By JULIE CARLE
BG Independent News
Ragan Pooley started dancing in “Mommy and Me” classes when she was two-and-a-half years old.
She has studied tap, jazz, hip-hop and contemporary dance, but ballet is her heart and soul.
“When I started dancing, it was always ballet that I loved,” Ragan said. “I’d always have fun in jazz classes, but when I had to pick, I just loved ballet.”
She’s a very focused kid and always has been, her mother, Heather Pooley admitted.
She’s not afraid to put in the hours or get corrections from her instructors, all with the goal of eventually becoming a principal ballerina for a ballet company.
Principal ballerina dreams
Ragan knew early in her dancing career that she wanted to be a ballerina, a principal ballerina, to be exact.
Among the many dance style classes she took at Julie’s Dance Studio through the eighth grade, she loved the lessons and learned the fundamentals. But there was a fire within her that told her she was ready for the rigors of and intense focus on ballet.
She moved on from Julie’s Dance Studio after she auditioned and was accepted into the Toledo Ballet in 2023. The opportunity that caught her eye was for a part in the Toledo Ballet’s production of Cinderella.
“My mom suggested I audition and when I got in, I immediately loved it there,” Ragan said. With a laser focus on ballet, she went from spending 75 minutes a week on ballet to several hours of ballet training. It suited her just fine.
She also “got leveled” at the Toledo Ballet, Heather said, explaining the American Ballet Theatre training curriculum that uses a graded system of levels to assess and develop a dancer’s technique, strength, stamina and artistry.
“She was at a decent level when she started, and she’s moved her way up to the highest level,” her mother said. “Ballet is very strict about the positions, and I think that is what motivates her.”
Ragan nodded and added, “You also get to tell a story that is easy to follow along. And I really like to play a character” in ballets.
She has had plenty of featured roles including the Spanish Hot Chocolate Dance in the Nutcracker Ballet’s pageant of sweets in the second act. In her favorite ballet to date—Sleeping Beauty—she was the Generosity Fairy, “a fun character,” she said.
She also enjoyed her favorite ballet for the artistry, beautiful music and the longer, challenging performance time. In fact, one of the thrills at Toledo is performing with a live orchestra rather than recorded music.
Accomplishments are always wrapped up in the challenges, discipline and lifetime of dedication to dance, Ragan acknowledged.
She has accepted those challenges and pushed herself by attending summer intensive programs at the University of North Carolina School for the Arts for a week in 2022, three weeks in Cincinnati in 2023 and this past summer with Ballet West in Salt Lake City, Utah, for five weeks.
While each experience has been educational and rewarding, the five-week session in Utah was amazing, Ragan said.
Acceptance into the program required an audition. Ragan chose to do a live audition in Cincinnati rather than sending in a video of herself. Ballet West was her top choice, but she auditioned for 17 programs in total. She was accepted to all 17; however, because the Ballet West audition was one of the last, it was also one of the last ones to accept her.
She was seriously considering accepting the offer from the Joffrey Ballet in Chicago because it is a very good school and is closer than Utah. Ultimately, she was concerned “there wasn’t enough dance because they didn’t have Saturday classes. I didn’t want two days off each week,” she said. “I waited and finally heard from Ballet West that I was accepted.”
In Utah, Ragan was in a class with 26 other students at her level and 200 dancers at the summer intensive program.
“All the teachers were really good, and I got so much good training,” she said. She danced from 9 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. every day with a lunch break and two 15-minute breaks during the day.
They worked on technique in two-hour technique classes, and then had an hour pointe class.
“We really had a lot of time to build strength and conditioning to focus on doing things the right way and building injury prevention,” Ragan said.
They also learned about nutrition and took some fun jazz and musical theater classes.
“They asked her to stay, but she would have to go to online school, get an apartment,” Heather said. “and with her dance schedule, she hasn’t had time to get her driver’s license, so we knew she wasn’t going to be Uber-ing a 16-year-old through Salt Lake City.”
The corrections she received at Ballet West included keeping her shoulders back and her ears over her shoulders, Ragan recalled. She was told her feet were beautiful, a plus for feet that spend a lot of time in pointe shoes.
Ragan said she will “have to think about the corrections I received and apply them when I’m back to the (Toledo) ballet. I just have to work hard this year and probably go away again next summer.”
She will have to audition again in January. “We’ll figure out a game plan after that. There’s no map or manual for moms,” Heather said. “It’s been a learning curve for us.”
The dance world is very competitive, Ragan said. “Even if you’re not doing competitions, you’re always trying to be the best, so you can get the good roles.”
For her, the secret is to focus on her own abilities and not look at other people.
“The point is, to get better, you aren’t looking at the person next to you, you’re bettering the person that you are and the style that is right for you,” she said. “There may always be someone who is better than you at jumping or turning, but you find your strengths and work on those.”
Next ballet steps
Just as being a principal ballerina is one of Ragan’s goals, she also intends to make ballet her career.
The junior at Bowling Green High School plans to audition for a trainee company after high school and “work my way up to hopefully be a professional,” she said. Her hope is to land at a company outside of Ohio.
She admires Misty Copeland, the principal dancer for the American Ballet Theatre. Eric Otto, the artistic director at the Toledo Ballet, had danced with Copeland and arranged for the Toledo Ballet students to talk with her on Zoom.
“That was really fun and so cool,” Ragan said.
As the school year starts, she will continue her classes at BGHS, but devote a good part of her day to classes and rehearsals at the Toledo Ballet.
“I keep telling myself, she’s where she needs to be,” Heather said. “It’s the path she needs to be on to get where she wants to be.”
