Author Spotlight
Hour 7 Journalism One
[Photo by Julia Sprouse]Sprouse's ankle swelled severely, just hours after the initial injury occured.
Freshman Julia Sprouse sits gingerly on the edge of the couch, carefully propping her leg up on the coffee table. She situates herself and launches into a detailed explanation of the choreography of her modern ballet dance, the one she will no longer be a part of.
Fifteen-year-old Sprouse is a level five ballerina at the Kansas City School of ballet; she practices on a strict five day a week schedule for her three categories of dance: Ballet, Modern, and Pilates.
“Our school works into seven levels, the first being creative movement for little children, and level seven for older kids.” Sprouse said. “Based on your level that’s how many days a week you go.”
The Kansas City Ballet studio is not a competition studio, they work towards one common goal throughout the year, that being their elite Spring Showcase. The Spring Showcase is performed by the entire school every spring at the Folly Theater downtown. The studio emphasizes technique, and perfection before progression. The ballerinas are on a strict schedule beginning at early ages to learn the art of ballet inside and out, in the hopes that someday they may reach the common goal of being a professional ballerina.
“This year I am—was—doing a modern and ballet dance,” Sprouse said, catching herself in the middle of the sentence as if realization that she was no longer able to perform in the show was still dawning on her.
On Wednesday March 28, Sprouse was preparing to begin work on the choreography of the challenging and crucial Ballet dance for her Spring Show performance. Her strict and more strait-laced teacher hadn’t warmed them up that day so they could have the full time to learn the complicated material.
“Before class I was just standing at the bar getting ready to start and my friend Megan was going to show me how to do a leap for drill team try-outs. I did it, and I didn’t really know how to do the leap, I rolled over on my ankle and I heard a really loud crack,” Sprouse said.
The moment she landed, she knew immediately that something was not right.
“Everyone just kind of looked at me, I was on the ground and I just knew something was seriously wrong,” Sprouse said. “I started bawling, I knew I wasn’t able to get up and all I was thinking was ‘what is this going to do to my spring show?’”
Sprouse tried to dismiss the pain, and convince herself that it was just minor soreness, but she could not even lift herself off the ground. Her teacher examined the wound quickly, and diagnosed it as nothing more than a small sprain. This news infused Sprouse with a false hope that would soon be tested by reality.
“My teacher said it didn’t look like anything bad, and I was so relieved. But I got home and I wasn’t able to walk on it at all, and I just became an even more worried mess,” Sprouse said.
The next day Sprouse visited the doctor to get a real diagnosis of just how damaging the injury would prove to be.
“I went to the doctor and I got an X-ray, so I held my breath and crossed my fingers, everything I could do for just a little bit of luck,” Sprouse said.
The doctors explained to her that she had torn ligaments in her ankle. Torn ligaments surpass a sprain in their severity, her particular situation was worse than a third-degree sprain, the worst classification of a sprain possible. The news shocked Sprouse, who was under the impression she was just suffering from a bad sprain at the very worst.
“Now, I know this is a long injury that I am going to have to deal with. It’s going to take a couple months to heal, so I can’t do the spring show,” Sprouse said. “It is a big deal.”
For Julia the spring show was one of the only times she was going to be able to show her friends and family her skills acquired through the year, an event comparable to a graduation ceremony of sorts. As much as she hoped that she could put the injury behind her, the pain was too much, and to avoid serious long term damage she had to make the decision to leave behind the rest of the dance season, including the spring show.
“It was so painful, I had never experienced an injury like this, I didn’t know how to take it. The whole week I was kind of like ‘Oh My God, nothing can be worse than this,’ ” Sprouse said.
After determining her injury was far too severe to pursue her hopes of performing in the show, Sprouse had to call her hopeful teachers and break the disappointing news.
“I went to class and when I told them I had torn ligaments, they just looked at each other. They almost looked taken aback.” I could tell they thought ‘Oh no she’s not going to be in the show, and she doesn’t know it.’ They seemed like they were almost trying to conceal it from me,” Sprouse said.
Not only does this injury prevent her from her Kansas City Ballet classes and show, but it affected her upcoming Lancer Dancer tryouts. The leap that caused the ankle injury occurred when she attempted a leap necessary for Drill team tryouts. Due to the pain, and tedious nature of the injury, one mis-step or hard landing could send Sprouse back to square one, leaving her body even more damaged than before.
“I am so stressed out for drill team try outs, this is why I got the injury, practicing a leap,” Sprouse said. “I can’t practice any of the stuff at home because I can just re-injure it.”
But Sprouse is determined to give it her all, despite the huge setback and disadvantage she is at, especially since it is so close to try-outs.
“I think as of right now my outlook towards drill team tryouts is just that it is pure chance. If I re-injure myself in the audition, I really don’t care,” Sprouse said. “I’m going to work my ankle as hard as I can; I really just want to make it.”
As far as the future goes, Sprouse hopes if everything goes according to plan, and try-outs go smoothly without any re-injury of her ankle, that recovery time should take about three months. This means no more Kansas City Ballet Class until summer intensives start. Sprouse has been conditioning at home to prepare her body, and not lose any of her strength during her recovery.
“Right now I’m staying at home and recuperating. I’ve been doing physical therapy to prepare myself for summer and intense ballet again.”
Sprouse has looked at her whole situation with remarkable positivity, and optimism for the future. Her determination and strong work ethic that ultimately caused her injury, has helped her through it as well. If all goes according to plan she hopes to be back into her regular ballet schedule by mid-June ready to make up for lost time, and skill. She is also ready to begin the long journey to another Spring Show; this time she says there is nothing in World that could make her miss it.
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