We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ashley Miller. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ashley below.

Ashley, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your creative career sooner or later?

Professional dancers usually have to know when they’re extremely young and if they want to pursue a professional path. Many pre-professional programs and summer intensives end at 18 or even sooner. My parents did not put me in any extracurriculars until I watched a documentary, “Living a Ballet Dream” about New York City Ballet and School of American Ballet dancers. I fell in love and begged to start classes. I was eleven years old, which is considered late for a dancer to start in order to make it as a professional, I grew up in a small town with few options for dance studios. We were not well-off and even at my studio with an income-based sliding fee scale, I could only take a couple of classes a week, and they were very recreational. When I had decided I wanted to start ballet, it was in the summer and I had to wait until September to start year-round classes. YouTube was only a few years old at this point and was not as it is now, full of tutorials and dance classes. I had a DVD aimed at 3 to 4 year olds to teach basic ballet positions that I repeated over and over to try to learn as much as I could before classes started. My grandma took me to the library and I checked out every book on dance I could find. I watched any movies or shows that could teach me about the culture, whether it was for my age or not. I watched anything from Angelina Ballerina to Dance Moms to Dance Academy, picking up any terminology, social norms, and different types of training that are out there. Lacking the options there are now, I just consumed anything I could get my hands on.
When I started, it was in a basic 9-11 year old class, but my teacher was impressed with what I already knew and how fast I was picking it up. She also knew that it was something I took seriously and after my first month of dancing, the school put me in their Junior Performance Company. I was the oldest in the Junior Company and everyone else had been dancing since they were little. From the moment I decided I wanted to be a dancer, I felt regret about the time I had lost in childhood. I have been dealing with that regret ever since, and it has gotten worse as I have gotten older and find myself again in situations that would have been easier had I started sooner.
I have a memory when I was 12 of watching the summer olympics, seeing gymnasts who were only 3 or 4 years older than me. I had a panic attack because I felt like I was too late and running out of time to do what I wanted to do. All the adults around me were telling me “You’re so young, you have time to figure it out” and not understanding why I was so worried. In dance, you don’t really have time. It’s either know you want to dance young or end up doing something else.
Sometime later, at a family party, my mom brought up my goals and said “She thinks she’s going to move to New York as a teenager and live away from her family to train ballet” and everyone laughed. I remember how small I felt in that moment, and how unattainable my dreams were becoming. At this point, this had been my entire goal and my reason for dancing for years. At the end of 8th grade when I turned 14, I auditioned and was accepted into a pre-professional program. I had received so many messages that my dreams were not possible, that I should just be okay being a teacher or doing it recreationally, The program was Monday through Friday, right after school until 9pm. My parents were concerned I wouldn’t be able to handle high school and doing class more than my then 3 nights a week. They mentioned not being able to afford it and maybe I should take a break for a year to get the hang of high school.
Reluctantly, I decided to do this and did not train the following year. High school happened, I got sucked into a different lifestyle, and before I knew it I was 16 and a junior in high school and it was December, aka Nutcracker season, and I was suddenly haunted by the music, the imagery, and watching a movie on Hallmark about an ex-professional coming back to dance after quitting prematurely. My 4 year old sister was taking an interest in dance, and having me teach her.
I made the terrifying decision of going back in the middle of January, but the studio climate was different. It was my home studio, but I wasn’t the prodigy anymore. A competitive team transferred from a local studio and they were very tight-knit, and had been dancing for a long time. Being in class with them, I felt so behind once again. The teacher that brought them was also very intense and yelled a lot, and I was the one to mess up the most because I hadn’t danced in so long, and didn’t have foundational training in childhood. In my personal life, this was one of the darkest times in my life to date and the things I was going through in and out of the studio seemed to blur together. My self-esteem was at an all-time low. Despite this, I made a lot of progress in these 6 months but because of the trauma that I endured, I decided to switch gears and take a once-weekly aerial class out of town during my senior year and didn’t go back to dance, and finally give up on my dream of dancing.
For 2 years, I trained in aerial at a studio 45 minutes away. At 19, through this aerial studio, I found an ad for auditions for a new modern dance company. My wheels were turning, and I decided to audition. I became a founding member of the company and I’m still with them 5 years later.
I did not do much dance training outside of the company until I was almost 24. January 2024, again after the Nutcracker influence, I decided to go back to ballet. As an adult and after an even longer lapse than the first time, I was really scared. Enter for the third time: regret.
When I was younger, I did not know about all of the opportunities that were available past age 18. I was not exposed to it. While I’m still at the age a small handful of training programs, companies, and intensives still accept dancers, I am not at the level needed to do it. It has been difficult watching these opportunities, that I am technically eligible to try for, slip out of my grasp for the last time.

In essence, had I known what I know now, I would have had reasons not to quit. I was young and impressionable and let others (many who did not know much about dance, really) tell me there would be nothing for me after I was 18. Now I see so many opportunities I probably would have been ready for had I not quit.
Yes, I wish I started earlier too, but I also wish that starting at the time I had, I had just stuck with it. I wish I had known at eleven that I wasn’t too late and that I still had a chance, I just had to keep going.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

After finding aerial, ironically through a performance during my volunteer hours with my ballet studio, I started commuting for classes. 2 years later I had my first aerial performances, and decided to pursue a career in performance and teaching. Then , the pandemic happened, performing arts were at a standstill, and I had nothing else to really work towards. I enrolled in a 2-year holistic nutrition program after I had received my Associate in Arts, and after that, in 2022, I started my Bachelor’s of Health Science degree. I spent a lot of time on this endeavor and building my health business, creating courses (2 of which are still up and running with new students enrolling every month), and getting mentorship for this business. At the same time, I was also pursuing aerial and back to my regular training from the pandemic. In 2021 I did two teacher trainings and became certified to teach. Also in 2022, alongside my college studies, I reached out to the arts school I grew up dancing at to see if they would be interested in having an aerial program. I offered my first workshops that year and now am in my 3rd year of teaching there, and my 2nd year of having a full year-round program.
Clearly, my work is a little scattered, but I have many different offerings. While not actively promoting my health business, I still keep my link to book with me up on my Instagram, and my courses are a form of passive income and ways to keep working with people. With health in mind, my particular passion is women’s health and promoting a broader understanding of our historically “taboo” differences. Since my career has again turned towards the performing arts, I am keeping health on the backburner because I will have that forever. I have this body now, and can pursue these physical art forms now.

