Dance School

Please note: Names have been changed as this is a true story based on personal experiences.

There is no consensus on whether Ballet is a sport or an art, though many agree it adheres to some criteria of both. Like many other girls, I donned a baby pink leotard and wrap cardigan at four years old. I remember feeling miffed at having to wear a green sparkly dress instead of a pink one during the end-of-year show. But it was neither the aesthetic requirements nor the physical demands which persuaded me to give it up. By the time I was five or six, I dreamed of competing at the Olympics as a gymnast. That dream didn’t last long. Three years later I was taking junior drama classes at Helen O’Grady’s instead, followed by horse riding lessons, singing with the school choir, and cheerleading. I was your quintessential jack-of-all-trades. Every time I swapped to a new hobby, I felt it would be the one. It turns out dating extracurricular activities can leave you feeling as insecure as traditional dating. Was there something wrong with me? Why couldn’t I find something I liked and commit to it? At fourteen, I came back to where it all began, Ballet.

I figured the first few classes would be rough. Being with people my own age meant I was nearly ten Ballet years behind. The cooler kids showed some interest in the new kid at first. They complimented my name and told me they thought I was so much nicer than the last cheerleader who had thought she’d be able to learn Ballet. Fantastic. Class started with Barre work; one hand on the bar practising Ronds de Jambe and Port de Bras, leg and arm movements respectively. I adopted a place at the back of the line where I could watch everyone without being watched myself. I knew a few words of French from school but nothing that prepared me for a Frappé. I watched the first iteration of the exercise with concern.

‘What does Frappé mean?’ asked Miss Stacy in her stern, sophisticated English accent. I committed the Ballet sin of gripping the Barre until my knuckles faded to white during the awkward silence.

‘It means to strike. So this time I need to hear your feet strike the floor please.’

If the definition of a sport is an activity that makes the participants perspire then Ballet is certainly a sport. Flinging my feet out in the general direction I saw the other girls doing it, I remember thinking that the Ballet I had signed up for was supposed to be elegant.

I continued shakily copying the Tendus and Plies, very grateful for the support of the Barre despite how often Miss Stacy would remind us it was for resting fingertips only. I was acutely aware of Miss Stacy’s gaze. It matched her voice. Occasionally she would walk over and nudge my elbow an inch higher or arrange the fingers of my free hand differently. Every time, I felt a burning wave crash over my chest and seep through my limbs, and as the tide receded, I resolved that she would not have to correct me next class. Over the next couple of years Miss Stacy would give me pointers and tips only now and then, but there was never a class where I didn’t need correcting. I was a lost cause. I was learning more about the extent of my introversion than I was about Ballet.

At the end of every term parents were invited to watch their child’s class. Long-time dance mums would recline around the rim of the room in cliques resembling those of their children, causing me to be even clumsier than usual. I imagined them thinking indignantly: That girl is nowhere near good enough to be in my child’s class! Only once did my own mother attend.

‘I’m not nearly as good as the other girls, so don’t expect too much,’ I pre-warned her. We were working on a variation involving complex footwork and Pirouettes. My chest felt like a black hole into which the rest of my body was slowly being sucked. It’s hard to look graceful dancing when you’re subconsciously becoming a hunchback. The other girls extended, flicked, and rotated their legs while I hobbled along, very probably looking like I needed the toilet. I never took my eyes off the feet of the girl in front of me. By focusing on the blur of her pink tights and salmon slippers, I pretended my mum wasn’t watching me fail. Finally, Miss Stacy made some kind of comment. I don’t remember which step she was giving me direction on, only that it called attention to the elephant-sized mistakes I was making. My brain began zipping around my head, trying to run away from the attention.

‘I’m sorry,’ I squeaked. ‘I just don’t know…’ My eyes fell to the floor while I squeezed my teeth together, my frayed vocal cords feeling as though they were about to snap.

Outside by the car, I could no longer resist. Mum put her arm around me while I sobbed.

‘Are you sure you want to keep going?’ she asked. It was a fair question. If my fear of judgement was keeping me from trying my best, and making me look even more stupid in the process, what was the point? I thought about pointe shoes on the drive home. Sure, Ballet was good exercise, but as an artistic person, the reason I had been drawn back to it was because I yearned to look as elegant as I had seen ballerinas look in photographs. Arms hovering above the head, body adorned in soft tulle, all balanced on the tip of a single foot. Clearly, I hadn’t achieved that yet, and I was damned if my classmates' parents were going to stop me.

