The Stars of BREAKING POINTE Preview The CW’s New Reality Series

The regular season of television may be nearly over, but I have a new addiction to get me through the summer — The CW’s reality series about ballet dancers, BREAKING POINTE.

So what can you expect from the new show?

“The show is a season in the life of Ballet West,” explained Adam Sklute, Artistic Director of Ballet West, to reporters at a recent press event. “The look into all of our lives, both what we’re doing professionally and what we do when we go home and what it’s like to live the life of a ballet dancer.”

But don’t be fooled by potential misconceptions of ballet dancers — the training and schedule these dancers must go through is rigorous.

“Life is hard; it gets intense,” Sklute said. “It’s hard. And your body and your mind and your soul are part of your job. So that always makes it intense. That’s what keeps it intense in our lives. So basically, that’s what we’re trying to show in the show and that’s what the producers were trying to present was we don’t need to create phony drama. There’s enough drama in our lives. Injuries, dealing with just your physicality. you can go to work feeling sick…not feeling well or with a cast on your leg. You can’t do that in ballet. You can have a bad day and not communicate well with others, but you can’t have a bad day in ballet and not work with other people. You just can’t. The whole life, it just is what it is.”

And while it would be understandable if some of the dancers had hesitations about allowing cameras into their world and into their personal lives, Ronnie Underwood and Beckanne Sisk — two of the featured dancers the show follows — insisted there were no dancers who declined to participate when it came time to film the series.

“It’s good for our business and it’s good for our art,” Underwood said. “We love ballet so we wanted to bring that out.”

Helping make the on-camera transition easier? The crew’s accommodation to the dancers’ rigorous schedules during the six weeks of filming.

“It didn’t make a difference [having the film crew there],” Sisk said. “At first, we were all a little afraid having cameras in the studios was going to be tough space-wise, but I ended up forgetting that they were even there.”

“I think one of the great things about the whole process was the respect level we got from the production company and all of the camera people were so good,” Sklute added. “At first, I think, we were a little bit intimidated with the cameras there, but very quickly we just forgot that they were there. They really didn’t ask us — like in the studios, they would follow us for what we were doing, which is why they were there for such a long time…They were there for our work time, so they worked with our schedule, which is why we ended up forgetting they were there and why it was so natural.”

And yes, if the show is a success, they’d be open to doing the experience again.

“If people wanted to see more of it, I’d be all for it,” Sklute said.

So now you guys just have to do your part and tune in…

BREAKING POINTE premieres Thursday,  May 31, at 8 PM on The CW.

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