https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Jeg5nXmogLQ<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Aleece Duggan, 21, danced with Heying at Dubuque City Youth Ballet until she graduated high school in 2015. Something she said she\u2019ll always remember from dancing with Heying is her energy and excitement for being on stage and expressing herself through movement.<\/p>\n
\u201cCarly was one of my favorite people to dance with,\u201d Duggan said. \u201cShe dances with so much expression and just enthusiasm that she brought a difference into every character.\u201d<\/p>\n
Duggan and Heying often performed as \u201ccomic relief characters\u201d together, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember my senior year when we did \u2018Fairest of Them All,\u2019 and we were dwarves together. She was insanely good at being able to give us that little spark we all needed to be OK with going out of our comfort zones,\u201d Duggan said. \u201cShe\u2019s just always put so much happiness and zest into whatever she does, whether that\u2019s class or performances. She always puts her heart into it, and you can really tell.\u201d<\/p>\n
In December of 2017, Heying danced in \u201cThe Nutcracker\u201d one final time before she aged out of the Dubuque City Youth Ballet program. It was a bittersweet moment for everyone \u2013 the end of a season, the last winter performance for so many graduating seniors. But for Heying, it was something even more special.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy senior year I was Sugar Plum Fairy, which was my absolute dream role for always and forever,\u201d Heying said. \u201cI came home that night [after the final dress rehearsal] and said, \u2018This is a day I hope I remember until I die.\u2019 There was a community I loved, so many friends that were dancing, I was doing what I loved. It sort of felt like the culmination of my whole first-grade-to-graduation process.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Heying didn\u2019t stop dancing after graduating from high school \u2013 in fact, she chose to major in dance at the University of Iowa. Heying said even with years of classical ballet training, the program still challenges her every day, as it\u2019s based in a more contemporary dance style.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of the people I\u2019m dancing with now have been taking jazz and modern and contemporary and a whole bunch of other classes,\u201d she said. \u201cJumping into that, and especially taking major-level courses in modern without ever taking any introductory modern courses in my life, has been a real challenge \u2026 It\u2019s a lot of different body pathways that I\u2019m working, different muscles, which has been challenging, but really good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Allie Recht is one of those classmates \u2013 turned friend. Trained in tap, jazz, contemporary and ballet, Recht said starting class at the University of Iowa trained her to take a more modern approach in her dance, as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was like ballet was my thing at home, and now my thing is modern,\u201d Recht, 19, said.<\/p>\n
Recht and Heying take dance studies classes together at school, and both are pursuing Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees in dance.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe talked because we were there next to each other,\u201d Recht said. \u201cDuring the sixth week of classes we had talks during our ballet classes and we wanted to compare notes, and so we scheduled breakfast, which turned into a thing where we had breakfast together literally every day after that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Heying\u2019s younger sister, Audrey, said when she returns home from college on break, she always finds the time to dance \u2013 whether it\u2019s her feet under the table at dinner, in the living room or in the kitchen.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne time, she was practicing in the middle of the kitchen, which apparently she thought was a good idea,\u201d Audrey, 16, said. \u201cThere was a lamp on the edge of the counter and also on the stove, there was a plate with mail on top of it. She was dancing and she accidentally bumped the \u2018on\u2019 switch for the stove, so that set the mail on fire and scorched the plate. She also managed to knock over the lamp and shattered that.\u201d<\/p>\n
But after over a decade of dance classes, summer intensive programs, teaching dance classes and performing in shows, Heying said she feels ready to do something very different with her future.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cI plan to go to law school,\u201d Heying said. \u201c[Dance] is more of a lifestyle that I hope to continue than anything else. I hope to keep movement in my life somehow, and I don\u2019t know how exactly. Working with the fine arts would be cool.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elizabeth, a retired lawyer, said she has faith her daughter will accomplish whatever she sets her mind to because she is so disciplined.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhether the dance brought that out, or she was naturally that way and dance just benefitted from that, I don\u2019t know \u2026 which is the chicken or which is the egg,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
For now, though, it\u2019s ballet barre at 9 a.m., history of dance at 1 p.m. and dance kinesiology at 3 p.m., and Heying\u2019s schedule will remain that way for another three years.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know what experiences lie ahead with that, but I think getting to experience the fine arts first-person has made that a huge priority in my life,\u201d Heying said. \u201cI don\u2019t know if there will be fine arts legal opportunities, but I\u2019d be really excited about it if there are. We\u2019ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BY: MADDIE GEHLING Trumpet lessons at four, then baseball at five. On Mondays and Wednesdays, cheer practice runs until 6 p.m. Driver\u2019s ed classes start immediately after school. And somebody\u2019s got to walk the dog. Activities keep every member of the Heying family busy, but they come and go. Only one thing has remained constant for nearly the last fifteen years: Carly, the eldest Heying child, is a dancer. \u201cI started in first grade, and that was one class a week,\u201d Heying, 19, said. \u201cI have had a pretty strictly ballet education my whole life.\u201d Starting with technique shoes (what Heying explained can also be called \u201cballet slippers\u201d) she took lessons for three years at Dubuque City Youth Ballet in Dubuque, Iowa. \u201cThe first couple years we had to wear pink leotards and pink tights,\u201d Heying said. \u201cThe second year you could wear either pink or black, but Mom preferred pink, so I wore pink and everyone else wore black.\u201d \u201cDid you want to wear black?\u201d Elizabeth, Heying\u2019s mother, asked. \u201cOf course I wanted to wear black!\u201d In fourth grade, Heying graduated to multiple classes a week, as well as taking classes on pointe. That December, she played a toy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":143,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8],"tags":[37,34],"class_list":["post-1840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-talk","tag-com-425","tag-com425"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/143"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1840"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1840\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1855,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1840\/revisions\/1855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}