Today we’d like to introduce you to Kamila Abreu.
Hi Kamila, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I am 30 years old, and I am from the South of Brazil.
When I was 10 years old, I was a very active child. I was doing all kinds of activities, and anything the school offered, I wanted to try. Because of that, my parents didn’t think too much about it anymore when I signed up for something new.
One day, the Bolshoi School came to my city in Brazil to hold auditions for children. It was for the first grade of the professional ballet program, so we didn’t need to already know ballet. They were looking for children with the right body, musicality, flexibility, coordination, and the conditions to be trained.
I actually did the audition registration without my parents knowing at first. For me, it was just one more activity I wanted to try. But that small decision completely changed my life.
I went through six different rounds of tests and competed with around 500 children. After all the evaluations, I was accepted into the Bolshoi Ballet School in Brazil.
Because the school was in a different city, I had to move away from my family when I was only 10 years old. I lived in a house with many other kids and teenagers, from around 11 to 18 years old. It was not easy to be away from my parents so young, but it taught me discipline, independence, and how serious ballet really is.
I graduated from the Bolshoi School in Brazil in 2014, trained in the Vaganova method. During my journey, I had the opportunity to dance and learn from incredible artists, including Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev, and I was also rehearsed by Vladimir Vasiliev, which was a very special experience in my career I also spent a season in Salzburg Austria dancing Swan lake
After graduating, I continued my path as a professional ballerina, as a company artist and teaching ballet. I started teaching in 2015, and over the years I realized how much I love helping students understand ballet in a clear and detailed way.
In 2019, I moved to the United States and started a new chapter in my life and career. Moving to a different country was a big change, not only professionally but personally too. I had to adapt to a new culture, a new language, and a completely different environment. It was challenging in the beginning, but it also pushed me to grow even more. I continued teaching and dancing, and little by little I started building my path here, using everything I learned from my training and career in Brazil.
Today, I am guest ballet dancer and I am the founder of Balance Ballet, where I teach private lessons and small group classes. My goal is to bring professional-level training with individual attention, helping each student improve their technique, confidence, artistry, and love for ballet.
Balance Ballet also became more than just a place to train. I created the Balance Ballet store because, as a dancer and teacher, I know how important it is to have balletwear that is comfortable, beautiful, and helps show the line of the body and feet. I design and select products thinking about dancers, teachers, and students who want to feel confident in class.
My story started with one audition when I was 10 years old, something I registered for without even imagining how much it would change my life. Ballet became not only my profession, but the foundation of everything I do today.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
One of the hardest parts of my journey was staying strong through the middle of the program.
The Bolshoi ballet program was eight years of full dedication. We trained five to six times a week, around six hours a day, so ballet became my whole life from a very young age.
At one point, I remember feeling like graduation was still so far away. I was in that phase where I had already given so much, but still had so much more to go. It was also the time when my body was changing, becoming a teenager, and there was a lot of pressure around that.
There were moments when I felt discouraged. Sometimes I felt like certain teachers didn’t like me or didn’t believe in me, and that made everything feel even heavier. At some point, I almost had the courage to give up.
I even asked my parents if I should stop. They supported me with whatever decision I wanted to make, but they also left the choice in my hands. Looking back, I think that was important because I had to decide for myself if I really wanted to keep going.
And I did. I kept pushing, little by little, until that difficult phase was behind me.
When I finally graduated, I was offered a spot in the company, and that was the moment when everything started to make sense. All the sacrifices, the distance from my family, the pressure, the hard days, it all became part of the reason I was there.
I felt very grateful that I didn’t give up, and I think that experience shaped the person, dancer, and teacher I am today.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am a professional ballerina, ballet teacher, and founder of Balance Ballet. I also work on social media projects for brands, creating photos and videos. My work is focused on bringing professional-level ballet training in a more personal and detailed way, especially through private lessons and very small group classes.
I specialize in classical ballet technique, especially the Vaganova method, which is the method I was trained in during my eight years at the Bolshoi Ballet School in Brazil. I work a lot with placement, posture, clean technique, coordination, musicality, head and arms, and helping students understand not just what to do, but how and why to do it.
I think what I am known for is being very detail-oriented and for helping students improve quickly because of the individual attention they receive. At Balance Ballet, the classes are intentionally small, so I can really see each student, correct them, and guide them according to their body and level. I believe ballet training should be serious and professional, but also encouraging and inspiring.
I am most proud of the students I have helped grow, not only technically, but also in confidence, discipline, and love for ballet. Seeing students improve, perform for the first time, get accepted into programs, or simply believe more in themselves is one of the most rewarding parts of my work.
What sets me apart is my background as someone who grew up inside a professional ballet school, trained with a high level of discipline, and now uses that experience to teach in a more personal way. I understand the beauty of ballet, but I also understand the pressure and the challenges behind it. Because of that, I try to teach with both high standards and care.
Balance Ballet is also connected to balletwear. I created the Balance Ballet store because, as a dancer and teacher, I know how important it is for dancers to feel comfortable, confident, and elegant in what they wear. The products I design and choose are made with dancers in mind, always thinking about movement, comfort, and the line of the body.
Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting out?
I love the 3 Cs: Courage, Consistency, and Confidence.
My advice for anyone starting out is to have courage first. In my life, some of my biggest gifts came from moments when I had the courage to try something new and believe it could work out for me. Sometimes you don’t need to know the whole path before you start. You just need to take the first step and trust that, little by little, things will make sense.
Consistency is also very important. For me, consistency brings peace because I know that if I keep moving every day, even in small steps, I will eventually get closer to the results I am hoping for. When you prove to yourself that you can show up and do something over and over again, it becomes almost impossible not to grow.
And the third one is confidence — but not the kind of confidence where you never feel afraid. It is the confidence that comes from doing the work, from keeping promises to yourself, and from seeing your own progress. Confidence is built. The more you practice, the more you learn, and the more you keep going, the more you start to believe in yourself.
Something I wish I knew when I was starting out is that hard moments don’t mean you are not meant for it. Sometimes they are just part of the process. There were moments when I doubted myself, but now I understand that every challenge helped shape who I became.
So my advice is: be brave enough to start, be consistent enough to keep going, and trust yourself enough to believe that everything will work out in the end.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.balanceballet.org
- Instagram: @kamilabreuu
- Youtube: @kamilabreuu
