Ballet

Ballet has always fascinated me. I can’t remember when the fascination began, but neither can I recall a time when it wasn’t there.  The only thing that I am sure of is that it certainly wasn’t a result of having been exposed to it during my formative years. To the best of my recollection this area of the world wasn’t exactly a hotbed of culture when I was growing up. And although, sociologically speaking I think I understand why this was so, the bottom line remains that most of us who are native to this area grew up in a cultural wasteland.

My first exposure to ballet was actually in the form of paper dolls, a beautiful set owned by my friend Rita who lived just one street over from me.

Playacting and pretend are part and parcel of growing up and mine encompassed a wide range. When I wasn’t exploring the woods in search of adventure, rounding up bad guys at pistol point, or trying to figure out how to launch an orange crate rocket into space, I was dancing. The thin cardboard paper dolls may have been the ones wearing the pretty costumes, but in my mind it was my own skinny little tomboy body, transformed by a powerful imagination into a beautiful ballerina, that leaped and swirled to music I could only imagine, since classical music was also part of the void.

As a child I desperately wanted ballet lessons, but couldn’t have them because I had quit piano lessons after only two year (the fact that we didn’t own a piano was considered irrelevant as an excuse). My parents figured I wouldn’t stick with it anyway so why bother even starting, and they may have been right. But I lived in hope, and just in case they ever changed their minds, I practiced like crazy in my own dippy way until I could stand on pointe in my bare feet, a neat trick I could still manage until somewhere in my 40’s when it occurred to me that the moment had passed and I was too old to be a ballerina anyway.

I finally attended my first ballet sometime in the early 1980’s. A local company was doing “Giselle” and I eagerly awaited the big night only to be disillusioned by the performance. The stage was too small, the prima ballerina was too old, and the props shook every time someone leaped. I was hard-pressed not to topple right out of my seat in a dead stupor. The only thing that kept my eyes open was the fact the due to the size of the stage (short) and the length of the leaps (long) I thought it only a matter of time before one of the dancers slammed into a wall and I wanted to be awake to see it.

I couldn’t believe that something I had thought to love for so long could be so boring, but I didn’t give up hope. When I read in the paper that a famous New York dance company would be appearing in Providence I rushed out to buy tickets.

This time around the stage was appropriate, the dancers were all young and they were good. However, it was a modern ballet, all jerky uneven movements danced to discordant music that set my teeth on edge. My only pleasure was in marvelling at the condition of the dancers’ bodies. At the risk of sounding like a dirty old lady, I have to tell you that there were some of the finest looking male backsides on display up there that it had ever been my pleasure to observe. But except for some pretty gorgeous butts and bods, the evening was a washout.

Then I heard about the Boston Ballet and decided to give it one more try. Third time out I got lucky.   At long last, there it was, up there on the big stage. Ballet as I thought it should be. Ballet as I knew it could be. Classical and romantic. A young girl’s fantasy come true. Dozens of dancers, graceful and lighter than air, dressed like the paper dolls had been, doing things mere mortals never could.

Then came the high point of the evening…the prima ballerina performing the “Dying Swan.” It was pure magic and as I sat there enthralled a little voice in my head said, “I could do that.”
I knew, of course, that I couldn’t. But the skinny little tomboy who still lives inside me hadn’t caught on yet, and I don’t have the heart, even now, to tell her.