New Beginnings: Q&A with Miko Fogarty

A former rising star in the ballet world, Miko Fogarty was at the center of attention for millions of aspiring ballet dancers all over the world. Miko’s dance journey began at the young age of 12 when she starred in the award winning ballet documentary First Position. From there, she became a world-renowned dancer winning numerous awards from the Moscow International Ballet Competition, the Varna International Ballet Competition and Youth American Grand Prix, and performing galas all over the globe. Starting a new chapter, Miko is now attending University of California, Berkeley and even considering going to medical school. Continuing to cultivate her love of dance, she teaches private ballet lessons and workshops for young dancers. She is also the part-time conservatory director at San Jose Dance International (SJDI), a non-profit arts organization serving the community through dance performance in the San Francisco Bay Area. Most recently, she will be taking lead on the Dancing for a Cure! 2019 Brain Tumor Benefit Performance with SJDI on November 3rd @ 4PM in the VPAC Theater in Cupertino, CA.Q: How did you fall in love with ballet? How old were you?I started ballet when I was 4 years old. I loved watching ballet; I was fortunate enough that my parents were able to bring me to some live ballets when I was really young. We lived here, in Berkeley, and the Mariinsky or Bolshoi and other companies would come and we were able to watch them. I loved watching ballet when I was that age, so it fit for me to start ballet lessons.  Q: Describe one of your favorite memories from dancing ballet.The best memories I had from dancing are the backstage moments with my best friends when we were getting ready or after a performance when we knew we did well. But, probably the best memory for me was the Moscow International Ballet Competition and finding out that I won. That was pretty amazing! Q: What are some of your favorite roles to dance?There is this solo called “Esmeralda” that I really like because it was one of my first ballet solos and also my last performance. It kind of has a special place in my heart. It is a super hard variation, but it was always fun to dance, especially because you have a tambourine.Q: When did you realize that a ballet career wasn’t right for you? How did you come to terms with that?It was a whole year before I actually did stop and I started to consider other careers. I was dealing with a lot of body issues, as in I was always not happy with how my body looked in ballet and I was never really confident in that way. I was tired of feeling like that. I’d been doing it for a long while and there was a lot of pressure. I kind of wanted to explore other areas in life. I had no idea how to even proceed with college or anything. I didn’t even go to a proper high school as I did online school, never took the SATs or ACTs or anything. I had no clue what to do. But, I knew that I wanted to go to college. It was definitely a hard change because I feel like I introduced myself to everybody as a ballet dancer; it was what I was going to do. All my friends were ballet people and everyone I knew associated me with ballet. To make the decision for myself wasn’t hard, but to tell everyone that I wasn’t doing it was difficult, especially all my supporters and followers. Even to this day, it is hard to open up on social media about it. But, it’s better now because it has been 4 years already. For the first year or two, it was difficult to talk about. I think the hardest part was to open up to everyone in my life and tell them I had changed and wanted to do other things in life.  Q: What is one of the lessons you’ve learned from your ballet career and professional journey?To make sure that you’re doing what makes you happy and what you want to pursue because at the end of the day you are going to be living with yourself. So, never do things for other people or because you think it will make someone else happy because you will never make everybody happy. Q: How was the transition between a professional ballet career and a life as a college student?I had no idea what to go into. I considered so many careers from being an airline pilot to medicine to being a teacher to staying ballet or staying in theater. There were so many avenues that I could go down and there was a whole world of careers that I hadn’t even considered.So, I actually decided to start at a community college, which is something I recommend to so many people, especially if you are not sure what major you want to go into or what college you want to go to or if you even want to go to college. Community college is really amazing. I actually had to miss my first day of college because I was flying back from Indonesia [where I had my last performance]!I kind of wanted to go into health because I talked to my aunt who had transitioned from being a professional flutist to a nurse and she talked to me about her journey and how she was so happy that she went through all these things to be where she is now. I have always been fascinated with the human body in terms of how it functions and even to this day I think it is so cool about how much our bodies can do. I kind of wanted to go into that. And so, I have been pursuing that ever since. I went to a community college for two years and transferred to a UC. They have an amazing transfer system here in California that we are really lucky to have. So, as long as you take the right courses and keep your GPA up, you can transfer into amazing schools like UC Berkeley and UCLA. That is what I ended up doing and now I am a senior at UC Berkeley. Q: Do you miss anything about ballet? How have you continued to keep up with your passion for dance?I actually miss the music in ballet and also, my friends that I had in ballet. I don’t get to see many people as often now,  in terms of my ballet friends. But, what is great about social media is that I am still able to keep in touch with them. And to keep ballet in my life, I teach right now.  