Inside Norwegian National Ballet's Whitney Jensen's Dance Bag

July 11, 2017

Whitney Jensen likes to pack light. “I take the bare minimum,” says the Norwegian National Ballet dancer, who was a Boston Ballet principal until 2015. She often stores things in her dressing room, and it’s a good thing, too—her blue Freitag backpack, made from recycled truck tarpaulin, is admittedly heavy. “But I like how the hardware looks, and it’s great to travel with,” she says. “I can put my computer in it.” Jensen was inspired to buy the bag after friend and Boston Ballet dancer Seo Hye Han got one.

Now that Jensen’s living in Oslo, there’s one item she doubles up on. She keeps in touch with her friends back home through not one, but two phones: her American iPhone (“for when I have Wi-Fi,” she says) and a Norwegian pay-as-you-go phone “for when I don’t. I just fill it up with how much I need, so I can talk to people in the U.S. and Norway.”

Photo by Kyle Froman

The Goods, from top left:
Uniqlo vest (“It keeps me warm, especially if we’re onstage doing run-throughs or spacing”); Lululemon pants; Grishko pointe shoes (“They’re not custom, just basic Grishko 2007s”); Freitag backpack; skirt; RubiaWear legwarmers, made by Boston Ballet principal Ashley Ellis (another memento from Jensen’s previous company); socks (“If I get to the studio early I’ll wear them and do some relevés, or I’ll put them over my pointe shoes during breaks to keep my feet warm”); toe pads; adapter (to charge her iPhone); ballet slippers; energy bar; phone; wallet; keys; sneakers (“I’m wearing these now, but I always keep them in my bag—I wear them to the studio and to work out in during breaks”).