As a teacher, my health background finds its way regularly into the classroom. I have a greater understanding of anatomy and physiology, psychology, injury prevention, and more due to my health education. I’m grateful I can bring that approach to my classroom and it makes me feel a lot more equipped to adapt to each individual and help them grow while keeping them safe. At the same time, because of my dance background, my teaching style has a heavy emphasis on artistry rather than fitness or flashy tricks.
In the future, I would love to find a way to combine my love for aerial and my love of ballet, so I am training both heavily and that is my primary focus. I would like to eventually monetize my social media platforms so I can share more content about my journey as an adult dancer. Now, my focus is promoting and normalizing adults in ballet (or any dance) who want to train at a higher level, and promoting intergenerational learning. I believe in categorizing people based on skill rather than age (and of course, with some regard to developmental readiness in children) and not capping any activity at a certain age number. I believe if someone has the ability to do it, they should do it. I also believe every person has a right to be equipped with the knowledge and access to keep themselves healthy and active as long as they would like to be.

In addition to my local offerings for aerial, I offer online private lessons for aerial and dance on an as-requested basis.
The biggest thing that I emphasize in my classrooms beyond safety is that I believe everyone at any age should have access. One of the reasons I chose my home studio to teach at is because of our sliding fee scale and the accessibility it creates for a community that otherwise would not have access to this art form. Because of the sliding fee scale, my classes are the cheapest in Michigan. As a kid, there is no way I would have been able to afford dance classes without this sliding scale, and I would not have dreamt of taking a drop-in class for the entire cost of my sliding scale month’s tuition.
I stand by the idea that arts should be available to every community, even if class structure or industry norms/etiquette have to change in some way to make it happen. I never want to work somewhere that caters only to a high-income population. I’m proud to have brought this art form to my city and to offer the most accessible pricing in Michigan.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

The main thing that I find people have trouble with is that the “Starving Artist” trope is real. I never got into any of this for money. For some people, it is hard to grasp that I sacrifice financial comfort for my art. But that’s life to me. I don’t care about money or status, I just want a fulfilling and meaningful life. I have to be very frugal and there are definitely times when it is tight and I am struggling. Much of my work consists of unpaid hours and the hours that I am compensated are not grounds for a six-figure income, haha! I make it work and I know with time and experience I can find more ways to offer services and bring in more funds, but I am grateful that I can even do this and make ends meet doing what I love.
On that note, I think there’s this idea that when you’re doing what you love, you never work. There’s that whole saying about it. I don’t think that’s ever true. We all need breaks from even our own creativity, to just be, and to be a person first outside of our art. Constant input or output of any kind is not healthy, even if it is something I love. I love my work and what I do, but it is stressful much of the time. The fact that I am stressed does not make me love it any less and the fact that I love it doesn’t make me any less stressed. They are not mutually exclusive.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

The biggest overarching thing in my life has been the idea of doing things “late.” Again, I had panic attacks at twelve years old because I thought I was too late to do my life’s dream.
In a way, I was right, but much of it was due to the beliefs that had been ingrained in me, the emphasis on youth in the art form. I think the biggest way to change this is to normalize seeing adults doing the activities at the same level as children. We are told it cannot happen, so we do not try. I was told I wouldn’t make it (not by any of my own teachers, who were all very supportive and told me of my potential and encouraged me to keep going, but by the youth ballet culture and industry norms) so I gave up twice, and I’m adamant there will not be a third time. Since I started again in 2024, I will dance for the rest of my life.
I am constantly in classes with children in teens. In any given week, I am either teaching them or I am taking class with them as their peer. Being their peer is at times very isolating and uncomfortable, but I hope that they see that 18 is not the end for them if they don’t make it pro right away. I hope they see that they have options.
What was demonstrated to me when I was younger is that if I didn’t make it, the same level of training wouldn’t be available and I would be given the scraps in a generic beginner adult class. I hope they see that being a dance student beyond their teens isn’t the end of the world, and that we have a lot more options than we are told, and for a lot longer than we are told.

As for adults, I want them to see that their dreams matter. That “potential” is not a word reserved for children or child prodigies. That skills don’t have to be learned before you enter kindergarten for them to stick. This is a big theme in the classes I offer and a conversation we have regularly. I push my adult students in the exact same way I push my youth students. By demonstrating my own pursuit of my dreams in adulthood, I want other adults to see that they are allowed to dream and want something for themselves too, and that they are deserving of “after-work” activities offered at the same caliber as “after school” activities. It might look a little different for us, different for those of us with kids vs without, different for single or dual income or those in multi-generational homes, different for those responsible for the care of a parent or relative, but the pursuit of ourselves and our dreams matters.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/apothecaerial
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ApothecAerial/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ApothecAerial
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@apothecaerial?lang=en

Image Credits

Nicole Lockhart // Awake.Dreaming for most dance photos