We recently connected with Peggy Peabody and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Peggy thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Risk taking is something we’re really interested in and we’d love to hear the story of a risk you’ve taken.
I started teaching ballet out of the back room of my mother’s nursery school in 1977. I was a senior in high school. From there, I rented several store front / office spaces as our school grew. In 2012, I had a choice to make; either I moved again and rented a larger space, or I took the plunge and purchased a building to be our forever home. It was 2011, 2012 and the economy had tanked, making the cost of a lease and a mortgage not that different, IF we could get through the build out process and the financing required.
I had originally started teaching in an 8 x 8 foot back room, with 4 dancers when I was seventeen. Over the years, we had grown into a 5000 square foot space of our own, but I wanted more. We had 3 studios, a decent costume room, a small staff room. I even had an office of my own. But I wanted larger studios and maybe one more. We needed a larger costume room to properly store and access the costume treasures we had accumulated. It would be so nice not to have a storage unit for our props and scenery. Having everything on site would be a dream come true.
Since my lease was up in a year, I spent months trolling neighborhoods, calling leasing agents, peering in windows. Once I found a good prospect, I would meet with landlords, spend hours drafting potential floor plans, and nights dreaming of the new spaces where our dancers could jump higher and feel the open space carry them farther than the low-ceilinged, smaller rooms we had. Not that they were that bad; they weren’t. I just wanted one more move. I wanted more space and a place of our own where we could take our dancing to the next level.
After months and months of projects that were almost right, but not quite, I was driving to the doctor’s office for an appointment when I passed a huge building on a major corner intersection, across from a Costco that had posted a sign For Lease / For Sale. There was no way I could buy it, but maybe I could lease it. The location screamed, “Location, Location, Location.” It was near enough to our current space, and seemed to call me from the street as I passed. On my way back from the appointment, I took down the information and made the call. The next day I was in, looking at an electronics firm, immediately seeing how I could redesign the space into a classical ballet school. A day later, I returned and the staff became curious and asked what their building was going to be. I told them I was hoping to make it our forever home, my last stop for our ballet school. With 15,000 square feet, 4 roll up doors, huge spaces downstairs and some smaller offices upstairs, I could see it all in my head.
That was March 28, 2012. From there I applied for financing. I kept meeting the agent on site so that I could walk through, dream, and plan as we waited for things to process. I got really good at faxing piles of documents while keeping music in my head to keep a good pace to get it over with. Escrow finally closed and I met the agent to get the keys. When he left me there alone, without me having to leave with him, I almost could not absorb that this building was mine. I remember him leaving, and feeling so excited I would burst. I went into what was to become my office, dusty as it was, and jumped up on the large desk, rolled over onto my back, and rolled around like an excited puppy in the dirt for a moment. The moment was surreal.
From there I began the real work. I got our architect to draw up plans. We had gotten to know we wanted to do after having looked at so many spaces before. We worked with the city on plans, plans, and more plans. The city didn’t know what to do with a children’s ballet school on a site like this, so I had to get to know City Hall officials and plead case after case as they proposed weird requirements that to me made no sense and would not allow us to operate as we needed to. I had a vision they just didn’t have a capacity to understand. Children’s dancing schools aren’t usually this big and don’t do what we do. We applied for use permits, building permits, fire permits, permits, permits, and more permits, and eventually construction began.
It would take from September to February, all hands on deck, me constantly feeding the construction crew, pushing and keeping on top of more things than I could count, all while I was still running the ballet school in our old location just a few miles away, and teaching elementary school full time. But on February 8, just as we started classes in our old space, I got the call from the Fire Marshall. He had granted our Occupancy Permit, allowing us to occupy the space and open for business.
This is literally what happened. The fire marshall called and told me we could open. I asked him when. He answered, “Immediately.” Excitedly, and shocked, I told the dancers in front of me the news, turned to grab my keys. Before I could catch my breath, my dancers had grabbed their belongings, piled into their cars, and were heading down Industrial Blvd. Moments later, we arrived. I opened the front door and they headed to the huge, new Studio A. Stephanie walked in and took three jumps onto the floor, and they rest of them followed her in and we got to work. We were doing our barre exercises in moments.
