“Raw Strength and Courage”

Bridget McShain Matuschek is a professional ballet dancer and teacher of the Vaganova Method of Ballet, who, along with eight siblings, grew up in Philadelphia. Bridget danced professionally between the years of 1988-1995 with the Deutsche Oper Berlin, and the Colorado Ballet in Denver. Bridget established, owned, directed, and successfully sold the Denver Academy of Ballet, a dance school in Metro Denver. She currently works as a professional dance teacher and as a teaching-artist through the Colorado Ballet. She also works as a consultant for people living with Type I Diabetes. Bridget describes in this interview her process in navigating two career-impacting health issues: childhood diabetes, and a break of her talus, tibia and fibula bones during a rehearsal with Colorado Ballet.

The following is an interview with Heather O’Donnell from December 27th, 2020.

HO: Tell me about the beginnings of your life as a dancer.

 BM: At this point, I‘m amazed I was able to dance at all as a diabetic. But frankly, that was the easy part. I started in ‘Betty Boop’ schools: the Allens Lane Art Center in Philadelphia, recreation centers, and then memorably at Melrose Academy, my grade school, using red leather folding cafeteria chairs, with ballet teacher, Mrs Chaplinsky. My sister, Kelly, and I found Germantown Dance Theatre, and started there when I was thirteen. Here, my eyes were opened to the world of professional dancing, with new friends and many inspirations, like Mary MacLeod, Kenny Williams and Heather Egan. The director, Jean Williams, was a fiery, incredible leader and a brilliant choreographer, and her spirit opened my eyes to the passion and the professionalism of the dance world.

David Harwi, a fellow dance-lover, introduced me to a second studio, led by Misha Korogodsky. Misha awed me with his thick Russian accent: “I want you to come dance with me.” Who would say no?! I was dancing with both studios, gaining performance experience, and understanding that classical ballet was my calling.  Misha then introduced pas de deux classes and eventually led me to my first professional job, with Gert Reinholm of the Deutsche Oper Berlin in Germany. What a fun memory to think back to auditioning at the American Ballet Theatre with Jurgen Schneider teaching. I walked into that class with Gert, and after his offer, I moved to Berlin! I’d never flown and had hardly ever left the Philadelphia/New York area before. Maybe it was fortune shining down, maybe my angels, maybe just good people encouraging me to be ‘in the right place’, but, off I went. Going to Berlin as an 18-year-old diabetic dancer, without a place to stay, without any idea of what might happen beyond this, was crazy, maybe, I just didn't know it was. 

HO: That was about the Autumn of 1988 when you left for Berlin?

BM: Yes, I graduated from high school in 1988. After an eye-opening, incredible workshop at the Joffrey Ballet that summer, dancing with John Magnus and Francesca Corkle, I thought I was ready.

 HO: So, this was a very interesting time in Berlin.

BM: Exactly, I was in Berlin for a season, being inspired and encouraged by great dancers- Rózycki, Woods, Ichino, David Nixon, de Block, Torija. They could never know the fire they lit under me. I then left Berlin before the Wall fell in the Fall of 89. I was so naive! I felt the energy and the changes around me but it took a while to understand, the Communist system was falling. I took an extensive train trip, auditioning throughout Europe, but returned to America knowing I had work to do technically, and needed more support physically and as a diabetic. 

HO: I want to continue where you just ended your story in a little while, but I also want to trace another part of your history and that's your history with diabetes.

BM: It's so interesting. Previously when I‘ve talked about my ballet training, I hadn’t considered the role that diabetes played in it, and I should have all along. I was diagnosed at age six with diabetes. Before that, I had been a chubby, round-cheeked, and happy little girl called Bird, and then I became gaunt, I was wasting away. I was burning ketones (body fat), instead of using carbohydrates and insulin to nourish my body. I had a pink nightgown with a picture of Snoopy saying “Raw Strength and Courage”.

It became my motto, I remember waking up nights dripping wet in that nightgown, soaked with urine. It took many years to understand, and for medicine to catch up to where it is now through pump therapy (which didn’t exist then). With my endocrine system out of whack (I was diagnosed with a hypothyroid issue as well, which was treated with Synthroid), I was only just beginning to understand that diabetes - the ‘disease about control’ - was going to affect every choice I made. I felt like God: everything I did, right or wrong, meant I was in control of how my body reacted.

