Zumba was my lifeblood for a couple of years, when I thought it could fill the void which the absence of dance left in my life. Around the beginning of this academic year, though, I realized that although zumba is fun, great exercise, and is built of a friendly community, it’s not “real dance.” Zumba-lovers, please excuse my elitist idea of “real dance!” The fact of the matter is that my subjective definition of real dance stems from a lifetime of ballet and pointe, tap, jazz, modern, lyrical, and contemporary. I still enjoy zumba and will continue to participate from time to time, but there comes a point when enthusiastic step-touches and ecstatic booty-shaking are not enough to feed my dance cravings.
I began my hunt for the right dance class– one that was challenging but not too serious, difficult but not too hard on my body, familiar without feeling blasé.
A couple years ago I had regularly attended a contemporary class at a studio with a great teacher, but her choreography involved so much floorwork that my knees and wrists suffered. And don’t even get me started on the bruises covering all the corners of my body– hips, elbows, shoulders, and all the spinous processes of my vertebrae! There’s good pain, like when your muscles are burning with lactic acid, and then there’s bad pain like when you think you might need a hip replacement in your mid-twenties. I decided my body would appreciate a dance style that was more gentle on my joints.
I tried a jazz class at the same studio with a different teacher. This was a great combination of technique exercises, across-the-floor, and choreography. I probably would have continued here had I not discovered the perfect ballet class.
Before I found the perfect ballet class, though, I had to survive the ballet class from hell. Actually, the class itself is awesome if you are a robot ballerina with no sense of fatigue. I am not a robot. I have weaknesses. I am a 23 year old who, in the past, danced eight hours a week, passed ballet examinations held by the Royal Academy of Dance, and skipped school for dance competitions– key words in the past. I took a long break and my technique and strength are not even comparable to what they used to be. In the dance world, I would be considered past my prime at the age of 23. Dancers who train seriously can still have a great career at my age, but I started slowing down and I will never be able to do everything I used to. This is actually a good thing, though, because all that cool stuff I could do was terrible for my joints!
It was a dark and stormy night, that first time I trekked to the ballet studio. I was joined by my sister and friend of mine who also felt nostalgia for ballet. It was pitch black, raining buckets, and dangerously windy. We saw nothing for the vicious raindrops were piercing our eyes sideways under our umbrellas. Drenched, bewildered, and having been lost for 20 minutes in this unfamiliar area of town, we stumbled in and put on our canvas ballet shoes.
The class was not a traditional ballet class with choreographed exercises at the barre and in the center, as we had expected. It was like a ballet-themed army bootcamp with body conditioning like I have never seen before. The teacher was a machine, relentless, and the class followed her valiantly through a workout that targeted the important tiny muscles which ballerinas use (never, ever lift your leg using your quadriceps!).
Meanwhile, the three of us newbies were flailing violently or at times simply stuck, in a position where that tiny muscle was so minuscule that it couldn’t perform the movement. My face was tomato-red, though I looked more like watery ketchup with sweat dripping off me like rain. My muscles were shaking and my heart beating like a jackhammer inside my chest. My pulse was swooshing in my ears and I felt so weak that I almost went numb. The next day, I had a searing migraine and felt so nauseous that I had to miss school to lie limply in bed. The class would have been pure gold for me five or six years ago. At this point in my life, though, this clearly was not the right class for me to begin with!
The following week I had recovered enough to journey back to try a different ballet class at the studio. I had been told it would be a more conventional ballet class, and I was feeling hopeful. They were working on choreography for the recital that day, and without hesitation our lovely, inclusive teacher placed me in the formations and helped me catch up. The choreography was beautiful! My hips don’t turn out as much, my right ankle is stiff when I point my toes, and I’m a little wobbly on one leg, but I fake it as best I can and it feels glorious to dance ballet again.
My favourite moment took place a couple weeks ago when we were practicing jumps across the floor (from corner to corner of the dance studio with traveling steps). It was my first time doing a grande jeté for a few years, and I was slightly worried that mine would be ugly. Jumps used to be one of my stronger points, and I was very proud of my grande jeté back in the day. Now, my splits are no longer perfect, so I hardly expected to be able to leap and do the splits in the air. Glissade, grande jeté, grande jeté! grande jeté!! GRANDE JETÉ!!! Miraculously, there I was, chest lifted, suspended in the air, legs straight and perfectly elongated in the splits! I felt like I was soaring through the air, just as before! When all the factors fall into place, there’s something magical about ballet.
This is a picture from 2008. Note: This is lyrical dance (not ballet) and what I’m doing is not called a grande jete (both legs would be straight) but it’s close enough!
The Life of All Sorts 