Dasha Schwartz on Why Timothée Chalamet Accidentally Did Ballet a Favour

Taylor Champlin

2 days ago

6 min read

Updated: 1 day ago

Ballet has always asked its dancers to fit inside something: a company, a role, a body, a stage. Dasha Schwartz is more interested in what happens when you take those boundaries away.

After beginning ballet at five, training at Canada’s National Ballet School and dancing professionally across North America and Europe, Schwartz came to understand both the extraordinary beauty of the art form and the rigidity of the world surrounding it. So she started imagining something different.

Through Cardboard Stage, the New York-based creative platform she founded, Schwartz brings dancers together with artists, designers and brands, placing ballet in spaces where you might not expect to find it and creating opportunities for dancers whose careers don’t fit neatly inside the traditional company system.

In conversation with Roe, Dasha Schwartz speaks about growing up inside ballet, learning to separate her worth from her body, why Timothée Chalamet accidentally did ballet a favour, making the art form accessible to a new generation, and her dream of one day turning the Met into a stage.

TAYLOR CHAMPLIN: You started attending Canada’s National Ballet School at just 10 years old. When did you first start dancing, and when did you realise you had fallen in love with it?

DASHA SCHWARTZ: I started dancing at five, as a lot of young girls do, but I started with my brother and sister. My mom is Russian and danced growing up, so she put all of us in ballet. I don’t think she anticipated what would happen with me.

Canada’s National Ballet School is unique because it combines academics and ballet in the same building. It’s an all-encompassing environment designed to train professional dancers. I was also one of five children, and they weren’t all involved in art, so I had a good balance between this intense dance environment and going home and not talking about ballet all the time.

TAYLOR CHAMPLIN: Ballet can be incredibly competitive, yet with Cardboard Stage, you’ve built something centred around community and collaboration. How did that shift happen?

DASHA SCHWARTZ: When you're immersed in ballet from such a young age, you eventually realise how siloed it can be. You’re not always exposed to other types of art, communities or people your age.

I loved the dedication it required and constantly striving to learn and become better, but I also started recognising problems within the dance world. I wanted to create a space that maintained the beauty of ballet, dance and collaboration while fostering an environment that felt safer and more open to different types of people.

When I danced professionally, the audiences who could afford to attend ballet tended to be older, whiter and wealthier. As a 17-year-old performing in Amsterdam, I kept thinking about how we could bring ballet to a different demographic, especially people my own age.

There are also so many incredibly talented dancers who never ultimately get a job in a ballet company. That shouldn’t mean there are no other opportunities for them to perform.

Often, you train your entire childhood, go to one or two auditions, don’t get a job, and suddenly you’re forced to pivot or stop dancing altogether. I want to challenge the idea of what it means to be successful as a ballet dancer.

Cardboard Stage has two sides to its mission. The first is creating a community where dancers can continue performing, creating their own work and taking on roles they might not otherwise have access to. The second is building the audience so the art form continues to evolve. We want the next generation to be interested in ballet beyond The Nutcracker they see every year with their grandma.

TAYLOR CHAMPLIN: Ballet has been called a dying art form, including, rather famously, by Timothée Chalamet. Do you think that perception is changing?

DASHA SCHWARTZ: Ironically, Timothée’s comment has done ballet a service. People immediately wanted to challenge it. Social media, brands and campaigns started showcasing the opposite. Polymarket even asked us to create a dance campaign leading up to the Oscars around the question, “Timothée thinks ballet and opera are dead. Do you?”

If ballet were as accessible and easy to experience as an art gallery or concert, I don’t think people would see it as a dying art form. I want to create spaces where you can see ballet somewhere you wouldn’t normally expect it. Ballet is such a human experience. These are real people performing live in front of you. It’s not video, CGI or AI. It’s a living experience that is fleeting. You have to be present to enjoy it.

TAYLOR CHAMPLIN: How do you find the dancers you work with?