Early on, I did urine-testing, which was not very accurate. I’d often change a high test result from an ugly orange, +4, by writing down a lovely blue, negative, which was “perfect” and I wanted that! Perfect meant I was normal. Changing the results was not helping my overall health and was certainly affecting other things in life, like dancing.  I believed that diabetes wasn’t getting in the way of my dancing, but it was most certainly was. I was experiencing, heavy muscles, an unclear mind, severe thirst, and having to use the bathroom a LOT through classes.

 My injections were a long- and short-acting insulin taken once a day, which was never an exact science. The short-acting insulin usually peaked in the middle of a morning ballet class. If I took too much, I’d see lows [low blood sugar levels], and if I hadn’t balanced my food with enough insulin, I’d see highs [high blood sugar levels]. During a high or a low, I have very little control of mental acuity. My highs make me sluggish and slow. The lows make me irrational, sometimes insisting on fresh-squeezed juice instead of whatever's in front of me, you know. If they continue, I just want to lay down and sleep and not care about things. With dancing, during highs, I couldn't lift my legs, I have more cramping throughout my legs, my feet cramp, my thighs cramp, you know, there have been times where I'm thinking: ‘Oh, why are my arms so tired?’, and then I suddenly realized that I'm dancing with high blood sugar. Odd, that I was so well trained as a dancer and was not trained well in the art of diabetic care. When I began taking two insulin shots a day and then four, I had more control, which was assisted by the beginning of blood-sugar testing. Since having children, I have worn a pump (the best insulin control possible), I still have lows and highs in my blood-sugar levels, but am alerted by the pump about them, and everyone in a class now also hears it!

HO: Do you remember any issues where the teachers were telling you to work harder and you couldn't because you were dealing with high or low blood sugars?

 BM: Let me answer by saying: I’d rather remember a fairytale version, but, yes, there were obviously times where I would need to treat a low with food or drink, or to stop dancing because of high blood sugars. This was more of a personal struggle, as I didn‘t allow the teachers to see my weakness. Again, there was not much information about diabetes available in the late 80s/early 90s. I carried juice to treat lows. People didn‘t notice that, but it was hard to continue dancing with a belly filled with juice.

Then, I moved to fast-acting smarties, the wrapper always sounded like a symphony if opened during an adagio!  Lows or highs would come on, no matter what kind of exercise or performance was happening. I'd have to test my blood sugar and didn't know if this was appropriate during a ballet class. You know, it is a very formal atmosphere, so, me having to go over to my bag for juice, or to test my blood sugar was something I tried to avoid … I wouldn't say that this was embarrassing, but it definitely was unusual. I tried to ignore it, because I was supposed to be warming up, caring for my body and getting myself to the point where I could go from the warmup (which is so important) to the grand allegro.  You shouldn't miss a thing at the barre, or else your body is not ready to jump or twist and turn in the extreme ways we use our bodies in ballet. Sometimes I’d push a low off until it was dangerous, and be forced to take a longer time to ‘come back’. Other times I would have to ignore a high just as I was stepping onto stage, I did not know those highs could have caused ketoacidosis, (Diabetic ketoacidosis is a life-threatening reaction, basically your body starts to break down fat instead of food because there's no insulin to take care of the food, but the body is still searching for nourishment). Perhaps I was young and able to get through, maybe it was just dumb luck. 

HO: Did you talk with your teachers and explain your health situation, and do you remember them being aware of what you had?

BM: You know, I think there was so much ignorance about diabetes when I was growing up. In fact, with my job at Colorado Ballet, I did not even mention it! It was Patricia Neary who discovered it, when we had ‘personal talks’ about our body look! I think I must have known to keep it quiet, so that it didn't hurt my chances of dancing. My director Martin Friedman never asked about it once!

 Teachers knew, just didn't have much knowledge about it, it was not something anybody really understood. Even today, people are confused about this disease, asking questions about not eating sugar. Now we know to count carbohydrates since everything we eat has an effect on blood sugars. There are signs to look for, like slurred speech, walking unsteady, signs of a drunk! Scary. Once, I went home from class on a bus, and totally blacked out. I don't remember getting on the bus, only off and stumbling home.

As a young dancer, it was fine to sit out and handle a low, but once I was a professional, people did not have so much understanding or knowledge! My most embarrassing performance... I was hired to dance Nutcracker in New Jersey. I was on stage and my body and soul forgot everything, like a bad nightmare, but it was REAL! I forgot every bit of choreography and had to make up something. I waltzed my toosh all over that stage. Afterwards, the director came up to me, and I’ll never forget this, said: “That was the most unprofessional performance I've ever seen.”  I didn‘t realize before the performance, it was because of my blood sugar.

