This month's Encounter is with 9 to 5'er artist, Suzana Stankovic. Suzana is a professional dancer, mother, and business owner of her new dance studio, Wild Heart Performing Arts Studio, in Astoria, Queens, New York. For her Encounter, Suzana shares a collage of her dances throughout New York City. If you would like to learn more about Suzana and her passion for dance, I encourage you to check out her story on The Characters page of this website. I have also included a brief written story of my Encounter with Suzana below.

And now, without further ado, I present to you our Encounter with Suzana. Enjoy! (P.S. If you would like to skip my intro, Suzana's story begins at 04:39 and her artistic Encounter begins at 10:14)

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I Encountered Suzana two years ago in an adult ballet class. She was the teacher and I was the student.

Ballet is like the siren's call of dance. Its ethereal lines and grace are intoxicatingly beautiful and are what attracts so many to the art form of dance. It is only until you try dancing ballet that you come to discover that, in addition to the beauty, ballet also has an underbelly of struggle, which you will experience constantly as you try to achieve that ethereal form that can feel forever elusive. Ballerinas flutter and prance and twirl but what is kept as a secret from those who watch in awe is that the grace and lightness is rooted in tremendous strength, work ethic, and resilience.

Ballet and I have always been at odds. Ballet would constantly remind me how inflexible and undainty I was and in return, I would criticize it for being archaic and unexpressive as an art form. How can I express how I feel if I am told how to exactly place my fingers or point my toes? Where is the originality and individuality in that?

Suzana was the first teacher to end the vicious cycle of a love-hate relationship that I, and many other recreational adult dancers, had with ballet. How? Simply, her intense love of ballet blended with her incredibly compassionate personality and all-encompassing philosophy of art and life was the perfect antidote to the adult dancer's blues. Suzana welcomed all types of dancers, including those who were trying ballet for the very first time as adults, and she showed genuine confidence in their vision to be as graceful and beautiful as a prima ballerina. Suzana was the first ballet teacher I had as an adult who gave me the confidence to believe in myself and truly believe that I could achieve anything with "courage, commitment, and love", which is a philosophy that I now extend beyond dance to all parts of my life.

Suzana's classes are this magical escape where her students can dream, believe, learn, and work hard to achieve the yearnings of their wild heart in a world where there are "no labels, no limits" - the mantra of Suzana's dance studio. I thank Suzana for reaching out to the community of adult recreational dancers, who at times can feel bashful or inadequate because of a lack of training at an early age or misconceptions about "dancer physique", and help us realize our full potential and give us a place where we can truly be who we are: fearless, passionate, strong, and beautiful.