DASHA SCHWARTZ: Anyone can apply through our website, and we regularly post opportunities on Instagram. Depending on the project, I’ll either hold a casting call or reach out to our existing network.

I’m also constantly discovering dancers through ballet classes. We’re always looking for new people and trying to diversify and grow the community.

TAYLOR CHAMPLIN: You’ve trained and danced around the world. Looking back, what has been one of the most important lessons you’ve learned?

DASHA SCHWARTZ: Ballet is a very aesthetic art form. Your physique is incredibly important, and for a long time I placed so much value on my weight, how other people viewed me and what I looked like.

The most empowering thing I did was take a break after Amsterdam. I moved to Montreal and tried to build confidence from within rather than through external validation. When you spend so long training in front of mirrors and being watched by other people, it can naturally make you insecure.

It was incredibly liberating when I stopped thinking so much about what other people thought of me. When I went back to dance with that mindset, I started dancing more freely. I think I grew more during that year than at any other point.

At Alberta Ballet, I was also asked to choreograph an emerging artist tour that performed at schools across the province. Seeing children experience ballet for the first time through my work was incredibly rewarding. Looking back, it really embodied what I’m now trying to do with Cardboard Stage: bring dance to people who might not otherwise encounter it.

TAYLOR CHAMPLIN: You’ve worked with Chanel for Elle Canada, Columbia University and designers during New York Fashion Week. What would be your dream project?

DASHA SCHWARTZ: I get the most pleasure from creating something unexpected and challenging what we consider movement.

We created a ballet called Three Graces, inspired by a sculpture at the Met. I love the relationship between dance and sculpture. I would love to create a ballet at the Met surrounded by different sculptures, with each movement inspired by a different piece of art.

We’ve also started experimenting with movement tracking in our short films. I’d love to collaborate with a graphic designer on a film where, over time, the dancers disappear and all you see are the traces of the lines their bodies created in space. Consider your body a paintbrush and every motion a stroke.

TAYLOR CHAMPLIN: I recently watched Billy Elliot for the first time. In the film, Billy describes dancing as electricity, flying, almost like a fire in his body. How would you describe what dancing feels like to you?

DASHA SCHWARTZ: Exhilarating and nourishing. Because of the live element, you have to be completely in the moment. I feel most like myself when I'm dancing in front of people. It’s when I feel most fulfilled emotionally, physically and mentally.

TAYLOR CHAMPLIN: Do you have a favourite dance film?

DASHA SCHWARTZ: I’m obsessed with Center Stage. It was set in New York, so I was always drawn to the city because of it. One of the main dancers in the film, Sacha Radetsky, eventually became my teacher, mentor and director at NYU and ABT. The only reason I moved to New York was for the NYU master’s program at ABT, so suddenly having my childhood celebrity crush teaching me ballet every day was a very full-circle, “Wow, I’ve really made it” moment.

TAYLOR CHAMPLIN: Who has been a consistent inspiration throughout your life?

DASHA SCHWARTZ: My grandma. She’s an artist, and without her, I absolutely wouldn’t be pursuing the arts in the way I am today. Whenever our parents dropped us at her house, we made art. She taught us to draw faces, make etchings and create jewellery. Her entire house felt like a museum, so I was constantly surrounded by art in this very intimate way. My apartment is now covered in her work. She’s 94 and still creating, which is incredible.

In dance, I admire Justin Peck for the way he’s bridged choreography and the mainstream through projects like West Side Story. David Dawson is probably my favourite choreographer. But I don’t really have one North Star.

TAYLOR CHAMPLIN: What do you want Cardboard Stage to become?

DASHA SCHWARTZ: I want us to keep evolving, collaborating with as many different artists as possible and working in unconventional spaces. We’re offering community ballet classes this summer, which creates another opportunity for people to experience dance. Ultimately, I want to serve the community we already have while continuing to expand it and bring ballet to audiences who might never otherwise encounter it.