Student Profile: Amber Hertzler

Amber Hartzler started dancing the summer between the ages of 7 and 8 in an effort to control her lifelong diabetes. The necessity to dance soon became pleasure as she discovered a passion that has now expanded to include forms of dance outside of ballet, such as jazz, tap, modern and “a little Irish step.”

Last year, Amber tore her ACL and meniscus in class while she was “doing a jump and I was trying to get my leg higher than I had before.” Unsure of what the problem was Amber waited two months before finally getting surgery in Richmond, Va, by a doctor who has worked with the Richmond Ballet.

“I dance [ballet] four days a week,” said Amber; plus jazz, tap or modern classes if she is taking any at the time. One of the four days is spent dancing as part of the senior company for her studio, the Rockingham Ballet Theater. Amber has always been part of the same studio and this past winter danced in the “Nutcracker” for the sixth time. In the past she has performed as a “snowflake, Arabian soloist and as a flower."

“I’m intending to at least minor in dance,” said Amber recently. “I really love the performance and just getting to express myself through my body without having to say anything.”  Though she would love to dance professionally some day, Amber said that her second job choice would be working as a math or sociology teacher if dancing doesn’t prove possible.

- Kara Lofton