A conversation with Ron Fredman, former president of the Kansas City Ballet Guild. By Kelly Leahy, Kansas City Ballet.

Ron Fredman spent the last year as president of the Kansas City Ballet Guild, rallying 250 members and personally ensuring that KC Ballet received a check for exactly $500,000.61. He is one of ballet’s most committed champions in Kansas City.

He had never taken a ballet class in his life.

That changed this summer, when Ron joined me in Kansas City Ballet School’s Introduction to Ballet, part of our Open Division classes for teens and adults at our Bolender Center in downtown Kansas City and our South Campus at Meadowbrook. What followed was 90 minutes of pliés, relevés, tendus, and at least one jump that I will let Ron describe in his own words.

This is a story about trying something new, and what happens when one of ballet’s biggest supporters finally meets ballet on the floor, at the barre, in ballet slippers.

Honestly? No. Devon Carney once offered me a chance to be a supernumerary, one of those walk-on roles where you carry a spear and look important. I thought about it just long enough to say no. If you ever want to clear a hall in a hurry, put me on stage. People would be running out like a Japanese monster movie.

I also grew up in a time when boys simply didn’t take dance. Even though I’m a lot older now, and presumably wiser, it never crossed my mind. But I made it through, it was fun, and I might do it again someday. There I was, watching these young people hopping and twirling around the studio, and I was barely able to get around. That about sums it up.

The first moment I halfway squatted and my knees said, “What are you thinking?” If my knees were going to bend, my heels were going to come up. That’s just the math of it. I looked around and thought, that’s not how they’re supposed to do it, then realized nothing I was doing was how it’s supposed to be done.

About three-quarters of the way through, I had to stop and catch my breath, and it hit me: this is a beginner class. Professional dancers do this just to warm up, before another five or six hours of rehearsal. They make it look effortless. They smile. I was gritting my teeth and thinking some fairly unprintable things.

But there was one moment, maybe five or six seconds, when the live music and my body actually connected. And in that brief instant, I understood what must be going on inside a dancer’s mind and heart all the time. That was touching the magic.

If you consider a pitiful hop to be a jump, I was doing a fine job. I was hopping more with my arms than my legs, which I don’t believe is technically correct, but I did get a couple of inches off the ground. For a moment I felt like I was twelve again. These days I was just grateful to get airborne at all.

Not even close. Raising funds is about encouraging others to share your vision. It’s a partnership, and I’d had enough years doing it professionally that it was a comfortable place to be. Walking into that studio, I had exactly zero experience to draw on. Even in high school I had one move on the dance floor: a version of the hokey pokey. Last night I did more than I managed in my entire high school career. So there’s that.

Three things. First: if I can do it, you can do it. Second: why not? Third: it’s fun, so just go and don’t be self-conscious. If you trip over your foot, so what? No one in that class was judging anyone. It’s a very forgiving room.

The one thing I wasn’t prepared for was how vulnerable I’d feel walking into that studio. It had been decades since I’d tried something so far outside my comfort zone. But here’s what I know: nobody is too old to take a ballet class. Nobody. And Kansas City Ballet School makes it remarkably easy to find out for yourself.

Ready to find your own first position? Kansas City Ballet School’s Open Division offers weekly drop-in dance and fitness classes for teens and adults of all levels at the Bolender Center and our South Campus at Meadowbrook. No experience necessary. Ron will vouch for that.

Explore Open Division classes

Header image: Ron Fredman in the studio at Kansas City Ballet’s South Campus at Meadowbrook location. Photo by Kelly Leahy.