Episode 37: Emily Sayre Smith

Episode 37: Emily Sayre Smith

From The Adult Ballet Studio by Elizabeth Blosfield

December 4, 2025 · 38 min · Season 3 · Episode 37

About this episode

Emily Sayre Smith shares her journey from a discouraged young dancer to a professional ballerina and memoirist.

This month’s guest became a professional ballerina, not because someone told her she could, but because someone told her she couldn't. When an early ballet teacher told young Emily Sayre Smith that her leg shape meant she’d never make it, she did what any stubborn kid would do: she set out to prove them wrong. And she did. Emily is a former pro dancer and memoirist, and she’s in the studio this month! She’s danced her way across two continents and discovered that even the most disciplined ballerinas aren’t perfect—they’re brave. Emily is a classically trained ballet and modern dancer who found an escape in ballet, a way to move out of the fear and chaos of her life and into her body and the music. She earned scholarships, traveled to London to dance at the Stella Mann College of Performing Arts, and ultimately, found love waiting for her in the dance studio and on stage. Her debut memoir, Smartass: Memoir of a Mouthy Girl, published this year in October and is a blend of humor, grit, queerness, art, and survival—written, as Emily admits in this interview, because she really, really didn’t want to clean her house. Emily’s own journey includes addiction, sobriety, reinvention, and…

People in this episode

Host: Elizabeth Blosfield

Guest: Emily Sayre Smith

Topics covered

  • ballet
  • memoir
  • body image
  • addiction
  • LGBTQ+
  • dance culture

Keywords

  • ballet
  • memoir
  • Emily Sayre Smith
  • dance
  • LGBTQ+
  • addiction
  • body image

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Smartass: Memoir of a Mouthy Girl

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