“That’s right.” Nio strikes a similar pose.
“Okay, ballet people, that’s enough,” Logan says.
Nio does a few more moves and then swings away from me. “That was fun,” he says.
I smile back. Then Nio and Logan link arms and walk away to practice jumps on the other side of the studio. I wish he had stayed to do more ballet with me.
Other kids of all ages come into the room and start warming up. I stretch, careful not to attract too much attention. Then Tara comes in and begins flipping switches on the stereo. I sigh. Maybe this contemporary thing won’t be too bad; at least Tara seems friendly. Tara claps her hands, and the kids, all girls except for Nio and two other boys, stand up and fall into rows. I scurry to the back of the room while Nio and Logan take places at the front. Tara starts the music, a soft, luminous Celtic song. She smiles and reaches her arms above her head in an expansive stretch. The other dancers copy her and so do I.
The warm-up is different from anything I’ve done before. There are no pliés, no tendus or battements or barre work. Instead, Tara leads a series of reaches, stretches and large sweeping movements. It’s all easy, but weird. For one exercise, we contract our stomach muscles, bend our knees, pull in our arms to our chests, and then release in a big stretch, stepping to the side. I can’t figure out what the point of it is. It isn’t much of a stretch and there’s no technique to it. Ten minutes into the warm-up and I haven’t even broken a sweat. And the weirdest thing of all, Tara keeps calling out “contract and release” and smiling as if we should be enjoying ourselves. No ballet teacher I’ve ever had has expected anyone to enjoy the warm-up.
Tara switches the music to something Spanish-sounding and begins an exercise where you have to kick to the side. I let my foot sweep up, perfectly pointed, to my ear. The other dancers only kick to their waists or their shoulders. All eyes turn toward me in the mirror, including Logan’s; she scowls at me. I pretend not to notice their stares and decide not to kick that high for the rest of the exercise.
Following the warm-up there is a series of movements across the floor done in twos: turns, jetés and other leaps. I am good at these, my legs in my jeté almost reaching past 180 degrees into an oversplit. I try not to pay attention to the whispers following me. Many of the other kids are good dancers, but no one has my technique. Logan and Nio are among the best dancers in the group. Logan may not be as flexible as me, but she attacks each of the jumps with an impressive energy. I can tell she would be fun to watch onstage. I wonder if that’s how Mrs. G wants me to dance.
After the warm-up there is a short break. Everyone drinks from their water bottles, and most of the girls fix their hair. A few of the kids practice a move where you fall from standing into a push-up position. I watch, fascinated. It looks both graceful and dangerous. I want to try it, except not with other kids watching. I’d like to talk to Nio again, but he’s sitting with the other boys, so I sit alone, watching.
At the end of the break, Tara gathers everyone together. “Good work, dancers. We’re going to have an amazing two weeks in contemporary this year. I know usually we start a routine right away, but this year, you guys are going to be the choreographers, not me.” The dancers look around at each other. A few raise their eyebrows. Some of the older kids look excited. I’m not really sure how I feel about this. I’ve never had a chance to choreograph anything before. I could create a ballet dance easily, but not contemporary.
“In order to get you prepped for choreography,” Tara says, “the second half of our class is going to be an improv session. It’s a little different, but I think you’ll love it. Just be open to experimenting and moving how you feel.”
Improv is when you make up your own dance, on the spot. Julia and I have done that a million times before. Still, I cringe a little when I hear Tara say we should move how we feel. That’s the part Mrs. G wants me to work on: emotion. The dancers choose positions in the room, and I stand at the back again, not sure what will happen next. Tara turns on a playful song with loud saxophones and shouts over the music, “Okay, dancers. Let’s see what you can do. We’re going to start with the dance of the happy penguins! It’s a beautiful sunny day in Antarctica, and the snow is slippery. Don’t limit yourself to only penguin moves. How do you think penguins feel?”
My eyes open wider. Penguins? I have to dance like a penguin? They don’t even have proper legs, just feet. All around me, other dancers start to move, most of them waddling joyfully, flapping their hands like little penguin wings. A few hop up and down and bob their heads. Nio runs and slides across the floor on his knees, arms outstretched.
“Dancers,” Tara adds, “think about the space around you. Are you going to be low to the ground, or higher in the air?”
I still haven’t moved. Penguins? But this is why I am here, to experiment, to try new things. I could try a penguin pas de chat, but to happy saxophone music? I back farther away from the other dancers, until I am against the barre. C’mon, Meg, I tell myself, just try. And so I bend my knees and attempt an awkward penguin plié. Would penguins stick out their bums when they bend their knees? Then I do a few battements, kicking my feet in front of me in time to the music, then a rond de jambe, my toe pointed to the floor and moving from the front to the side. I’m about to try a penguin arabesque, with my leg bent behind me instead of straight, when the music changes. The new song is lyrical, with heavy drums. It sounds sinister.
