In 2014, Wendy Whelan, one of the most accomplished ballet dancers in the world, retired from the New York City Ballet after a twenty-eight year career. The time leading up to her final bow was excruciating. Not only was Whelan exiting a daily life oriented in the art she had mastered, she suffered great physical pain and the inevitability of a hip replacement. Even more astonishing: Whelan agreed to be filmed during this time for a documentary about her transition off the world stage.

The documentary, Restless Creature, is out now, and we recently heard Wendy Whelan talking about her life with Terry Gross for NPR’s Fresh Air. Whelan speaks plainly about her movement from a public life in ballet — where everything, head to toe, was “strapped in” — to a daily life without the stage, tight lines, and the grueling regimen of practice and performance:

I’ve been strapped in, you know – physically strapped into pointe shoes, strapped into a leotard and tights. My hair’s been strapped up for my whole entire life. And to untie the shoes – I don’t wear a leotard anymore. I wear a t-shirt, and I wear pants. I don’t wear tights. I generally wear my hair looser or even in a braid now. I wear socks on my feet. I don’t like to be constricted now. But that was safe then. I was terrified to be un-constricted. And now I don’t know another way I’d rather be. So yeah, it was from one extreme, finding the safety in the other.

What strikes us is how Whelan talks about fear embodied within change — from the knowable to the unknown — and how the fear intertwines with the possibility of freedom. In Whelan’s description, we can’t help but think of the psychotherapeutic process: how vulnerable it can be to touch into the mind and body’s experience of trauma and pain. At the same time, how space can open around the touch, space where new work can be done where there is freedom to move — freedom to loosen.

We hope you’ll listen to Whelan address her metamorphosis — from her braid down to her socks. The questions she brings to the surface are for all of us: how do we deal with sink or swim, either/or thinking when faced with great change? How do we experience sinking and swimming, both? Whelan’s story (a story of transition both mental and physical in high relief) holds luminous insight, and we expect the documentary does too.

Listen to Wendy Whelan and Terry Gross in conversation here:

View the trailer for Restless Creature:

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Photo: “Wendy Whelan and performing La Somnambula with the New York City Ballet, 2014” by Kent G Becker is licensed under CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0