Sara Mearns was just 3 years old when her mom put her in dance class. "I was kicking and screaming going into the studio," Mearns tells Popsugar in an exclusive interview. But somewhere along the way, she fell in love with the craft, emotion, technique, and vulnerability of ballet.
For athletes, "once they get into the sport that they love, nothing else exists. That's what dance was for me," Mearns says.
She would eventually go on to reach the pinnacle of her career at New York City Ballet (NYCB), becoming a principal dancer in June 2008. But after a freak accident, Mearns started to lose her hearing. And by 2025, she was wearing a hearing aid for the first time on stage in her reprise role of the Sugar Plum Fairy.
"I knew it was going to be very overwhelming," Mearns says. So she did tons of therapy work beforehand to prepare her emotions for the day. "I'm gonna be experiencing new things out there that I've never experienced: feelings, nerves, sounds, stimulation that I didn't know was possible." But by her final bow, Mearns knew that her career and life had changed for the better.
"This is a new chapter. This is the beginning of something amazing," Mearns recalls thinking after her first performance. "My world is opening up again."
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