Dancing Through It: My Journey in the Ballet (7 page)

One Sunday during the church service, All Angels’ had a dance
offertory instead of the usual music. It was understated and beautiful and moving. I learned that the two girls who had danced were sisters who were both in New York City Ballet: Margaret and Kathleen Tracey. An actress and choreographer, Cornelia Moore, had choreographed their dance. I met them, and they welcomed me into their circle. Meg and Katey took me under their wing and talked to me about their years in SAB and what it was like being professional dancers in the company. And they asked me to join them the next time they danced in church.

We were careful about how we danced in church, since people can be opinionated about how they want their church services done. Our pastor, Martyn Minns, was very much in support of dance as an expression of praise to God, but he helped guide us as to how best to proceed with a dance ministry. We started with very simple steps and movements; most of what we did was gestural at first. We made sure our clothing covered our bodies well and that nothing in our appearance or choreography could be construed as suggestive. And we tried to make clear by the way we danced that we were not actually performing for the congregation sitting in the church. Rather we were using our bodies to worship God and glorify Him with the gift he had given us; we were an augmentation of the congregation’s own worship.

I loved dancing during the church services. It was a chance for me to really feel like I was dancing for God alone, and a way to participate as a server in a church service using the special skills that God had given me. I loved the sense of freedom from criticism that I felt when I danced in the sanctuary. These short moments were about expressing certain feelings or thoughts or ideas that might arise in our relationship with God; since there were no words, the people watching could be touched in a more personal, subjective way because they were engaging their emotions and not the rational sides of their brains that they had used during the sermon. It was wonderful to think that I was touching people in a spiritual way through my dancing.

My family had our first New York Christmas, and my mother ran us
around the city, doing every special holiday activity she could find. We gazed at the windows on Fifth Avenue and battled the crowds under the Rockefeller Center tree. We primly held our pinkies aloft at a Christmas Eve high tea at the Plaza Hotel. We stood in the twilit darkness of the Metropolitan Museum of Art to watch the lighting of its Christmas tree. We waited in frigid temperatures at the finish line of the Central Park New Year’s Eve Run, which started at the stroke of midnight along with glorious fireworks. The runners dressed up in costumes and paused at champagne stops along the course. My dad ran in the race, dressed up in a tuxedo T-shirt and a yellow bird mask.

Before we knew it, the holidays were over and SAB started up again. And suddenly we were into Workshop rehearsals. Workshop was the final performance at the end of the regular school year, different from the now-discontinued summer workshop, and it was a big deal. Students from the two top classes got to participate, and everyone got to dance. All the students placed a great deal of importance on these performances because they were the main gateway, besides open auditions, to a career in dance after SAB. Although most of the senior students would be involved in the performances, only a few would get principal parts. Casting of the ballets was a good indication as to who might be asked to be in City Ballet. Furthermore, directors from around the world came to watch the performances and scout out the talent. Often job offers were made directly following the performances. I was turning sixteen that spring, an age at which very few dancers are asked into a professional company. I didn’t expect to be getting offers this year and assumed I would have another year at SAB. After that, I was hoping to be asked into City Ballet, which almost every student at the School of American Ballet wanted to join.

We learned that there would be three ballets in the Workshop program this year: Balanchine’s
Serenade
, staged by Suki Schorer; an August Bournonville pas de trois, staged by Stanley Williams; and Balanchine’s
Symphony in C
, staged by Susan Pilarre. Slowly, as rehearsals began to be posted, we started to learn our casting. Although several of us might
be learning the featured parts, not all of us would get a chance to actually perform them.

I had mixed feelings about the parts I was slated to learn. In one instance, I was absolutely thrilled. Suki decided to have me learn the part of the Waltz Girl in
Serenade.
From my previous experience with
Serenade
at Washington Ballet, I was already in love with the ballet, and the Waltz Girl was my dream part in it. This was the role of the girl who danced with the young man, fell down, and was left alone onstage, and then was lifted to the sky in the end. I couldn’t wait to start rehearsals. I’d hoped to be in Stanley Williams’s ballet because it was seen as the most exclusive of the ballets—it only had three dancers in it, as opposed to the other two ballets, which each had large casts. I wasn’t chosen for that piece, however; instead, I would be one of the demis in the fourth movement of
Symphony in C
, a ballet with four separate movements, each with its own set of principals and demi-soloists.

