When watching a professional ballet, you don't realize the amount of work that goes into bringing the production to life. Dancers like choreographers put all their energy and emotion into telling their story. It takes years for a ballerina to train for the work needed to become a professional, but only a few weeks to learn a complete ballet. Dancers can sometimes endure months of muscle pain to train. Ballet dancers are often asked to lose weight in order to look like they fit in, or given only a few minutes of break after hours of vigorous training. In the end, it's worth it. When I checked out Reaching for Dreams: A Ballet from Rehearsal to Opening Night by Susan Kuklin from the bookshelf, I expected to read another boring diary. Surprisingly, this book was hard for me to put down because I was so fascinated by the process of creating a ballet. At the beginning of this book, the author describes the dancers arriving on a rainy Monday morning to begin warm-ups and rehearsals. This is, of course, the start of their journey to opening night. The dancers participating in this production were from the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. The ballet they plan to perform in seven weeks is called “Speeds.” The choreographer of “Speeds” is a world-renowned woman named Jennifer Mullers. This production contains a cast of eleven dancers and five alternates. “Speeds” is a modern ballet about how one moment in time is unlike any other and how often things in the world change. Throughout this book, Kuklin observes the life of a dancer. The typical day for a professional ballerina at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater involves waking up around seven to be in rehearsal early enough to warm up. In dance, warming up your muscles is the most important thing to do before you start because it helps you avoid any possible injury. After the warm-up, Jennifer, the choreographer, teaches them the dance and makes sure that each movement “flows” with the body of the person dancing it. She states that “dancers must be comfortable with the forms they dance.” After hours of intense practice, dancers get a five-minute break to cool down and grab a bite to eat..