 HO: In a performance, did nervousness and the flow of adrenaline affect your blood sugar levels?

 BM: Oh my gosh, yes, they were affected.  I've always been told that blood sugar levels are affected by any kind of hormonal change. The highs and lows are affected by the menstrual cycle, stress, endorphins, by those extreme hormonal changes in the body. So, definitely, there have been times where I’ll be starting a class at a good blood sugar after eating, where I feel I'm not going to crash low, but it happens, or even worse, I skyrocket without any reason. I would usually expect my blood sugars to come down with an activity like that, but I would start the class at 100 or 150, and I would climb to 300 during the class. No big donuts either!

When I was dancing, there were plenty of times where a high blood sugar level (hyperglycemia) and low blood sugar level (hypoglycemia) were controlling my mind and body. During that audition class for the Deutsche Oper Berlin, I was experiencing the stresses of pushing my physical body in order to impress, but in reality, the pain in my thighs was most likely from high blood sugars, maybe both! Adrenaline, nerves, hormonal changes, stress, and abnormal activity all cause challenges to a diabetic, and are all involved in every aspect of being a professional athlete! It wasn't a perfect match. There is an enormous amount of work to do as a dancer, and diabetic lows and highs resemble the effects of an intense workout: perspiration, hydration issues, fatigue, confusion. There was always something to take care of.

.HO: What is a good range for blood sugars?

 BM: So, your range [as a non-diabetic] is 70 to 120, that's the perfect range. Now that I have a pump, I set my range to be around 150. I think my high is 180 and my low is 70, and that has a lot more to do with ‘the psychology of the pump’ and trying to prevent highs or lows with an alarm system that warns me to watch out for them. When I’m dancing, the pump is programmed to let me know. If I'm going low at about 140, I can actually catch it, before it dives into the basement or dangerous levels. Thank God!

HO: You didn't have a pump when you were a teenager and training in your career, right?

BM: Right, no pump, just insulin injections. It's so much easier now for people using pump therapy. It’s not perfect. Where does one hide a pump in a leotard and tights? Makes partnering pretty difficult, too. Though it‘s not always attractive, I’ve gotten used to the extra bump.

The control is better as is maintaining the sugars. When I was training, you’d only ‘sense’ you needed to address a blood sugar change after-the-fact. During a ballet class, I’d be sweating, I’d be fatigued, I would be working out, and yet the signs of a low are also sweating, fatigue, and muscle weariness. All the signs that you might be looking for as a diabetic are already happening in a dancer’s daily life naturally. It was easy to miss those signs.

HO: Did this cause a lot of anxiety? Were you stressed out about having a situation like this in a performance or did this increase your performance jitters?

 BM: Heck yea, like that situation in New Jersey, I definitely started to understand that I had to take care of this. It was clear that a high or low could deeply affect my career, totally embarrass me during a performance on stage. It became my responsibility to be checking before class and performance and then making sure that whatever I was eating was leading me into a performance. I couldn't eat the big pasta dinner, right? Or, you know, the pizza or the Mexican meal, because there was no way of understanding how to make sure that that didn't start a reaction later. And I'm saying a lot of this with the current information we have about diabetes. Before, we didn't realize that fats in food could make your blood sugars rise later, and then you have to meet that rise with an extra insulin dose or a dual-wave insulin dose. I remember one time at the Colorado Ballet, I tested before a performance and I was at 300 or 335 and I remember that feeling of: ‘How am I going to do this? How am I going to remember what I’m doing out there?’ Normally I would stand on stage and the butterflies would hit my stomach and I'd be completely mentally ready to just explode out there. You know, the natural nerves, where you know the music, but you still ask: ‘is this my cue?’ and ‘Is this when I come on for Columbine in the first act of the Nutcracker?‘. I was afraid of missing that cue every time with my dance partner Koichi. You train to know how to be prepared and ready for those kinds of things, and when I realized that there were times where I was actually fighting that battle with issues related to blood sugar levels, I felt scared and uncertain. I was asking myself what might happen if it took over that part of my brain? There are times where I didn't feel like I was all ‘there’ and I'd have to somehow show up and by the grace of God, I did. I wonder if that's that ‘fight or flight’ impulse, you know, there's no choice, you just have to do it.

