Ice hockey and strength and conditioning training used to be her thing, then at the age of 37, Patricia Pyrka from Munich discovered classical ballet. Today, almost ten years later, she is studying dance education in Toronto. The vision of the single mother of a son who sits in a wheelchair: She wants to open ballet to everyone.
“Misfits” are people who don’t really fit in anywhere, who dare to try new things and therefore become outsiders. “Ballet Misfits” Patricia Pyrka calls her project, a platform for everyone who started classical ballet “late to the party” in adulthood and how they question the idea that this art – unlike contemporary dance – is exclusively reserved should be for standardized young, super flexible, super slim bodies. The Munich native is convinced that there is room for people of all ages, for different body silhouettes, skin colors, backgrounds and disabilities in ballet. Patricia Pryka is currently in the process of living according to this ideal, an exciting experiment. The 46-year-old has been studying in Toronto at Canada’s renowned National Ballet School since the summer. Her teenage son, who sits in a wheelchair, is also there.