Balancing a romantic relationship and a professional dancing career isn't easy.
"I can't believe that I even allowed it to be on television," Allison DeBona, who will be live-tweeting Monday's episode at 9/8c, told TheWrap of her current romantic situation.
The star of The CW's "Breaking Pointe" had an on-again-off-again romance with fellow dancer Rex Lajos Tilton on Season 1. And in the year between seasons, the dancers broke up for good and Allison rekindled her romance and started a long distance relationship with her previous boyfriend.
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On the show's second season premiere episode, we learned that Allison's boyfriend has given her an ultimatum. It's him or dance.
"It was probably like the hardest three months personally for me, because I knew it would change the rest of my life. It was so crazy," she said.
Currently a demi-soloist at Salt Lake City's Ballet West, DeBona has dedicated most of her life to dancing. She now holds one of the top positions in the Company.
It is for that reason and the fact that ballet careers can be very short-lived that the decision to leave for love is difficult for her. Those are also the reasons why fans and critics wonder why she would even consider her boyfriend's ultimatum.
"If ballet is the only thing in your life, knowing it will end is a very scary thing," she said. "If when your body doesn't allow you to dance, you may have excluded everyone out of your life. So, when this ends, I wondered what am I going to have?"
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Because of the limited time dancers can perform, many of them put their relationships on hold.
"To have everything I have in my career and to have found love, I just thought this is both a curse and a blessing," she said. "And I really had to think about it.
DeBona said that the only people she could turn to were Tilton (they're still friends), principal soloist Christiana Bennett and demi-soloist and roommate Katie Critchlow. Notice that DeBona's three closest friends are at her level in the company or above. She told us that it's tough to speak to anyone else, because she's not sure whether they just want to date Tilton or just have an eye on her position in the company.
At any rate, viewers will watch DeBona struggle with choosing love over her ballet career over the course of the season. And, she seems confident viewers will be OK with where she landed.
"I will reassure everybody that it was one of the most well thought out decisions I've made in my life," she said. "I looked at every gray area between the two decisions and you will see that journey for me through the finale. I can't tell you how it turns out, but women will be proud, whether they agree or not, of my decision."
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At the same time, the Company is casting "Cinderella" and it's the source of some angst and competition for the dancers. The woman who originated this version of the main role at The Royal Ballet in London, Wendy Ellis Somes, has a lot to say about which dancers will get which parts.
"We all fought for our parts," DeBona told us. "Wendy Ellis did not care what position you held in the company. All that angst you see with the dancers is real. All the girls at Ballet West are so strong and beautiful and any one of them could do the roles. Wendy Ellis owns that role and you can tell she was looking for dancers who reminded her of herself."