Words of Wisdom: Erin

"There is no squeezing in ballet!"

What I'm Reading: Apollo's Angels

Apollo's Angels is six-hundred-plus pages of ballet history, and managed to keep me engaged throughout. That alone tells you it's a well-written and interesting book.

Jennifer Homans discusses the history of ballet from its beginnings as a courtly art in 17th century to the great dancers and choreographers of the 20th century. Through it all, ballet was shaped by the events of modern European history: politics, war, and especially the rise of communism.

As a dancer -- an aged, decrepit dancer, but a dancer nonetheless -- it was fun to read about the long and fascinating history that I'm a part of every time I go into the studio. And the next time we do a reverence at the end of class, I'll do it with more, well, reverence.

Old Maid Avoids Injury Through Ballet Training

I was taking out the trash this morning in snowy and icy conditions. When I stepped back into my apartment to get the recycling while wearing snowy boots, my leading foot planted firmly on the hardwood floor. My back foot slid. This would not have been a problem had I not already been reaching for the bag of cat food tins and soda water bottles.


Did I fall and hurt myself? No, my friends, I did not. I quickly shifted my weight so it was over the toes of my leading foot and I kept the other foot off the floor. My ballet teacher, Mr. P., has been drilling us in quickly changing our weight distribution, and apparently, it's beginning to sink in.


And my father always said ballet would never be useful to me in the real world. Ha. Shows what he knew.

Happy Dancing Auntie

I've realized in the past few weeks that I've taken many dance classes, but I've never really been trained before. What I mean is, I haven't had anyone consistently teach me which muscles I should be using (or should not be using) to perform a particular step, and push me to perform steps in a particular way. I just sort of mimicked whatever my teacher was doing and when in doubt, I threw in some big arms to make it look fancy.

Now I have a teacher who is training me. He is my age(ish), so he is not impressed with my decrepitude. He sweetly ignores my whining and my belief that I can't do half of what he expects. He'll stand right in front of me and smile while he orders me to try. And damned if most of the time he isn't right. I hate that in a man.

Last night while I was doing my ronds de jambe, he corrected my foot position. It's a minor correction, but one that is hard to maintain and also keep the leg moving and my arms where they're supposed to be (hence the need for training). But here's the thing: he said "You have great turnout, and this looks even better."

You have great turnout. Gentle readers, do you have any idea how that made me feel? It made me feel awesome. I've been digging deep to find the little girl who danced so effortlessly and joyfully back in the day. Most of the time I feel more like one of the hippos in Fantasia.

I had assumed that at age 47, I would never get back the turnout in my legs and hips. I was wrong. I guess all the sur le cou de pied I've been doing while waiting for photocopies at work is paying off.