A Fairy Tale Put on Ice: Physical Therapist Skates into Another Passion

BreAnn Hill knows it’s an instant conversation starter. 

A physical therapist at Dignity Health Physical Therapy in Henderson, Nevada, BreAnn understands all she has to do is mention her past life – her four years as a professional ice skater and international performer – and her patients are hooked.

She could tell stories about skating in Europe and Asia, about performing in some of the most famous arenas in the United States and throughout the world, about portraying one of the most beloved fictional characters in childhood lore.

That’s not BreAnn, though. Not her style.

She’s not trying to impress patients; she’s focused on helping them heal.

“My husband thinks it's funny that I don't bring it up often, but it's not something I usually like to brag about,” BreAnn said. “If somebody asks me, ‘What was your background?’ Or if it comes up, like, ‘I used to figure skate,’ then I'm like, ‘I used to figure skate, too.’ Otherwise, it might be 10 sessions in (before it comes up).”

When her husband Mike is around, it’s a different story. It’s how he introduces his wife to others.

“She is very humble. I don’t think she sees the uniqueness of our life. She has a real everyman quality,” said Mike Hill, a professor of entertainment engineering and design at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. “So, I’m the first one to throw her under the bus and brag about her.”

A happy place on ice

Given the constant travel, tight scheduling and grueling physical demands, being a professional skater on a worldwide tour is extremely challenging.

So is writing about that tour and that skater when certain recognizable names and characters are trademarked and copyrighted and can’t be used in this story.

Therefore, you’ll have to follow the clues.

BreAnn spent four years as a lead skater with an incredibly famous ice show that features indelible children’s characters and storylines.

Her primary role was huge – yet tiny.

For 40 minutes straight, sometimes three times a day, she performed as the most renowned, green-dress-wearing fairy in all the (never) land.

When BreAnn wasn’t spraying pixie dust, she donned a fish-lady costume and red wig for an ensemble princess number. Occasionally, she dressed as a toy soldier or a salsa fish.

She skated constantly. Met her future husband. Fell in love. All while learning the importance of self-care.

The tour was BreAnn’s happiest place on ice.

Getting, and making, the call

Growing up near Salt Lake City, BreAnn began ballet at 3 and skating at 7. Ultimately, figure skating was the perfect blend of her talents and passions.

Starting in elementary school, she rearranged her afternoon schedule to figure skate three hours per day. She was exempted from gym class due to the extensive training she did for the sport.

As a teen, she qualified for regional championships in both singles and pairs and finished 11th in pairs at the 2002 national championships. She also performed as the skating stunt double in the made-for-TV movie, “Go Figure,” in 2005.

After high school, BreAnn wanted to be “a normal kid,” giving up the grind of competitive athletics to pursue a psychology degree at a Texas college. After her freshman year, she received a call that put her academic goals on hold.

A beloved skating tour was about to begin and one of the lead performers, whom BreAnn knew from her competition days, had bowed out. The woman mentioned BreAnn as a replacement, and some staff members had worked with her previously. She was summoned to Florida to audition.

BreAnn hadn’t skated in six months but kicked off the rust and gave it a shot. She was offered the role the same day, forcing a monumental decision: Stay in school or become a professional skater. She figured college could wait.

“I had two days to fly home, pack two, 50-pound suitcases and then go on the road for a year,” she said. “And then for four years.”

The pros and cons of pro skating

There are two sides to the professional skating coin.

BreAnn’s performance schedule was intense. Practice in the morning. Two-to-three shows per day, sometimes for 10 days in a row. Different states, countries, continents.

Because of her essential role, BreAnn performed for each show’s entire second half. That’s skating more than twice as long as a top NHL player in a regulation game.

It took a major toll on her health. She suffered an ankle injury, persistent back pain and a concerning stomach issue that ultimately sent her home for a few weeks.

She burned so many calories each day that her body became malnourished; she struggled to keep weight on her petite frame.

Additionally, she popped so many ibuprofens for pain relief that it ate away at the lining of her near-empty stomach. It was a necessary evil because she and the show had to go on.

If she took too much time off to recuperate, she could lose her lead role and suffer a pay cut. Ultimately, she improved her nutritional habits and balanced the physical pains with her joy of performing; it’s when physical therapy first entered her daily life and, ultimately, shaped her future.

The other side of being a skater on an international tour was transformative.

