ja6pxpnokNIeq_mAMe7bQgmYYAe6TgH5SVc3plmJ_ZTMmNA5WhoiwQu-VVNYzFNtBPhTJ4sNNLyFf5BWccZTmZ8xuJS7BY?ref_=wl_share

I realize that I am asking for an incredibly large amount of money, but do not think that I do so lightly. I only have one option as an immigrant for a job in Winnipeg -which I plan to join a waitlist for- but the slots for that job are already full. I am also using many connections to explore getting a sponsor or a grant but have been unsuccessful thus far.

Therefore, please understand that I am eternally thankful for any contributions you are able to make, as it seems this is the only way I can get these funds. If I do not meet my goal, I will use that money for ballet at my home studio or anywhere else I am invited to train.

This chance to share the art of dance on stages in Canada is a dream come true for me, and I am willing to do things in exchange for you helping me reach that dream, such as by giving free online ballet or academic tutoring lessons to a child that you care for, which would also allow me to give back to the community apart from giving performances. If you know anybody that may be interested in helping me, please direct them to this page, and again, thank you so much for your consideration.

My twin and I started dancing at Celestial Stars when we were three years old. It makes sense that I learned to read and dance at the same time, given how ballet and academics have remained my overarching passions. I was seven and getting lost in the magical world of Harry Potter at about the same time my sisters and I were dancing in the magical world of the Christmas Angel, and the creativity and excitement of one was always able to further the other. One Fall it was too difficult to make the drive to the ballet studio with our schedules, but we still saw their winter performance. I was inconsolable the entire time, finding it unimaginable that I was not up there, on the stage, dancing my heart out. Needless to say, my twin and I were back in the ballet studio come Spring.

That incident helped my mom realize how serious my twin and I were about ballet, so she enrolled us in the USC Conservatory of Dance. It was hard going from dancing more for fun to dancing in a strict, technical environment. However, challenges in dance have never scared me so much as they have spurred me on. I was determined to become a better dancer, and when that conservatory closed, of course my twin and I went to another serious studio, which we have remained at until now. When I go to Winnipeg, Carolyn will remain at Ann Brodie’s, and my other sister Devin is in college. The discipline of learning ballet at Ann Brodie’s Carolina Ballet has never lessened the exhilarating fun of dancing in the Nutcracker, Coppelia, Cinderella, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Giselle, and the Shakespeare Trilogy, among the numerous other performing opportunities given to us by Ann Brodie’s. I will never forget when I was the Winter Fairy in Cinderella, which was my first solo role and my first partnering role. Nothing was more exhilarating than stepping on stage to perform my variation and realizing that everyone was there to watch me- to be entertained by me! So I made it entertaining. I danced my heart out using every part of my body from my face to my feet, and I have never looked back. That was when I realized that I wanted to dance forever.

Okay, that’s a lie, the feeling was always there. But that performance in 8th grade was still a huge wake up call for me: I realized that I wanted to dance professionally, despite my love of medicine, despite the low pay and competition and job insecurity. I was willing to take the risk so long as I could dance like that in front of large audiences and playing my favorite roles.

So, I “locked in.” I was always a hard worker, insisting on applying every correction so thoroughly that my next correction was often to “do less.” But finally, I had a reason. The next step was to dance as much as possible, which I was already on track to do when my twin and I began middle school and stopped doing soccer, Girl Scouts, theatre, etc so that we could take more dance classes. What I most recently gave up was playing the cello, which I had studied for ten years. But ballet held my heart, and every other activity was allowed to fade away -aside from school, which my family always views with the utmost importance.

I started dancing in competitions and going to summer intensives, the first being Boston Ballet with Carolyn. I found it fun, but I wanted something that would push my technique more, so we attended CPYB the next year, and finally felt an acceleration in my ability to improve as a dancer. The year after that I first went to Oklahoma University’s summer intensives per request of my mother and expanded my knowledge of modern Horton technique greatly. From there I attended American Ballet Theatre’s summer intensive, which made me fall in love with large companies with classical repertoire like ABT and living in a big city like New York. Carolyn attended Complexions, Dutch National, and Tulsa Ballet.

This past summer we got to go to Tulsa Ballet’s summer intensive, which made me realize that I would like to dance in a company with fewer dancers too so long as it has the repertoire that I love and is well endowed.

From Tulsa I went straight to the Royal Winnipeg Ballet summer session with a full room and board scholarship awarded at Universal Ballet Competition. I absolutely loved their innovative approach to gentle but effective and encouraging teaching, which is an innovative new approach to ballet that I want to support. They also have a wonderful repertoire, and I got the opportunity to watch their company rehearse, and the cooperation and creativity in the studio was incredible to witness, making me hope to work with the company as I progress as a student. I also love that they have opportunities to choreograph that can result in winning scholarships. Royal Winnipeg also has great connections worldwide, such as being able to send a student to Prix de Lausanne each year. I especially appreciated how well they took care of me as a celiac in the dorms, always preparing a meal that prevented me from getting sick. That intensive is where I learned that I was accepted into the year-round program.

From Winnipeg, I flew right to New York City to attend John Cranko School’s summer intensive alongside Carolyn, which I was particularly excited for because John Cranko is a very prestigious German Vaganova school.

As for competitions, while I love dancing by myself even more than I love dancing in a group, competition made me realize that I prefer to dance for the beauty and freedom of the movement, not to prove or win something.

For the future, I hope to be promoted over the years in Royal Winnipeg Ballet school so that I can complete my traineeship there. From RWB I should be capable of getting into a company or second company that I am interested in and start my professional career. As a professional I want to perform new, more contemporary works like those created for Royal Winnipeg, as well as perform classical ballets that I love, especially Giselle and Swan Lake.

I hope to, as a professional or after retirement, visit South Carolina ballet schools such as Ann Brodie’s so that I can teach them what I have learned in Canada to give back to the communities that raised me. I love to teach, and while I do not want to make it my profession, it would be such a treat to spread the passion and wisdom of ballet where it was first given to me at Ann Brodie’s.

While dancing I intend to complete my pre-med college courses so that upon retirement from ballet I can go to medical school and start my second career as a gastroenterologist. As a gastroenterologist I hope to help people with stomach issues such as my entire family and the arts community. I want to help dancers understand their gut health so that they can be at their full potential, rather than constantly battling a pain ambiguously labeled “Irritable Bowel Syndrome.” But that is all for the future.

For now, my intention is to improve as a dancer and set this future in motion, for which I need your help so that I can attend the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School.