For the Love of Dance

A summer at Juilliard offers St. Paul’s School Ballet Company Dancer Alexis Conway ’27 a glimpse of the future she hopes for.

BY KATE DUNLOP

Alexis Conway ’27 has many loves — a few include music, writing, St. Paul’s, being involved in her community, and performing.

But dance — especially the musicality of ballet — is her biggest love, her purpose, and her future.

This summer, Conway had a preview of her dream of focusing on dance in college before joining a contemporary ballet company. During her three weeks at the Juilliard Summer Dance Intensive in New York City, she had morning classes with Juilliard faculty members, afternoon seminars, and workshop and master classes, plus evening rehearsals for a final-day performance.

“It was the best three weeks ever,” Conway says. “Being there with all those artists my age who have such a huge amount of love for the same passion was just so special. And from the teachers, I was getting all this information and personalized feedback — like what I get at SPS but haven’t at many other intensives. Juilliard really cared about everyone in the room improving.”

Conway, a self-proclaimed perfectionist who started dancing at age three, has been attending summer dance programs since she was a pre-teen. Her 2020 session with the American Ballet Theatre (ABT) Summer Intensive, where St. Paul’s School Director of Dance Kate Lydon is the artistic director, helped lead her to Millville.

“In middle school, my parents were driving me 90 minutes each way from Western Massachusetts to a premier classical ballet studio outside Boston, five days a week,” Conway says. “We realized this wouldn’t work for high school, and that’s how we found out about St. Paul’s. And obviously, I knew of Ms. Lydon from the dance world and ABT. Every young dancer knows about ABT.”

As she starts her fourth and final year with the SPS Ballet Company, and serves as one of its captains, Conway is more aware than ever of how rare her high school opportunities have been.

“The reason I came to St. Paul’s was because of the ballet company — I’m getting amazing academics and amazing dance training in one place. It’s really special to be in classrooms with kids who all want to learn, and I appreciate that,” she says. “And the company is such a tight-knit community, with 20 to 25 dancers together for all three terms. Ballet can be strict but at St. Paul’s, it’s supportive, not competitive.”

Conway relishes that sense of community off stage, too. She’s an editor for The Pelican, active with the Student Nightlife Club, serves as a prefect, and shares her love of dance with her non-ballet company peers as a co-head of Funkdefied, a hip-hop dance crew that performs at School events.

“Performing is truly my favorite thing to do,” Conway says. “I want to keep dancing as long as I can because, realistically, one day, I won’t be able to. Dancers can only perform for so long, but I hope, even after I’m done dancing, to stay in the arts and dance industry and community.”

It’s a future she can see as clearly as the curtains on a stage ready to rise.