A few moments later, once my heart rate settled a bit, I said to the dancers, “Stop and let’s mark this moment. What is today?”, meaning the date. A dancer called out, “It’s my birthday!” Her name Is Patience. At the time, she was one of our Junior Company dancers. She turned 17 that day. Today, Miss Patience is a well known and respected local professional ballerina and my right hand teacher.
Today, after worrying I would lose our building during Covid lockdown, we are back open again, rebuilding again. Miss Patience and I spent this afternoon working on casting our dancers for our 44th annual production of The Nutcracker. Tomorrow, we teach happy dancers thriving in our beautiful space. Parents come and watch their dancers in classes, and children grow up learning classical ballet. It is not a bad way to spend an afternoon!
We opened 9 1/2 years ago, on Patience’s birthday. We, the Ballet Petit families and dancers, as well as the business itself have survived a pandemic. I have survived cancer twice since, once at the height of Covid. It is our happy place, not that I didn’t go in there many times during lockdown and cry all alone while we had to close for 16 months for Covid.
But still, like every day since I found this building, every day when I walk in, I am still in awe of the fact that this is our forever home, and this is our building. A lot has happened since that trip to the doctor’s office led me to our forever home. Through it all, I have remembered to be grateful for this space and all it has brought to our dancers and our community.
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?
I started taking dance lessons at the age of 2 1/2. At age seven, my mom brought me to a classical ballet school. A classical ballet school is different from a dance academy. It specializes in ballet, and was a perfect fit for me from the very beginning. I excelled as a young dancer, earning a Ford Foundation Scholarship a year earlier than it was usually allowed. There was always something to learn, and something new to discover.
I have always been somehow aware of and appreciated the benefits of lifelong learning in ballet. As a little kid, I wanted to learn more as I grew older. I would hang out and watch older dancers, and follow them around to absorb something form them. I still take ballet classes myself, and I am 62 years old. Even as I was in cancer treatment in 2016-17 and 2020, I danced. In ballet, no matter how good one gets in a particular area, there is always something more to learn and improve upon. In some ways it can be frustrating, but it also opens up a world of possibilities, if we venture forward.
My favorite time of year was Nutcracker season when my ballet school would join other East Bay ballet schools to do a production. Growing up dancing in Nutcrackers is a huge part of my memory bank as a child. I would do anything to go to ballet class more and more, to stay at the theatre longer than I needed, to learn or step in to do someone else’s parts when needed. I would hang out in the studio after students went home and watch the professional dancers rehearse. I would wander into the costume rooms as a young dancer and make fantasy plans on my own until I was called back into classes. As an extension from those experiences, the first year I was not in a Nutcracker, I started Ballet Petit’s. This year we celebrate our 44th anniversary Nutcracker. We even did a Covid Nutcracker on Zoom in 2020. I was not about to lose our tradition / streak!
In addition to teaching ballet starting in 1977, I also started teaching elementary school in 1982. One thing that I really enjoyed doing was using skills from teaching school in my work as a ballet teacher, and using skills from teaching ballet in my work at school. Years ago I had a school student with learning disabilities who could not learn to read. She loved to sing. I remember having her use the songsheets for the songs she loved to learn to read, sort of in reverse of normal. The rhythms and songsheet format helped her track and she learned to read this way. Likewise, at ballet I often spotted dancers with processing challenges, affecting their progress. I realized how applying what I new as an educator could help them as a dancer. I always said that teaching school helped me be a better ballet teacher, and vice versa.
