When I was a teenager, and feeling unhopeful that a career in ballet would actually pan out for me, I once said to my mom, “If nothing else, I will have a lifelong appreciation for ballet.”

I had no idea.

While I was fortunate enough to have a (very brief) career, what has stuck with me is the appreciation.  Except that it is so much more than that—it’s a true passion.  Dance is the only thing I have ever wanted to devote myself to.  Eight years after I stopped performing professionally, I still make taking class a priority in my life, perhaps too much of a priority.  But more than that, what I love is going to the ballet.

Ballet is one of those arts that is perceived as expensive, inaccessible, and highbrow.  It lacks an obvious relevance.  But you know what?  So, apparently, do donuts.  My local donut shop was on the verge of losing its lease because, according to the landlord, “donut shops aren’t relevant” anymore.  I was shocked!  How can donuts cease to be relevant?  In the end, the community came out in great support of the donut shop and they were able to renew their lease.  They appear to be busier than ever.  The tables are always full.  No one is on their laptop; everyone is engaged in active conversation, while in the background an incredibly diverse stream of people passes through picking up their favorite treat or a box for the little league team.  Donuts bring people together.  So does ballet.

Going to the ballet is a communal activity.  You’re not sitting alone in an empty theater.  Even if you are attending alone, you’re there with hundreds or thousands of other people, watching the same thing at the same time in real time.  That’s called live.  And then, at intermission, you get to talk about it!  You talk with whoever you brought with you, or the person sitting next to you, or the person behind you in line for the bathroom.  Suddenly you have something in common.

This is not unique to ballet.  Attending any live performance is a communal activity.  But you don’t have to convince anyone going to Burning Man that it’s both communal and an experience.  For some reason, it takes more persuasion to get people into a posh theater.

Millennials, I understand, like experiences.  Every company is desperately pursuing the coveted millennial market, tripping over themselves to offer sufficiently social, interactive, and photographic events.  Going to the ballet is already an experience.  And it’s somewhat social (see above re: engaging with other audience members).  And most people like to dress up, which means you’ll look great in the selfie you post on Instagram, and cultured to boot.  So it seems to me that going to the ballet should be the ultimate millennial experience!

And then take it to the next level:  shared experience.  People of my parents’ generation ask, “Where were you when Kennedy was shot?”  For my generation, it will be, “Where were you on September 11?”  Recently, the question has been, “Did you see the eclipse?”  For a brief moment in the middle of the day, everyone took time to go outside and look up.  The eclipse brought people together, because everyone participated.

I often lament the past and how things have changed.  I have been known to bemoan, on more than one occasion, the erosion of shared experiences in the modern world.  I usually use the example of television.  Not all that long ago, you could only watch a show when it was being broadcast.  Maybe you recorded it on a VHS tape if you weren’t going to be home, but by and large you arranged your evenings around your favorite shows.  I vividly remember watching the Oscars one year; the next day in ballet class we debated whose dress we liked best (Catherine Zeta-Jones won).  Because that’s what you did!  I was just a kid, but I grasped the concept of water cooler talk:  everyone tuned into the same thing, and then they talked about it at work.  With the advent of streaming and on demand, there’s much less opportunity for people to watch together.  I have shows I watch on Netflix, but this past year I didn’t stream any of them when they were released.  I binged them months later.  Some of my friends had already watched them, but some of them had yet to.  Makes it a bit harder to discuss the shows.

On a small scale, going to the ballet with a few thousand other people is the same as watching “Downton Abbey” with a few million other people—and what’s more, you can actually interact with them.  I have had so many lovely conversations with seatmates at the ballet over the years.  Engagement makes you feel a part of something greater, but for me it’s always critical to comment on a performance.  I have to be able to tell someone what I loved (or didn’t love), and it’s much nicer to say that to someone who was there and can respond in kind, rather than via a phone call or a text message or a Facebook post.

I wanted to try writing about going to the ballet. Specifically, I want to go to the ballet with people—friends, strangers, celebrities—and talk to them about going to the ballet and then write that down. I am not setting out to write reviews, although I may include critical content. Rather, my goal is to show that ballet is accessible and interesting and fun and worth seeking out. And hopefully to convince you to do so.