“Penguins, a wind has come up, and clouds are coming in,” Tara yells. “There may be a predator in the area.” The other dancers become more frenzied. One girl starts to pull at her long hair, her feet moving in a series of small, intense steps. Another boy crawls on the floor, growling as if he is the predator. Do penguins even have predators? One smaller girl hops on one foot, clapping her hands. I suck in my breath and try a fast turn on demi-pointe, turning quickly as if to keep away from something scary. I think about my hands and let them flutter nervously around me, keeping time to the music.
Then Tara switches the music to a classical piano piece. “The music has changed and so will you,” she calls out. “Now you must dance as if you are the color purple. What does purple feel like to you?”
I stop. Purple? It’s a color, not a feeling. My mind goes totally blank. The other dancers start to make contract-and-release movements across the floor. I back myself against a wall, watching them. This is too weird. I start edging toward the exit and then flee, down the hallway and into the bathroom.
Six
It’s cool and dark in the bathroom. I crouch on a covered toilet seat, my head resting on my knees, and imagine doing pas de valse—a waltz step—to normal ballet music. I’ll never be able to do contemporary. All that contract-and-release stuff was weird enough, but pretending to be purple? I close my eyes. Maybe I could bring a book to class and read at the back. Or slip out the door and find a room to practice some ballet exercises. That would be a good use of time.
Except that isn’t why I am here. I’m supposed to be learning to be more flexible. Less rule-bound. Before I fled the room, I caught a glimpse of Logan’s purple dance. She was swinging her arms around her head as if she was a warrior.
I stretch out my back and then wilt into a slump. What does purple feel like anyway? It makes me think of my parents drinking red wine on the back porch in the summer, the clink of the wine glasses. You could do a series of glissades, a sliding step beginning and ending in fifth position: that’s what a purple wine night would feel like. The music would be very drawn-out, like the jazz music Mom listens to.
I get up from the toilet and stand in front of the mirrors over the sinks and imagine my parents drinking wine in Italy. I hum a little bit and then attempt a slow purple-wine-night glissade, followed by a measured pas de bourrée, a small stepping movement I usually do en pointe. Exactly right. I let myself drop to the tiled floor the same way Tara did during warm-up, contracting my stomach and then wilting in a pile of limbs. It feels good. I stand up and do it again.
That’s how I feel at the end of a really good ballet rehearsal—like a falling leaf—or a crumpled marionette.
Except it’s not how I feel now. I still have lots of energy inside me, like I’m a simmering pot. I couldn’t even stay for the whole class because of a stupid color. I usually wear soft pastels, like the pale blue of my favorite ballet sweater, or my pink toe shoes. Purple is the color of Tess’s soccer uniform. I wrinkle my nose, imagining those purple jerseys in a dank pile on the laundry-room floor. I lift my hand to my forehead in mock horror, the way Nio did when he saw me stretching. Then I tuck myself into a little ball, hands over my head, as if to avoid the purple laundry. I start moving my feet to the beat I can hear from the tap class next door, little angry steps, still thinking of those purple shirts.
I don’t hear the bathroom door open. I’m still crouched over, feet tapping, when Logan says loudly, “Why are you dancing in the bathroom instead of in class?” She holds the door open wide so other girls in the hallway can look in and give me funny looks.
I quickly drop my arms. “I was just stretching,” I say, even though it was obvious I wasn’t. I walk past Logan, holding my head high.
In the hall outside the studios, sweaty dancers are packing their bags. The bell for lunch is ringing, and campers are heading up the hill to the dining hall. I want to hide in my cabin instead. I step back into the studio to get my water bottle. All the other dancers have left, and only Tara is there.
She sees me and smiles. “Hey, I was wondering where you went. You did really well today.”
“I did?”
She turns off the stereo system. “Yeah, you’ve got beautiful technique, and I was so proud of the way you tried all the exercises. I know you normally only do ballet, so this must have been really different for you.”
“But I couldn’t do the end,” I whisper.
Tara tilts her head to the side. “Who cares? You did more than half, right? And tomorrow you can stay longer and do more improv.”
I let my shoulders slump. “I don’t think so.”
Tara throws her arm around my shoulders. “Oh, c’mon. Just think of all the wild stuff you’ll have to show your ballet friends back home.”
I cringe, imagining dancing like a penguin in front of Julia and the rest of the junior company.
Tara smiles sympathetically and then pulls herself away from me and does a few silly penguin moves with a goofy grin. “Penguin, right?” Then she skips across the room and leaps in the air, both legs bent. When she lands, she swings her arms over her head and falls into the graceful push-up position the other dancers practiced during the break. “That’s a happy penguin to me. You?”
I hesitate for a minute. I think about “Dance of the Cygnets” from Swan Lake, which we performed as a finale for the year-end show. I can hear the music in my head as I start the sixteen pas de chat, a series of sideways jumps. I start to smile as I dance the steps.
When I finish, Tara calls out, “Bravo! You can do that in class if that’s what you feel. You’ll blow the other kids away.” Then she grabs me in a headlock and rubs my scalp with her fist, something no ballet instructor has ever done. I can’t help smiling as I try to pull away. “C’mon,” Tara says. “We’re going to miss the grilled cheese sandwiches.”
