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The first sign that Keaton Leier might become a dancer wasn’t on a stage.
It was at home.
“He was always flitting around the house, jumping off things and twirling around,” his mom, Cindy, recalled.
But ballet? That wasn’t necessarily the plan.
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As an energetic little boy, Leier tried almost every sport you could think of in hopes of finding something that stuck.
“I eventually landed on starting dance classes,” he said.
Keaton Leier took his first dance lesson at eight years old. His first step into the dance world wasn’t with ballet, but hip-hop. (Keaton_Leier/Instagram)
At eight years old, he started with hip-hop.
And somewhere along the way, the boy who had been trying everything found the one thing he never wanted to stop doing: Ballet.
He especially remembers sitting in an audience at TCU Place, watching dancers onstage perform Sleeping Beauty.
“I loved watching that show, and I loved the music,” he recalled. “I loved how grand everything was. I thought it was really gorgeous.”
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It’s one thing for a kid in Saskatoon to fall in love with ballet. It’s another thing entirely to make a career of it.
But Leier did.
Today, he’s a professional dancer with the National Ballet of Canada.
And soon, he’s going to do something he hasn’t done in more than a decade: He’s going to dance at home.
Leier’s upcoming performance in Saskatoon on Sept. 19 will be his first time dancing in Saskatoon in more than a decade. (Keaton_Leier/Instagram)
For most of Leier’s adult life, Saskatoon has been where he goes when the dancing stops.
“I associate going home with like, my break,” he explained. “When I have a long weekend or I have my vacation from work. So it’s going to be interesting as this will be the exact opposite.”
This time, he won’t be taking off to the lake for a relaxing weekend with the family.
He’ll be taking to the stage.
Leier will join his National Ballet colleagues for the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra’s At the Ballet on Sept. 19, performing with the SSO under conductor Judith Yan.
There will be some of ballet’s familiar magic, including excerpts from Sleeping Beauty and Romeo and Juliet, but also something entirely new.
Leier will perform his own choreography in the world premiere performance of Emmy-nominated composer Paul Leonard-Morgan’s Atmosphere.
The kid who once stared up from the crowd in amazement is now helping decide what the audience sees.
Keaton Leier said his parents Tim and Cindy are two of his biggest supporters. (Keaton_Leier/Instagram)
For the people watching, much of what it took to get there will be invisible. It’s supposed to be.
“The goal of ballet is to make something that’s extremely difficult look effortless,” Leier said.
While the audience sees the effortless surface, his family will know about everything beneath it.
Cindy will know about the little boy who couldn’t stop moving. The first dance classes. The years of gruelling, dedicated work that followed.
“My heart is going to be bursting with just so much love and pride,” she said. “I probably will cry, most definitely.”
“I probably will cry, most definitely,” Cindy Leier said of her son’s upcoming performance in Saskatoon. (Keaton_Leier/Instagram)
More than a decade after his last Saskatoon performance, Leier will walk onto a hometown stage as proof that the dream that once seemed out of reach wasn’t so far away after all.
“I’m a living example of proof that it is possible to aim for your dreams,” he said.
And somewhere in that audience, perhaps, will be another eight-year-old who spends too much time jumping off things and twirling around.
They’ll watch Keaton Leier step onto the stage.
And for a few minutes, under the lights, a dream that once belonged to this Saskatoon kid will belong to them, too.
Keaton Leier is coming back home to Saskatoon with the National Ballet of Canada — bringing his own choreography, his family’s pride and a message for young dancers dreaming big on the prairies. (Karolina Kuras/Submitted)