In her early 20s, BreAnn experienced the world on another’s dime. With a day or two off on every leg of the tour, BreAnn and her friends would sightsee and absorb a country’s culture: England, Australia, France, Japan. When performing, she interacted with the audiences, especially the shrieking, joyful children. She loved that.

BreAnn formed friendships within the touring group, including with one of the carpenters who fastened her safely into her flying harness before every show. That guy became her boyfriend, her husband and now the father of Reagan, the couple’s 6-year-old daughter.

“When you are on tour, you hang out a lot with the same people, so we would go out, and we just sort of hit it off,” Mike said. “I had no background in figure skating. But she was amazing.”

With all the moments BreAnn and Mike experienced together, one stands out.

The time the fairy in the green dress was suspended precariously in the air. BreAnn was concerned her pixie dust supply was depleted. Mike was worried his fiancée was in immediate danger.

Caught up in the air

It happened in 2012 at northwest London’s Arena Wembley, the indoor neighbor of the iconic, outdoor Wembley Stadium.

Unlike most of her performances, the 2012 run featured BreAnn’s tale of fairies ending the first act instead of the second. Like the previous shows, however, her part still finished with BreAnn flying above the ice, sprinkling her dust and waving goodbye to the enchanted crowd.

During the Wembley performance, however, the power in the storied arena went out briefly. It caused the emergency lights to flick on and it shut off the motorized mechanism that moved the harness, keeping BreAnn airborne.

She was in limbo but stayed in character.

“I thought it was hilarious. But it was kind of uncomfortable being up there,” she said. “My wand ran out of pixie dust sitting there, and I was like, ‘OK, at some point, do I stop waving?’”

On the ground, Mike wasn’t laughing.

As head-rigger, he knew about “harness shock,” which cuts off blood circulation and can lead to clots in a matter of minutes. He was scared for the performer, who happened to be his fiancée. He didn’t worry about breaking the fourth wall or disrupting the magic of the performance.

Instinctively, Mike ordered a bookcase prop for the next scene to be pushed under BreAnn and asked “a very tall, Hungarian electrician” named Bolaz to scale it. Bolaz reached BreAnn, put her on his shoulder, pulled out the pins to release the automated lifter and carried BreAnn down to safety. With the crew working together, the full procedure took roughly three minutes.

“It was pretty awesome. The whole audience gave her a big clap because they knew the power had gone out,” Mike said. “That’s actually a very scary scenario for a technician. I’m not sure she was aware of how scary it could have been for her.”

A path to physical therapy

After that year, it was time to move on. Mike took a job in Las Vegas at one of the city’s premiere stage productions. BreAnn considered another year on tour, but there were several reasons to retire.

She wanted to settle down with Mike; she was tired of constantly skating through pain; and the college credits she had amassed as a freshman would no longer be transferrable in another year.

BreAnn left pro skating behind, joined Mike in Las Vegas, worked as a wardrobe technician with his show and attended college. Previously, she had studied psychology but switched her major because she realized she was more interested in how the body worked than the mind.

She completed her bachelor’s degree in kinesiology from the University of Nevada Las Vegas and her doctorate in physical therapy from the University of Southern California. While pursuing her doctorate in a hybrid program – part online, part on campus – BreAnn gave birth to Reagan.

“She is just an incredibly strong person, physically and mentally,” Mike said of BreAnn. “To get off the road and get her degree from USC and have a kid in the middle of her doctorate. My wife is the strongest person I know, ever since I met her.”

In retrospect, BreAnn believes her experiences all led to her current path. If she hadn’t taken the skating job, she may have wondered what might have been. And she wouldn’t have met Mike.

If she hadn’t dealt with so many physical issues, she probably wouldn’t have had such an appreciation for physical therapists and the work they do. If she hadn’t gotten hurt while on tour, she may not have developed such a strong interest in treating orthopedic injuries as well as concussion, balance and vestibular issues.

“I know what it is like to have an injury and want to get back to a sport or an activity quickly. I understand the frustration with the timeframe needed for healing,” BreAnn said. “I have good postural and body awareness (from skating), and it is one of my favorite things to figure out why an exercise or form isn’t working and adjust it to make it work for the individual.

It's a different type of challenge for BreAnn these days.

It’s the same passion and dedication, however, that she once brought to the fairy in the green dress.