(Molly Davis, NolaVie) Dancers need walls, preferably lined with tall mirrors and sturdy barres. Dancers need a temperature-controlled space to warm up their muscles, choreograph, rehearse, and teach.

And then there are the other walls – the incomprehensible level of discipline required, the barriers keeping dancers with non-traditional body types off the stage, the rules about how to dance once you’ve made it there, and the high rampart surrounding a company. First it keeps you out. Then it keeps you in.

“I think maybe people are looking for a different way,” says Rubinald “Rubi” Pronk, co-founder of the contemporary dance team Jacoby & Pronk. “It’s not very common, especially in the classical ballet world, that people are going to go on their own. Everybody just sticks to a company usually, and you stay there until you’re 38, and that’s it.”