After two years it was deemed that my feet had strengthened enough, and I was allowed to buy my first pair of pointe shoes. With them I found a second gear. My first pointe class was the first time I took pride in my dancing. I couldn’t stop looking in the mirror at my feet doing seemingly unnatural things. As I let the stiff new shoes lift me through a series of Relevé exercises, my confidence extended along with my legs. I was in the beginner pointe class and this time the other girls were a good few years younger than me. I was both secretly delighted and ashamed to find that having more developed bones made my pointe work stronger than theirs. My heart went out to a girl who wobbled on her platforms whenever she was able to stand up. I empathised with the embarrassment she must have felt, even though my chest felt abnormally light, and warm, as if I was glowing. For the first time, my muscles weren’t tense when my teacher spoke to me after class. She proclaimed proudly to the Jazz teacher that it was my first time en pointe and I had looked like a natural. The warm glow expanded to a roaring blaze.

Still, no novelty can last forever, and my non-pointe class remained the same. My second to last end-of-year show was The Little Mermaid. The others in my class were playing Sebastian or one of Ariel’s sisters while I danced in the background as an angelfish for approximately two minutes. The rest of the time, I hid behind one of the many overstuffed costume racks with a book. I made sure to stay out of sight of the younger students who found it odd that a senior like me spent most of the time choking on hair spray residue backstage. After the closing show, everyone gathered onstage to exchange gifts, goodbyes, and to hear from the leavers. Usually, I hated seeing the mascara run and hearing the voices wobble because I couldn’t match them. Even when I tried scrubbing at my eyes my eyeliner would barely smudge. I hadn’t been there long enough to miss them. Hearing how they were going on to some fancy dance institute only made it clear that these people were masters of the craft; they had been doing it all their lives. But that year, Bill, AKA Prince Eric, stood up.

‘I want you to know,’ he said. ‘That a couple of years ago I almost gave up on Ballet.’ My head jerked up. ‘But I realised that I was actually so passionate about dance. And I’m so glad I carried on.’ He sounded uncomfortably serious. ‘As a boy doing Ballet I’ve faced challenges.’ He didn’t have to elaborate. ‘I just want you all to know that if you find something you’re passionate about, stick with it.’ For once, I easily got into the crying spirit.

I didn’t bother auditioning for a main role in my final show after one general announcements email read:

‘We aim to give all our leavers a leading role in the end-of-year show. However, the dancers must be able to carry out the demands of the role.’

It had never said that before, and I felt certain it was aimed directly at me, but I didn’t mind so much after Bill’s speech. From that moment on I had another goal in mind. Burning with fierce determination, I resolved to give my own touching speech at my leaver's show. It was a redemption opportunity. I was going to pierce the hearts of all the people I had danced with. I could leave behind a message that articulated why I carried on despite being so terrible, and so shy. I was finally going to make them understand, because I now understood it myself. It would convey, to anyone like me, that you didn’t need to have been dancing non-stop since you were four years old to enjoy it. If you feel music in your veins or you want to learn a new skill, you don’t have to turn up to class every week to impress anyone else. Not your teacher, not your peers, not your mum. You just have to keep turning up, and you dance for you. I wrote the whole speech out on my notes app. I practised it in my bedroom throughout show week, whispering because I didn’t want my parents to hear. But on the final night, in my sweaty costume and ridiculous stage makeup, when we were asked if any of us wanted to speak, I stayed silent.

I propose that Ballet is a sport and an art. It is a sport that involves dodging the eyes of judgmental ballerinas, including your own. It is also the art of relaxing mental barriers that prevent you from believing in yourself. It is okay to never master Ballet. Occasionally, when no one is home, I open the bottom drawer of my dresser and pull out my working pair of pointe shoes. I lace the satin ribbons around my ankles and weave my body through various poses and moves that I never got to perform on stage. Partly because I never gave that final speech, partly because pointe shoes are expensive and I want to get full use out of them, but mostly because I love dancing. When no one is watching, the unspoken words of my speech hum inside my heart. I dance to them until they explode into fireworks, and I sway knowing what it means to be a jack-of-all-trades ballerina. It’s the same as being a jack-of-all-trades singer, or a jack-of-all-trades basketball player. You’re late to the party, but you can still enjoy the fireworks.