Early in the morning on November 30, a nervous Jenelle Manzi sat in front of her dressing room mirror, wondering if she remembered how to act.The professional ballerina was trying to send her home nutcracker An injury that kept her off stage for months after recovering from a broken ankle.
But as soon as the curtain rose, the New York City Ballet veteran was reminded that her skills, as Manzi told SELF, are “second nature.”
For many ballet companies, nutcracker It’s an annual holiday tradition. The classic story follows Marie (called Clara in some versions) who receives the gift of the Nutcracker and travels to a magical land on Christmas Eve. This year, Manji will play Marie’s mother. The role requires a rather tricky maneuver to put the cloak on Marie while surrounded by candles. It was Manji’s most nervous scene after knocking down a candle during a dress rehearsal. But in her first performance, she nailed it.
“Time seemed to fly by,” said Manzi, who has danced with the New York City Ballet since 2006. She’s fully back and excited to perform every night. Because coming back from an injury is so much progress. “
Manji lives with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome— a hereditary connective tissue disorder that makes joints hypermobile — and has dealt with some of her injuries as a result: At age 17, she couldn’t dance for two years. And while this condition has made dancing easier in some respects (for example, she’s very flexible, which allows her to do a lot of extension), it can also cause joints to pop out, causing injury and inflammation. Therefore, it became difficult in another respect.
I couldn’t understand why my body didn’t feel like everyone else’s. I couldn’t understand why my body would pop out in certain places that no one else would,” she says.
She’s been through a lot of “trial and error”, referring to what kind of training and recovery makes her body feel its best, but she’s now in a better place. With the help of an expert in , she can better understand what works and what doesn’t for her, and incorporate that knowledge into her training.
and her role nutcracker This year is the culmination of that. She started dancing at the age of four, nutcracker Since the age of 16, performing in perhaps the most famous holiday ballet in the world has allowed her to regain her “childlike joy,” she says.
“[After seeing The Nutcracker] I had big dreams of one day dancing myself, but who knew I would get to that exact stage,” says Manzi. “Whenever things feel tough, I always look back at how I’m fulfilling my lifelong dream. Nothing beats this.”
It may be a dream part, but dance nutcracker A tight schedule is required, especially during holidays, when the company often has back-to-back shows. Start times vary from 1:00pm to 8:00pm, making it difficult to get into a normal routine. Plus, even after the curtain call, Manji doesn’t have much time to rest.she uses her off time to run get the golden, the natural snack company she launched in 2020. The seeds of Get Golden were planted when Manzi suffered an injury in her teens and became interested in nutrition as a way to help her recover.
