When Krystal started taking ballet classes last year for the first time, Rich was excited to hear about it. This brought back memories Rich had of his own time studiously learning ballet.

Krystal is always looking for the intersection of her different interests. For example, Krystal works in healthcare and has seen how her training in improv has made her a better provider. As a result, Krystal teaches applied improv workshops to other healthcare providers to help them better communicate and collaborate with patients and colleagues.

Rich loves to try new things in improv. Create new shows in new places. He just wants to get more people to experience improv in Ottawa! It’s great! Rich performs and produces improv shows, as well as producing improv workshops so that improv performers can learn from all sorts of different teachers.

One day, Krystal and Rich were talking about the intersection of improv and ballet. These two art forms seemed so different at first, but the more they talked about it, the more they saw similarities. Krystal and Rich asked the questions “What would an improv set look like if it took the format of a ballet class? How would ballet influence improv, and even improv influence ballet?”

One seems messy and one seems structured, but classes for both improv and ballet flow in the same way. And both art forms are likely more approachable than people think.

So we decided to run the experiment to see if our ideas could be brought to life! Can improv and ballet actually flow together side by side? We think so, but we guess we’ll find out at Fresh Meat :)