In 2000, a Ballet Petit parent asked me, “If there was one thing you could do for Ballet Petit, what would it be?” I answered that I wished to somehow have a connection, an experience with the Royal Danish Ballet Company in Copenhagen, Denmark. As a child, I somehow had been drawn to this company and was fascinated by their Bournonville ballet technique and amazing ballet history as the third oldest ballet company in the world. Six months later, there I was, in Copenhagen, with 2 student dancers participating in a three week summer training session among dancers from all over Europe and Scandinavia. Since 2001, I have traveled to Copenhagen and repeated that summer training experience with pairs of dancers every 1-4 years since. It makes me so happy to be able to have them experience this amazing tradition. It also makes me very proud that Ballet Petit has dancers who can handle and benefit from an experience of this elite level. When we spend 3 + weeks in Copenhagen, I also take classes with the student dancers. At 62 years old, it is thrilling to still be learning more and more about this art form that I love.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
In January 2020, as I walked down the street in Berkeley on my way to take a ballet class, I remember thinking, “2020 is going to be the best year ever!” I know… anyhow… The sun was shining. I was in a good place personally. I finally felt like I was back in control after having fought a blood cancer, Hodgkins Lymphoma, in 2016 – 2017. In 2017 I had decided to retire from teaching school, afterall, enough was enough. I didn’t need 2 careers at this point in my life, after all I had been through. The next few years were full of adjustments, but they were good ones. I knew I had made the right decision.
On that day in January, things were great. A week later, as I put moisturizer on my face and neck after a shower, I felt lumps on my neck. I knew what that meant, but hoped for the best. I called my oncologist and went in. My cancer had returned and was at Stage 4! How did I not know I was so sick, and again? How was I able to take ballet classes, dance at the level I was still dancing, while at such a high risk of dying? I was stunned, but not for long.
My doctor went over treatment plans, giving me hope. He said that the first stage of my treatment, 18 hours of chemo over 3 days, every 3 weeks, would be tough, but he knew I could do it. He said my statistics were 50/50, but he gave me 70/30. He knew I was still dancing, and that would fuel me, like it had in my 2016-17 treatment cycles. But he warned me that this time would be harder due to the Stage 4 diagnosis. Then he offered me the prospect of a Stem Cell Transplant at Stanford Hospital, if they accepted me. I remember him telling me that the Stem Cell Transplant process was the medical equivalent of the Olympics, that it was really complicated, but again, I could do it. I remember just looking straight ahead into the future, taking one step at a time. I would do it. Why wouldn’t I? I had no option, and dying didn’t seem like something I was ready to do.
My first interview for the transplant was on Monday, March 16, 2020, the day the world seemed to realize Covid was about to change our lives. In April my PET scan indicated I had to delay my transplant for additional treatment. But in July 2020, at the height of the pandemic, I entered Stanford Hospital in the hope that my transplant would save my life. I was to be there probably for 4-6 weeks. My recovery would take about 6-12 months. Then I would need to get all my lifelong baby shots done over again from 12-25 months post-transplant. They would bring me to the brink of death, then return my stem cells to me, and hope my body would respond. If successful, I would survive. The first 5 days after my transplant were critical, and days I will never forget.
I was in a hospital room with an ante-chamber. I had to wear a hepa mask when I left my room. They had to clean my room daily, while I went out to the ward, hepa masked, and waited for air particles to settle before I could return. I can’t even list here the stuff they did to me before I got there, during, and after. I was a fall risk, imagine! A lifelong dancer tethered 24/7 to a pole with bags and bags of fluid, pokes and prods all day and night. My diet was restricted since I would be taken down to ZERO white blood cells for my transplant, and could not risk exposure to infections. Yes, and Covid was raging. All night I could hear the helipad at Stanford Hospital landing and lifting off, transporting Covid patients, I was told. This was also during the time when PPE was limited, even on transplant hospital wards like mine. It was a scary time to be so sick.
But each day, the team of amazing doctors came in to see me. They kept asking me the same question. “How are you doing so well?” Then they would say, “Oh yes, you are the ballet teacher.” I wasn’t sure why that was so important. Over time, we realized that in addition to expert medical care, I was at Stanford, afterall, ballet was helping me get through this ordeal. My medical team took note.
My nurses would laugh when they came into my room and heard a funny Russian voice giving ballet class commands. I would be sitting in my chair, unable to really stand much, but would move my feet and arms, doing part of the ballet exercises I could manage to do. The ballet teacher was a friend of mine in NYC I had discovered in Zoom ballet classes. He had become interested in my progress and I had maintained attendance in classes, though temporarily limited. I had classical music playing in my room each day on an old Ipad I had brought from home. When I was so sick I needed to be in the bathroom for extended times, I sat doing what my body needed to do, and my feet danced.