HO: I hear two things: on the one hand, you had to painstakingly control the situation with diabetes by knowing when you needed to eat, knowing when you needed to test, etc., so that indicates that you exercised a lot of control over the diabetes; and then on the other hand sometimes you just had to take a risk and hope that it would work out all right if you felt a high coming on while going out onto the stage. Where would you evaluate yourself between this kind of risk-taking with your health against being extremely cautious?

BM: It was very natural for me just to say: ‘I'm diabetic, but this is what I do, I ignore the diabetic side of who I am to just live’. I had to remind myself sometimes: ‘Oh yeah, I'm a diabetic’, and I would say that sometimes when I'm about to take a class and I'm thinking: ‘Oh gosh, I can't just dance, I have to test my blood sugar, and if I don't do that, then there will be repercussions’, right? If I don't test, I will suffer the consequence of not getting to do the ballet class, of spending all my money on a New York ballet class, and not being able to finish it, or worse of not making an impression! That’s everything in the professional world- make friends, impress, and be at the right place. I danced in a master class with Maya Plisetskaya, that was a chance in a lifetime, and there was no way I would have walked out! I had to be ready to dance and to be in control of my faculties! Every opportunity was like that. I was traveling through Europe by myself, and wanting to be sure that I was showing up prepared for a class, not just physically and mentally as a technician, but physically and mentally as a diabetic. There's no doubt that this played an enormous part in every audition, in every class I ever took or with everyone I was trying to impress. We'd have guest choreographers come to work with us at the ballet. If f I wasn't completely ‘on’, then I wasn't going to be chosen by them for their piece, or to get a good role, and that was already a struggle with so many beautiful people wanting the same thing! I definitely created a dichotomy of success / failure, and I think I somehow forced myself to disregard those issues with diabetes. You just say: ‘I'm going to do this regardless of the consequences, so sometimes just deciding to ignore the signals worked. Maybe I would have been offered five jobs in my professional years instead of three... what am I saying, I was a ballerina working, and here’s where the story really changed.

 HO: So, just a little check-in, how would you feel about concentrating more on diabetes instead of the leg injury, or do you feel it's very important to talk about the leg-break? What would be better for you?

 BM: Oh interesting, when I talk specifically about ballet, I see myself as that person who was the ballerina. I didn't see myself as a ‘diabetic ballerina’. Now I do, now I think so much about that. But back then I was a kid, the world was open to me. I wanted life to be simple, so I would say that the injury is what changed my life entirely. It wasn't the diabetes that stopped me from dancing. I found a way to navigate the diabetes. It's a very interesting thing, because although it did present a challenge, I was a ballerina that had something to deal with constantly, but that's not what got me down. I fought through that. What changed it all was falling in a rehearsal at the Colorado Ballet and breaking my fibula, tibia and talus bone and dislocating my ankle. That is obviously what seemed to take everything from me. I tried to come back many times, I worked with Dr. Winter in Denver, countless therapists, both physical and psychological. One therapist said I would cry every time I heard Swan Lake. He was actually pretty spot-on. Psychologically, I could have ignored the diabetes, I would have just danced and danced and danced. I lived well with my diabetes, I managed it. There's the struggle over controling diabetes, and then there's the struggle that you don't have control over, and that was my career-ending broken leg.

HO: So, we left off in your biography with your year in Berlin, and then came the Colorado Ballet?

 BM: Yes, Berlin was my professional start, and then I realized I needed to refine my technique and I found it with Margarita de Saa and John White at the Pennsylvania Academy of Ballet. They were the world to me. With a preprofessional company, he [John White] was a master Vaganova teacher, sparkly-eyed and with a dry humor, sharing his brilliance through Russian technique, and she [Margarita de Saa] in their perfect union was lyrical, strong and beautiful. Now I understood it, I studied it, I taught it. John White was also a teacher trainer, so I was learning to teach the Vaganova method, as well as actually dancing it. I was ready, they prepared me and sent me out with Curtis Key to audition in the US. The Whites were instrumental in helping me focus and be the best ballerina I could be. The next stop was with my dear friend Eddie Stegge, at Colorado Ballet. Between Erie Ballet, Atlanta Ballet and Colorado, I found my place in Colorado.