I love teaching ballet so, whenever I have time on the weekends, like on Sundays,  I teach a few private lessons and workshops during my breaks once or twice a year. Those are fun because I love teaching! I kind of want to keep doing that forever. I like how I am able to pass some of the tips and knowledge that I learned from ballet onto other people so it doesn’t go to waste because I did learn a lot from ballet classes, ballet competitions and ballet performances. I feel really lucky to be able to pass that on to other people.Q: What does a day in the life look like for you as a college student?Honestly, in college everyday is different because you can schedule your classes on certain days and not on other days.But I can tell you what my typical Monday would be. I wake up around 6:30am or 7am and head to school for my 8am lecture which goes till 10am. And then I have a break till 11am and from 11am-12pm, I have another class. From 12pm-1pm, I can either go to office hours, where you can ask your professor questions, or there is something called open lab for my anatomy class where we can just go to the lab and study human anatomy on our own. And then, I have meetings for the rest of the day or just study.Q: What is one of your favorite things about UC Berkeley?There are a lot of things that I love about UC Berkeley. There are so many gorgeous buildings and it is so inspiring to just walk around. Another thing I love at UC Berkeley is the people. All my friends that I have met here are such incredible human beings and I feel lucky to be able to know them. And I’m learning so much here which is so nice. There are, of course, ups and downs, but those are definitely some of the ups. Q: Studying biology at UC Berkeley, what is one of your favorite classes?Human anatomy and Physiology are my favorite courses so far. It’s just so interesting to me because I can learn about the bones and the muscles that make your body move during ballet. It is just so cool to finally know the muscles and be like “Oh that’s why I was so sore there when I did a lot of grand battements [where dancers swing their legs high up in the air] to the side!” I feel like I can connect things sometimes quicker than people who haven’t done ballet. Anatomy is so amazing. I love it so much. Q: Name some of your role models.I have a lot; I get inspired by a lot of people. One is my friend who used to be a professional ballerina. due to a lot of injuries, she basically couldn’t dance anymore. She ended up going to Columbia, where she did her undergraduate, and now she is going to medical school. She goes to medical school here in the Bay Area so, we get to meet up. She has been an inspiration to me in terms of me knowing that maybe I can do that as well. Another huge inspiration for me is Marianela Núñez, who is a principal at [the] Royal [Ballet in London]. She is one of the most amazing dancers of this generation. I was so lucky to meet her this past summer in Panama. I was teaching some classes and she was performing. She inspires me so much because she was so down-to-earth and kind to everyone she met. Not only is she the best at her profession, she is amazing ballet dancer, but she’s also so kind to every single person she meets, even if it is a child on the street that she’s never met before. She’s just so nice! That definitely inspires me to be generous and kind to everyone.  Q: What advice do you have for students who have dual-interests in dance and other academic subjects and are unsure about their future?There are so many ways you can go with that. If you are interested in pursuing both, I think it doesn’t hurt to go to college. You can go to a college that has a good dance program and a good academic program that you are interested in and double major, so you can kind of keep the best of both. And if you do really love dance, there is, of course, the possibility to join a dance company. But, if you feel like you want to do your other thing, you have a degree to do that. There are so many different ways; you have to figure it out for yourself and for your own story. If you do get a contract [with a ballet company], which is really amazing, I would definitely try it out for a year or two. If you love it, keep doing it and if you hate it, then go to college. There is always that possibility that you can change. That is also another thing I learned. If you really feel like you should be doing something else in life, it is never too late to change your career and do something you are actually passionate about.