The hardest thing for me was to keep my eyes on my own path and not look at what the other girls were getting to dance. Some of my classmates had principal parts in all of the ballets. I had to remind myself that it was my first year; I should be thrilled to be doing anything special at all. I could have been chosen to be in the corps for all of the ballets. And I was so grateful about
Serenade
. Rehearsing that ballet was the highlight of every week.

Soon after rehearsals started, we learned that students from the school would also be performing an excerpt from
Serenade
on the New York State Theater stage as part of New York City Ballet’s annual Dancers’ Emergency Fund performance in February. There could be only one cast for this performance, and suddenly the whole school was focused on who that cast would be. We learned that the Russian Girl would be danced by Tatiana, even though she had already been made an apprentice with the company and was technically not still a student at SAB. Arch Higgins, one of my friends and a sought-after partner in pas de deux
class
,
was considered by all to be one of the top boys at the school and would be dancing the Waltz Boy. Bryce Jaffe, one of the senior girls,
would be dancing the Dark Angel. The big question became Waltz Girl, the role I was training for in the ballet that had made me want to become a professional dancer.

Suki took another girl in my class, Tanya Gingerich, and me aside and told us that they were still deciding which of us would be Waltz Girl for this special performance. Tanya was a gorgeous girl and a beautiful dancer who was older than me and had been at SAB for a while, as had the other dancers chosen to do the lead roles. I felt intimidated by her and thought that by seniority, she automatically should have been chosen. In reality we were in the same class and therefore at the same level, but as the new girl, I felt like the usurper. I was of course terribly excited and wanted to dance the performance more than anything, but I felt stressed and anxious because I knew that the other students weren’t happy with the situation.

Over the next weeks, Tanya and I alternated during every rehearsal, each of us dancing with Arch, who ended up having to do each section twice. Every rehearsal felt like a deciding performance, with Suki watching Tanya and me critically and never letting on what she was thinking. Ballet masters from City Ballet were brought in to work with us. Sean Lavery and Karin von Aroldingen, both legends from the Balanchine years, came in to give us their wisdom on the ballet. Sean helped us with the partnering, telling the girls how to hold their bodies in the lifts and Arch where to place his hands so that he could more easily control our weight. He made everything richer and more exciting. Karin worked with us on the feeling of the role. “Run through the light,” she said, demonstrating with her chest lifted and arms held back as if she were about to fly. Both of these dancers had worked with Balanchine, so it was a thrill to hear what they had to say.

Tanya and I could both do the steps well; it was a deceptively difficult part that was physically hard to get through without tiring out. I pushed myself to never let any weakness or tiredness show, no matter how out of breath I got. Tanya and I were both dancing under feelings of stress and tension as we awaited the big decision.

Ultimately, there was a rehearsal scheduled to which every major faculty member of the school came. We were to dance the ballet twice, first with Tanya as the Waltz Girl, and then with me. I felt a mixture of nerves and resolve. I knew I was the underdog but really wanted to prove that I was strong enough and good enough to dance the part. I gave the rehearsal my all, attempting to dance it as if I were performing it onstage. Afterward, I sat at the back of the studio, spent, sweaty, and flushed, while the powers that be discussed things at the front of the room.

Finally, Tanya and I were taken aside one by one. I saw Suki pull Tanya to the side of the room to speak with her. I rummaged around in my dance bag so that it would not look like I was listening, but I stayed in the studio: good or bad, I would be getting my news next. I heard footsteps and looked up as Suki approached.

“Jenny. So we have decided that you are going to be dancing at State Theater with Arch,” she said, a tiny pleased smile on her face.

“Wow!” I said quietly, thrilled but trying hard not to celebrate too obviously. I was euphoric but contained my excitement out of respect for Tanya. I learned later that the school had actually decided on a compromise, where though I would be dancing this excerpt at State Theater, Tanya would be doing the more important evening performances of Workshop while I did the less attended matinees.