 Performing solo roles in Swan Lake, Columbine in the Nutcracker with its 32 fouettes, and very possibly being considered for Clara as well, I was feeling success, and flying. Our four swans were what Nadja Tikhonova , our ballet mistress, proclaimed: “Better than Kirov”! (Russian accent again). Rehearsal was starting, and I was getting ready, working on some pirouettes. Time and again I pirouetted, 1, 2, 3! Three turns on point is no small feat. I was on my line. Three, four, five times in a row, I was nailing three pirouettes! ‘One last time’, I told myself, and down I went, too quickly. That’s how quickly my career was over. I tried to finish the pirouette, placing my right leg down, but the floor in the studio, the new Marley floor without rosin, was too slick. The doctors say it was a Tubbs fracture, where the bone breaks and swings back to break the other, chipping the talus as well. I just remember the rush, Meliss Pakri coming and picking me up, taking me to the hospital immediately. I remember the pain, I remember crying my heart out, and I remember thinking: ‘What does this mean?’, and then going immediately to the hospital where I was casted. The question came up pretty quickly: Do I want a full leg cast or do I pin it, and sadly at the time I didn't have the advice of a professional dancer. Martin Friedman [the director of the Colorado Ballet] didn't call me to say: ‘This is what we think you should do’, there was nobody. Everyone in the company called the first day, but not the second or third. It’s sad to look back at the lack of support.

After time spent healing, dancing on point in swimming pools, and Pilates-workouts-galore, I wasn't getting range back in the ankle. My dorsiflexion was great but my plantarflexion was in the crapper and affecting how I landed a plié. You can't land a centered plié unless you’re equally landing on two feet, so off I went to Dr. Hamilton in New York City. He was the doctor to the stars, like Mikhail Baryshnikov.  This is when I learned it was important for a dancer to get the bones pinned, to get back on your feet, to begin the healing process quickly. All the while, I believed I could do it. Never a doubt. Especially as Martin Friendman was telling me I would get my job back. I ran into him the halls at one point, where he made it clear, I had my job when I was ready. I believe he was putting me off so I wouldn’t sue the company. That wasn’t even a thought for me, and I sent the lawyers away, believing what Martin had told me. My world continued to crumble, but having a good man in my life who loved me dearly, we decided to concentrate on being a diabetic mama and start our family. I was teaching, using my Vaganova training, and happy, as I gave my wisdom to the kids at Colorado Ballet. I was good at it. Eventually, I understood I had to let go of the stage and focus on rebuilding.

HO: In rounding out this interview, are there any other thoughts you’d like to mention about your experience?

I have had so many opportunities to celebrate being a good person in the world and so many dark times as well. I have felt alone, abandoned, lost without my world. I would have died for a support team of dancers and those fighting just for me at the time, to not only get back up and dance, but to help me transition to the next stages of my life. This has taken thirty years and it still isn’t over.

The healing and the life-affirmation continues. I was able to take what John and Margarita gave me to have the confidence to open my own ballet studio where I became sole owner, artistic director, teacher and employer to 150 plus families, many teachers over the years, and built a beautiful community. I sold that in 2001 after ten years, so add successful business owner to my story. You see, these are all positives. I most importantly left my professional dreams mid-career to have two beautiful girls, Julia Quinn and Josephine Ellen. I needed to have them younger because of diabetes. So silver lining… and “All is Well That Ends Well”,  Yes, without a doubt! 

Yet, there isn’t a day that goes by, where I don’t wonder how much the break and diabetes took from me, and in small ways how my life ‘could’ have been different. Diabetes has made me strong and able and supportive for others. But so has ‘making it’ as a ballerina and losing that too soon. Now, I still search, and hope, and dream, and want to share this story so others might be stronger in it, and know there is support out here in the world for you to live your dreams, and deal with your sorrow and heartache.

Mostly, I would finish by saying: don’t ever stop using your gifts to give yourself strength regardless of your struggles, and don’t ever stop sharing those gifts with anyone who might have even the slightest inclination to learn from your work. It continues to be such a gift to support someone else going through something difficult, and it is today one of my biggest regrets, that I didn’t know where to find this then. But… it is also my greatest gift to be able to do that for someone else. In the process, I learn from them, too!

 I am heartened to share this with „the Green Room”. This is just what I was looking for all those years ago. The strength of community, the healing of other artists, and a world to open up to the wisdom of health-professionals, aiding our bodies and minds to heal. All these years later, I am finding it cathartic, and real, and good.