by Ashley Hunter
Since the first performance of “The Nutcracker” ballet in December 1892 at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia, the holiday season is incomplete until the dreamlike ballet is performed live.
The Tallahassee Ballet’s Meagan Helman is returning that holiday magic to the stage as the organization’s newly appointed artistic director. “It is a holiday tradition,” says Helman. Since 2015, Helman has been with the Tallahassee Ballet in multiple capacities, ranging from school director to photographer to her current position as artistic director.
Then, in 2015, Helman and her family moved to Tallahassee when her husband took a job at Florida State University.“I retired from performing professionally when I moved to Tallahassee,” said Helman.
After settling into Tallahassee, Helman attended graduate school at the Florida State University School of Dance, which gave her a soft transitional period between her career as a full-time dancer and a dance director and teacher. “It was a slow evolution,” says Helman. “That pace gave me the time to figure out what I wanted to do post-professional career.”
While most adults are reaching the high points of their careers in their 30s, Helman says dancers are facing retirement and transitioning out of dancing. “It is a strange thing in the dance world. All of a sudden, you are in your early 30s, ending a career and starting fresh,” says Helman.
“At the point that everyone else is really just getting started in their careers, you have to start over.” She began teaching at the FSU School of Dance and started getting involved with the Tallahassee Ballet.
“I have slowly eased into doing more and more with the ballet,” she notes. “It has been nice getting to know the organization and the people.” Helman began teaching classes at the ballet company and slowly was eased into more leadership-focused roles. In January of 2024, she was asked to step forward into the interim position of Artistic Director and then granted the title officially in the summer of 2024.
Read more at the Tallahassee Democrat.
Learn more about the Tallahassee Ballet’s production of The Nutcracker.
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