30 PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM at Menlo Park Academy of Dance and Bay Area Dance School in Los Altos, Jasmine fell head over heels for the art form. Before long, Jasmine was training and competing in both sports. “At some point, my skating coaches and my ballet teachers were like, ‘You need to choose,’” recalls Jasmine. There simply wasn’t enough time or energy to pursue both. Little Jasmine figured she’d be able to dance longer than she could skate. “My 10-year-old brain was somehow thinking rationally, like long-term!” Dance, she adds, “felt a lot more natural to me. I was more drawn to it.” Jasmine experimented with lyrical dance as well as tap, hip hop and jazz, but ballet kept pulling her back. “The fluidity involved feels really natural to me.” {punchline} “As a principal in a ballet, it’s your job to carry the story and to bring people on a journey with you and make the intentions clear,” she explains. “Even though there’s no words, how do you use the ballet vocabulary and steps to articulate emotion in a clear way?” Jasmine’s exploration in movement started not on a stage but in the rink. At a young age, she practiced swizzles and snowplow stops at Ice Oasis in Redwood City and Winter Lodge in Palo Alto. Only a year into her lessons, the then-five-year-old Jasmine was encouraged by her instructor to consider dance as a way to enhance her artistry, fluidity and strength. After attending classes PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF: LINDSEY RALLO - SAN FRANCISCO BALLET
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