Melissa Sandvig is one tough ballerina. At 29, she’s the oldest contestant ever to compete on the five seasons of
So You Think You Can Dance. And she’s the first one to do it in toe shoes. During Week 4, she and her partner, Ade Obayomi, wowed the judges with their pas de deux. “I’m so happy to be celebrating classical dance,” raved guest judge and choreographer Mia Michaels.
Sandvig says she wanted to try out for the show, in part, because of the struggles she’s had in the harsh, unforgiving world of ballet. With twenty-four years of ballet training, she now faces age discrimination. “If I went to audition for a ballet company, they’d be like, ‘No, there’s an 18-year-old that we don’t have to pay as much.’ But this show is fair in that they just want talent and personalities.”
Then there’s the problem of not being rail-thin. “Your confidence goes up and down when you’re being told to lose weight your whole life,” she says. “And I’m very muscular, so that makes you look bigger.” But Sandvig says she learned her lesson about eating properly in her early twenties while performing with a ballet company in Milwaukee. “When a doctor said, ‘You might not have any children if you don’t gain some weight,’ I got the reality check. Real life is more important than ballet.”