Professional ballet dancer Jaime Hickey starts her day by running to catch the light rail. She heads into the city to maintain her training with a class at one of her favorite dance studios.
“I kind of like to change it up,” she says. “I go to Igal Perry’s class a lot, and Willie Berman. They’re former dancers who are older now and teach ballet technique classes. You can meet lots of dancers there, all types: ballet, modern, contemporary, professional, or not. It’s an amazing place.”
Training every day is important to Hickey, who has danced on stages all over the United States and beyond with ballet companies and as a freelance ballerina, “It’s amazing how fast things go if you take time off,” she says, but Hickey doesn’t seem to allow herself much down time.
After ballet, Hickey will practice Bikram Yoga in the city. This style of yoga is also known as hot yoga because the studio is heated to around 104 degrees.
“I try to go three times a week just because that helps me to recover. It’s kind of like physical therapy when you don’t have physical therapy,” Hickey says. “I would love if one opened in Bayonne!”
But it’s easy enough to hop on the train. In fact, Bayonne’s close proximity to New York City is part of what made ballet feel so accessible to Hickey when she was a child.
She is a Bayonne native who still lives in her hometown.
“When I was little my dad had found a studio in Carnegie Hall called Miss Neubert’s Ballet Institute and he took my sister there, but I was too little,” Hickey recalls. “I remember going there to watch and I was like, ‘Wow.’ We’re so close to professional ballet companies. You could easily go watch a show. We’re in the perfect location, I think. All of my auditions were in the city, so it was so easy. My parents took me in, we rode the train, did the audition and then we were home in an hour.”
First Position
Hickey started dancing here in Bayonne. She began to get serious about ballet at age 9 while dancing at Ms. Huguette’s Dance Studio. Her instructor, Lettie Abdelaziz, still teaches there.
“Her classes are what made me fall in love with ballet,” Hickey says. “I loved how difficult it was, and I love challenges. Things didn’t come very easily for me in ballet. I wasn’t always very flexible or strong. I was pretty weak, actually.”
Hickey says that she had a natural talent in picking up steps and combinations, but it was hard work that brought her to a professional level.
She completed the American Ballet Theater National Training Curriculum, a teacher training program. Now she hopes to inspire students the way that her teachers inspired her.
“When I was taking classes with Lettie, when I was still kind of a beginner, the way she taught us about the history of ballet and the technique behind everything, I just loved it. It was so interesting to me.”
After a day of working on strength and flexibility, Hickey heads back to Bayonne to teach Ballet Technique to an Intensive Study Group. She leads a small group of dedicated dancers who are 11-16 years old. After class they crowd around her to ask questions about how to make it as a professional ballerina.
“I love seeing the little ones now,” she says. “It brightens my day to show them that it is possible. I grew up here, so they know it’s achievable, as long as you have the heart for it and the dedication for it.”
Hickey works as an instructor when she’s in between performances. This summer she plans to return to teach a summer program that she taught last year.
“It’s an intensive for a week,” she says. “When you have ballet that long, every day you see rapid improvement, and I am co-teaching with my friend Oliver Till, who trained at the Royal Ballet in London.” The summer course, July 11-15 and 18-21, is for advanced students ages 10 and up. It’s open to the public. Hickey is also available for private lessons.—BLP