This month, a girlhood dream is coming true for best friends Josephine Jobe, 18, and Harper White, 17, as the two Tulsa dancers hop a plane to participate in a multiweek intensive summer workshop with the prestigious Royal Ballet School in London.
Jobe and White are both students at Tulsa Ballet Center for Dance Education, but it is only coincidental that Tulsa Ballet performed at the Royal Opera House this past May. Jobe and White’s acceptance to the Royal Ballet School’s competitive summer program is due to their own efforts.
“This remarkable achievement is a testament to their dedication, artistry, discipline and passion for dance,” says Lauren Richter, School Director of Tulsa Ballet Center for Dance Education.
Meeting at Eisenhour International School in kindergarten, both girls have studied dance since childhood and grew up participating in recitals together. White, now a senior at Booker T. Washington High School, began creative movement classes when she was a toddler. She has been a Tulsa Ballet student since kindergarten, barely old enough to audition for a role in “The Nutcracker.” She went on to perform in “The Nutcracker” for a decade, playing everything from a little soldier to the party scene.
Jobe, a senior at Epic Charter School, began studying with Tulsa Ballet’s dance school when she was around six years old. She, too, danced in “The Nutcracker” and, also like White, performed in the Tulsa company’s production of “Dorothy and the Prince of Oz.”
“Dancing, for me, is a way of self-expression,” she says. But as much as she loves performing, Jobe says she also loves the discipline and the daily structure of ballet class with its regimented barre and center work, as well as “the chance to get to improve every day. (In performance) all the hard work pays off.”
For White, what she likes about ballet class is the way it resets her day. “You can have a stressful day but when you get to the studio, you have to leave it at the door and your focus has to be on ballet,” she says, “because ballet is so consuming, both mentally and physically.” Yet as much as she appreciates the required concentration, White adds what she loves the most is “just that feeling when you’re dancing.”
Both dancers are veterans of summer workshops — for Jobe, this is actually her second round with the Royal Ballet, and she also participated in New York City Ballet’s School of American Ballet summer program in 2023. As For White, she spent her time off from school with the Colorado Ballet, BalletMet in Columbus, Ohio, and the National Ballet of Canada.
Now it’s off to London, where the girls say they are looking forward to exploring the city and all its markets and shops, as well as learning new styles of dance and meeting new people from all over the world.
“The Royal Ballet School (is) such a prestigious program that has a lot to offer and amazing opportunities,” White says. “Early on we both wanted to go and thought it would be so fun to be able to go together, making this even more special that it’s finally happening.”
More dreams ahead. Both want to continue dancing. On the future’s horizon they envision classic ballets “Giselle,” “Romeo and Juliet” and — the ballerina quintessential — “Swan Lake.”