Who's Gigi?

Hi! I'm Gigi. 👋 Not quite 12 yet — but let's grow up together.

Plot twist for a ballet site: ballet wasn't my first love. Taekwondo was — red belt at nine, trained by former Korean army instructors, technically able to break several boards with my foot — or my fists. Then, during Covid, at a summer camp, someone handed me a PINK tutu and taught me my very first variation. I got to perform it on an actual enormous stage — the Lyric Theatre — and won a silver medal on my first try. That was that. The board-breaking foot does tendus now.

The rest, quickly: born in China, two-plus years of ballet training there, then we moved to France when I was nine and a half. These days I train at the Conservatoire (public school, but for dance and music) of a small city, and since starting middle school I'm in a "danse-études" programme — real school in the morning, real ballet every afternoon. Not a famous school. Not a big city. And that's a choice: I love ballet to the point of picking it over taekwondo (okay, fine — France doesn't exactly overflow with options for a nine-year-old red belt, but MOSTLY it was love), yet for now I want to live at home with my family, keep my friends, do normal school with all the science subjects — future sports doctor here, AFTER my dance career, obviously — and have a life that's bigger than a studio. Ballet is my favourite thing. It's just not my only thing.

Languages, because you'll notice: English is my first language. I used to speak Chinese, but my brain needed the storage space for French. Forgetting Chinese: mission accomplished. Being fluent in French: still a work in progress. 🥖

And yes, the piglets. They're pink, they're cute, they're smart — objectively the superior animal. Princess Piglet, my spirit animal, supervises everything on this site.

This is where I keep the whole journey: my diary (rehearsals, costumes, the nerves in the wings), my competition and summer-intensive notebooks, ballet history told MY way, and everything I've learned backstage — buns, pointe shoes, lalaque. Welcome in. 🩰

A note for the grown-ups: this site is written by a young dancer and looked after by her family. Gigi is a pen name, entries are reviewed before publishing, and no personal details (school, city, schedule) ever appear here.

“Show up, look slightly insane, mean it with your whole entire chest.”
— Gigi, History Diaries, chapter one