There is a whole lot more to this story, but… it was expected that my blood count would recover enough in 2-4 weeks at 500 ANC for me to be released. This was the standard of care for transplant patients. After 9 days, a nurse came in to say good-bye since she had a day off. I was confused, knowing I still had at least another week, minimum, to get my ANC to 500. She showed me my lab results. In 9 days, I was at 2100 ANC! I was going home tomorrow, way earlier than normal. In the coming weeks. I would again out-pace expectations.
But guess what I did the morning after my 24/7 care-giver (best friend / college roommate) brought me home. I woke up and went downstairs to turn on Zoom. I took the barre portion of a ballet class with my friend in NYC. My care-giver / friend sat at the dining room table, watching out for me, while appearing to be doing something else. It was soooo hard, but I did it. Two days later, I did it again, and a bit more. In a little over a week, I was taking full classes again, skinny, frail, bald, and all. Meanwhile, my lab work was again exceeding expectations and I was back on track. That was in August. But… at my ballet school, others had been teaching my classes since April. Ugh.
The new session started at Ballet Petit the day after Labor Day. That Thursday, on my old schedule, I, Miss Peggy resumed teaching my / her ballet classes. I was back. Thursdays and Mondays were teaching days. Four days a week were days to tune in to Zoom and take various ballet classes again. I was getting stronger again.
We stayed on Zoom until July 2021 when it was safe enough to reopen the school. I kept teaching, on Zoom, as usual. I took classes, as usual. I started taking in-person classes in May of 2021. I figured I had better try it out if I was to reopen our school soon. We reopened in July 2021, performed our Nutcracker on stage in December 2021, and Spring Concert in May 2022.
Last month I finished the last of my baby shots. I celebrated with my nurse as she gave my my last MMR shot and a polio vaccine, just to be safe. I have a full head of curly hair after having lost it all three times!! I survived cancer twice and a stem cell transplant, and during a pandemic! Wooohoooo!!
Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?
I entered Stanford Hospital in July 17, 2020, as Covid raged. I had been in treatment (chemo) for many months, as well as going through the preparatory regimen for my Stem Cell Transplant. Luckily, my staff at Ballet Petit had taken over teaching my classes. I still was managing the business throughout my illness, while staff handled teaching classes on Zoom. I would occasionally pop in on Zoom and say hello to our dancers, letting them know I was still around and keeping tabs on them. I assured them I would be back as soon as possible.
Finances were tough. We had lost 2/3 of our enrollment. There was some assistance coming form the government, but I was in heavy duty treatment. It was taking many more months to reopen than we expected. It made handling it all very complicated, but I did it.
On July 23, 2020, I was given back my stem cells that had been extracted from me many weeks earlier. The actual transplant is a bit of a disappointment after all the crazy procedures leading up to it. It is basically an infusion you sit through like treatment, but is a critical event. Patients have been given high dose (10x) chemo treatments on days 6, 4, and 2 leading up to the transplant to basically sandblast your bone marrow in preparation for the transplant to accept back your cells. You are very weak. Apparently, if you are going to die from the process, these 5 days after the transplant are when it happens. So you are monitored extra carefully and have to sleep well at night, even though your body has been pumped with fluids trying to make their rounds.
On night 2 post transplant I received a government email that I had to follow up. It had to do with emergency Covid funding for the ballet school and was time sensitive. Great timing. I remember my nurse coming in and finding me on my computer. She asked me what I was doing. I told her, “I have to handle this email. You gave me back my life, and so now I need to make sure I have my ballet school to live for.” She asked me how long I needed. I told her I needed 30 minutes, so she gave me 29! She had to medicate me for sleep on this critical night, and I knew she meant business.
I finished the email in time. I later got the emergency loan from the email that night. Life went on, and I am here to enjoy it.
Here we are now about 2 years later. Luckily I am healthy and the business is rebuilding. But the assistance and reserve funds are gone. We are making it month to month, but enrollment is finally growing again. We are still in tough times, but I will do whatever it takes to make it over this (hopefully) last hump. We are almost there, and have come so far. It will be ok.
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