Golden anniversary: Ballerina mom creates magical life with Tallahassee Ballet

It’s 6 p.m. on a Tuesday night, and while most mothers of a 2 and a 5-year-old are either figuring out what to feed a pair of bouncing children or are eagerly awaiting their 7 p.m. bedtime so Mom can sit down and rest, there is one mother in Tallahassee who seems to only now be coming to life.

A different life. That of a prima ballerina who in less than an hour will have transformed herself into the Queen of the Swans in the magic land of the Tallahassee Ballet. Meet Tomoko Takahashi.

In this, the Tallahassee Ballet’s 50th year, Takahashi, along with premier danseur, Jorge Arceo and a corps de ballet of 20 dancers, will recreate Acts II and IV of Tchaikovsky’s Russian classic, "Swan Lake."

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Along with this “white ballet” with its tutus, pointe shoes, and powerful masculine virtuosity, the anniversary performances on May 13 and 14  at Ruby Diamond Hall will feature new works by renowned guest choreographers: Daniel Catanach, Sarah Harkness, Christopher Huggins, and TB’s Katy Cashin.

“It is so wonderful to be a part of the Tallahassee Ballet,” says Takahashi in her lilting Japanese accent. “The company let’s me find a way to care for my children and to dance as well.” She is animated and expansive, her arms caressing the air and her dark eyes sparkling. Takahashi knows she is lucky as she describes the world-wide trajectory her career has taken. And she wouldn’t change a thing.

Early years and injuries

“I am from Nagano, the site of the 1998 Winter Olympics. I stayed there until I was 12, taking ballet classes with private teachers… always wanting to become a professional dancer,” Takahashi said.

But at 13, just when she had received a scholarship to study in Milan, she injured her back. Takahashi was unable to dance for a year. With her recovery, she used another scholarship to travel to Hungary where she studied for two years before joining the Columbia Classical Ballet in South Carolina. Yet, again, a back injury kept her from dancing for the next two years. Despite these wrenching injuries, like many athletes with a mission, Takahashi determinedly prepared her body to dance again.

At 19, she auditioned for the Singapore Ballet — and was offered a position as a soloist. There was something about the delicate dancer, who acted as powerfully as she danced that suggested she was made for the stage.

Three and a half years later, dancing more and more principal roles, Takahashi was appointed the prima ballerina of the Tel Aviv Ballet where she would spend the next three and a half years dancing the classics and and where commissioned works were created especially for her. “Madame Butterfly was so wonderful to dance,” she smiles. “…choreographed especially for me!”

Children and dancing career

But unlike that ballet, where Butterfly is abandoned, Takahashi had found lasting love with a Japanese physicist living in Israel. They married, had their first child, and moved to first to New York, and later, when her husband joined FSU as a professor, to Tallahassee.

Unlike dancers of an earlier generation who were often “professionally pressured” into forgoing marriage and child-bearing, Takahashi wanted a family. For the next three years, she would devote herself to being a parent — a very long time to be away from dance and then to return.

And yet, when she found the Tallahassee Ballet, it seemed as if inspiration reignited. The TB’s Director Tyrone Brooks certainly believed he was witnessing inspired dancing. And Takahashi became the company’s principal dancer. “Here it has been possible for me really to “have it all,” she says.

An example for other dancers

Brooks says Takahashi’s role in the company sets an example for younger dancers of how a seasoned, high-ranking professional performer conducts herself, and how she dances. Disciplined, artistically demanding of herself, always working to improve, yet approachable and warm. She is also an example of the diversity he sees as a hallmark of the Tallahassee Ballet.

“We hope to be diverse in ethnicities and in the productions we create,” Brooks says, citing last season’s “Invitation to the Party” in which the Bethel AME Gospel Choir, an opera singer, jazz musicians, and a salsa dancer all performed together. “If we want to prepare dancers for professional careers, it’s not just about pointe shoes and tutus anymore,” says Brooks.

The upcoming program this May filled with classic, neo-classic and contemporary works demonstrates that vision.

For Brooks who, after the paralysis of COVID and in the middle of it, a move to a newer and larger studio, the future looks bright. “Soon we hope to be hiring around a dozen new dancers — paid performers,” he notes with pride.

And for Tomoko Takahashi, clad tonight in traditional black leotard and tights, perspiration illuminating her face, soaring in the arms of a prince in sweatshirt and woolen socks, she seems very far away — in a glade filled with magic. As sweet, no doubt, as the magic she will find at home tonight as she tucks her little ones into bed.

If you go

What: The Tallahassee Ballet’s 50th Anniversary Performance

Where: Ruby Diamond Hall, FSU campus

When: 7:30 p.m. May 13 and 2:30 p.m. May 14

Tickets: $28-$55, depending on seating; visit Tallahasseeballet.org

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Tallahassee Ballet revisits 'Swan Lake' for 50th anniversary concert