“But we have to keep working on your
jeté battu
into the
soutenu
,” she said, suddenly demonstrating how she wanted me to do a particularly difficult passage in the ballet. It was hard for Suki to pass up the opportunity to give me a couple more corrections. I adored Suki and would do anything for her, so I stayed and worked with her on my aching legs until she finally released me to go home.

Ecstatic but also exhausted, I went home to let the stress roll off me for the first time in weeks. That night, I woke up with a 102-degree fever and ended up being sick and unable to dance for three days. I think my body crashed under the weight of the anxiety and physical exertion I’d forced upon myself; some subconscious part of me wanted to ensure
that my body would rest in bed for a few days. There were still two weeks until the performance, so the days off didn’t affect my rehearsal time too much.

The day of the performance at the New York State Theater came quickly. My parents and I had a long prayer that morning and committed the performance to God; I had done all the work I could, and now it was just time to dance and let God be in control. The day passed rapidly, and then suddenly my fellow students and I were backstage, waiting for our stage rehearsal. Shaky with nerves, I tried to laugh and joke with my friends, but mostly I was too tense to talk. Company members lingered onstage and looked at the students, their expressions mostly shuttered, though a few offered smiles of encouragement. Meg and Katey Tracey came to check on me and offered hugs and wishes of
merde
, the way company members bade each other good luck. I was surprised to learn that
merde
was French for, well, what you might step in if you walked through a cow pasture.

The company ballet masters were on hand for the stage rehearsal. These were the coaches who taught and rehearsed the individual ballets; they were responsible for making sure the steps were correctly danced and the technique looked polished. A little woman with short reddish brown hair and a giant cat T-shirt that reached to her knees placed us in our spots onstage. She was Rosemary Dunleavy, the main ballet mistress for the company. Kind but firm, she obviously knew what she was doing. Peter Martins, a former principal dancer with New York City Ballet who had become ballet master in chief after Balanchine’s death, was also there. He had been a famous dancer in Denmark before he came over to join the New York City Ballet, and was one of the most notable of Balanchine’s choice male dancers. Now he was in charge of everyone and everything in the company. For this rehearsal, he sat on a stool at the front of the stage and watched with interest, smiling and laughing at us a bit and jumping up to fine-tune certain moments from time to time.

The rehearsal was brief, really just a run-through of the ballet. The
company had other ballets to put on the stage that night and couldn’t spend a lot of time on us. When it was over, I sat backstage for a moment and sorted through my emotions. There was excitement because I’d just rehearsed with Peter Martins on the State Theater stage, and it had gone well. There was relief that the rehearsals were finally over, and all that was left to do was perform. There was also terror that the rehearsals were over, and I would never get to rehearse my problem spots again. What if everything went wrong? What if I fell out of the two consecutive double pirouettes? What if even just
one
thing went wrong? Would that mean I had blown it and my chance to join the company was over forever? Should I put my pointe shoes back on, find Arch, and practice again? No, there was nowhere to rehearse, and company members were all over the place, watching. I needed to stay cool. I had done my best. Obviously I would just have to deal with the nerves fluttering in my stomach for another few hours until the performance began.

My fellow students and I were sent down to the basement of the theater to get ready for the show. The New York State Theater is located in Lincoln Center, a complex of buildings on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The three main buildings are grouped around a great fountain; the State Theater, renamed the David H. Koch Theater in 2008, is to the left of the fountain. In the center, behind the fountain, is the Metropolitan Opera House, and on the right is Avery Fischer Hall. The New York State Theater was built in 1964, and Balanchine was involved from the beginning in making the theater perfect for dance. From the sprung floor, to the acoustics meant to dampen the clicking sounds of ballerinas’ toe shoes, to the great sight lines and lack of center aisle so that every seat in the house was good, Balanchine had thought of it all. A cement block of a building, with its face made almost entirely of long windows, it is actually not that beautiful inside; the primary colors are white and gray, and there are hardly any windows back in the working part of the theater. But the stage is the perfect place to dance ballet. The basement of the theater, quaintly called the Lower Concourse, is a labyrinth of dim hallways lined with large crates and filing cabinets. I’d never been
in the backstage area before, and the only way I found my way to our dressing area was by following the sound of excited chatter.