Inside Lauren Fadeley's Dance Bag: The Pennsylvania Ballet Principal's Massage Must-Haves

July 29, 2015

This story originally appeared in the August/September 2015 issue of
Pointe.

Even from across the studio, you can’t miss Lauren Fadeley’s dance bag. That’s because her spiky massage roller is always poking out from the top. “It’s called a RumbleRoller, and it’s pretty intense,” says the Pennsylvania Ballet principal. “I bring it with me everywhere, even on guestings, and it’s small enough to fit in my bag.” In addition, she carries a hard, medium-sized ball to release that hard-to-reach psoas muscle. “It’s not an official psoas ball, though—I bought it at the dollar store.”

She also keeps a variety of vitamins, such as Emergen-C packets and B-12 gummies, to boost her immune system and energy levels when needed, as well as a bottle of SportLegs capsules (which contain lactate compounds of calcium and magnesium). “I found it in a bike store,” says Fadeley, who is an active cyclist in her spare time. “It helps with muscle cramping and I thought, ‘This can work for ballet, too!’ I take them before performances.”

Fadeley. Photo by Alexander Iziliaev for Pointe.

The Goods

From left: RumbleRoller; legwarmers by former PA Ballet principal Martha Chamberlain; Thirty-One bag (“It’s huge and has eight side pockets, so I can grab things at a moment’s notice”); Capezio Airess pointe shoes (“I’m a Capezio ambassador”); deodorant; Thera-Band; practice fan (“We’re doing Don Quixote in March 2016, but we’ve already started rehearsing for it”); massage balls; Emergen-C packets; BFI powder (“I’m prone to corns—this is a lifesaver!”); Voltaren cream; B-12 vitamins; vintage pointe shoe scraper (“My old ballet mistress, Tamara Hadley, gave it to me—it was hers as a dancer”); ginger chews; makeup bag (for pointe shoe supplies); SportLegs; ballet slippers.