Read Online Running in Heels by Anna Maxted - Free Book Online Page B

marketing at Black Moon Records—might turn up, and Chris said it sounded “boss.”
    The only monster blot on the landscape, I think, as I slink into the studio to meet Mel as arranged, is this scab on my face. I feel the urge to hack off my chin with a knife. I wish it was fancy dress, I could go in a yashmak. I sit on a chair by the pianist, and gaze at the dancers. I want to leap up and shout, Oh my god, you’re so clever! I will never get over the beauty of classical ballet. I’ve seen Swan Lake —technically known as a “grind”—fifty times and at the first flutter of a feathered tutu I dissolve. When I first joined the company, I watched class and asked Matt to identify the god in the head scarf. He replied, “I have a rule: ‘Don’t shag the payroll.’ ” Like I have a choice. Dancers aren’t generally keen on civilian bodies. As Julietta reportedly said, “Once you’ve driven a Benz you don’t want to drive anything else.” I watch Oskar now, fiddling with his head scarf in the mirror. This week, the company is rehearsing for spring. Mel is sitting on the floor in what looks like a baby “onesie,” cutting up plasters and sticking them on her callused toes. Her feet are ugly. It fascinates me, the mess and tears and pain behind the cool serenity of this purist art. Dancers are the only athletes who can’t show the viewers how much it hurts, and I’m in awe of their power and poise.
    Then the artistic director swishes in and orders everyone to “Get your junk off.” The AD is slightly more feared than a vengeful god and the dancers scurry to remove their layers. You can always tell if they’re feeling fat by what they wear to class. Some days it’s like walking into ski school. The répétiteur —whose job it is to breathe life into a production and betray people to the artistic director—is already taking the principal couples through their paces.
    Today, the répétiteur has the Herculean task of translating intoEnglish the instructions of Anastasia Kossoff—former star of the Kirov—who is “staging” our presentation of Romeo and Juliet . Anastasia is sixty-seven with a body like a wasp, and will never be able to infuse these British pears with even a breath of her genius. The problem is, she literally scares them stiff. Mel scampers into place—“Sorry, sorry!” The AD watches like a bird of prey.
    The pianist plays, the dancers dance themselves dizzy, and Anastasia starts shouting: “It looks like you working! Here”—gracefully executing the step herself—“is dignity, here ”—mimicking the dancers like a stiff wooden puppet—“is not dignity! Use grace! Not jerky! Urgency! I not see the shape of your arcs! Can we do the écarté step again! Control!”—the sweating, panting principals stare dejected as she demonstrates—“Softly, soft…come up! Come up! Control yourself! Squeeze, squeeze, now carry yourself! Carry, carry, little ronde de jambe , small, huh? On the top of the ground! As this goes forward, this goes out but not too much! Yah! Okay, lez go, don’t drop that! How”—she turns to the répétiteur —“do you explain this in technique?”
    Forty excruciating minutes later, the class is dismissed. Mel looks crushed, and I ache for her. Ballet is all about correction. And all ballet dancers are perfectionists. It’s not what you call a horse-and-carriage partnership, and it’s no mystery that most dancers are a mash of desperate vanity and low self-confidence. As Mel passes the AD, he murmurs, “Nice try, darling.”
    She is wan as we walk to the corner café. I hate to say it, but her dancing today was less than wonderful. She did not—as they say in ballet—“move big,” and she stumbled twice. And although she has the frame of a