“Hey,” I say. “What do you call that move you just did, the one where you fell into the push-up?”
Tara shrugs. “I don’t know if it has a name. I think I’d call it a windmill fall because of the arm motion.”
I nod. When I turn to leave, I see Logan standing in the doorway, watching us. I’m not sure how long she’s been there.
“Hey, Logan,” Tara says. “Coming to lunch?”
Logan eyes me carefully, runs her fingers through her sweaty hair and then nods. Tara turns out the lights in the studio and the three of us walk up the hill to the dining hall together.
Seven
The first few days of dance camp pass in a blur of moving bodies and starchy meals. I wake each morning dreaming of pliés or pas de chat, and then I suffer through contemporary class, bending and contracting into new poses, humiliating myself in the improv exercises. I try to pretend I’m a storm cloud, a star or a chair. Even though no one is looking at me when I’m doing these exercises, I still feel self-conscious. Dancing is steps to me, not emotion or imagination. I think about Mrs. G saying I need to make a connection with my audience in my dancing, but I don’t really get it.
And what does a star feel like anyway? The doubt Mrs. G has unleashed makes it hard to concentrate. If I can’t take my dancing to the next level, what will happen to me? I can’t imagine not dancing. I’ve given up so many things for ballet already: the school choir, Saturday-night movies, visiting Nana in Abbotsford, a trip to New York with some school friends and their moms…the list goes on.
If I don’t dance, what will I do with the rest of my life? Without ballet, my life feels like dancing onstage without a costume and makeup.
Sometimes Nio talks to me during breaks in our dance classes. Mostly he hangs out with Logan, who still stares at me whenever I kick higher than the other dancers or when she happens to notice me struggling through an improv exercise. I try my best to ignore her. Some days, when contemporary class gets too strange, I do ballet exercises in the bathroom to calm myself down.
In the afternoons we have swimming, boating or arts and crafts. I make beaded bracelets without enthusiasm and swim in the cold lake. You need a partner down at the dock. The one time I ask Nio to be my partner, Logan glares at me as if I am trying to steal him away. I ask Jodie and Cassidy if I can partner with them after that. When we go down to the boating dock, the other girls fight to take out canoes or sailboats. Nio keeps saying I should try waterskiing. “It’s the best feeling,” he says. “You fly over the lake.”
“No thanks,” I always say.
Nio just shrugs and leaves me alone. It’s not that I don’t know how to water-ski; it’s more that I don’t want to risk an injury that could end my ballet career. Sometimes I take a rowboat out by myself. Mostly I hang out on the dock, reading fashion magazines and feeling bored. I try doing some ballet exercises in the shade, but too many people stare and Logan snickers.
Each evening a different dance section does a performance. The tappers perform a Broadway-style medley. The musical-theater troupe does a series of shorter numbers. The contemporary dancers haven’t started their rehearsals, but already they’re buzzing around and forming groups. I try to ignore the excitement. No one has asked me to join them.
My favorite part of the day is the quiet hour after lunch. I work on my fashion scrapbook under the trees or read a magazine on my bunk. It’s the only time I can be alone.
One afternoon I’m lying on my bunk looking at some magazines and thinking about a collage I’d like to make when I hear Logan outside the cabin, talking to Jodie and Cassidy. “Hey, this is cool,” I hear her say. I don’t pay attention until I hear Logan say, “I love the colors in this collage.” I bolt upright on my bed and look through my backpack for my fashion scrapbook. It’s not there.
I’m getting off my bunk just as Logan sticks her head into the cabin. “Did someone lose a scrapbook?”
“I think that’s mine.” I point to it in Logan’s hands.
“Oh.” Logan looks surprised.
“Where did you find it?” I ask.
“Outside under the trees,” Cassidy says. “I love your collages.”
“Yeah,” Jodie adds, “especially the winter one.”
Logan looks at the ground.
“Thanks. I guess it must have fallen out of my backpack,” I say.
As Logan silently hands me the scrapbook, the pages fan open to the back, where I’ve glued some photos of myself. “Wait, is that you?” Jodie asks.
“Um, yes.” I want to take the book back and scurry up to my bunk, but Jodie, Cassidy and Logan are all staring at the photos of me modeling some ballet costumes and also standing in my favorite outfit: my soft gray leather
jacket I got from my parents for my fifteenth birthday, my fuchsia pencil skirt and my high black leather boots.
“You look so great,” Cassidy says.
“My friend Julia is a good photographer,” I say faintly.
“You should put some of those photos above your bunk,” Jodie says.
“Oh, maybe.”
“Wait,” Cassidy says. “You two”—she points at Logan and me—“should totally do costuming together for the final show. You’d be great.”
Logan and I look at each other without saying anything.
“Logan did all our costuming for musical comedy last year,” Jodie explains. “She was so good at it.”
Logan bites her lip and shifts from foot to foot. I can tell she wants nothing to do with me. “I’ll think about it,” I say. I’ve never really thought about costuming before. I shove the scrapbook in my backpack with my magazines.
“Is that all magazines?” Cassidy asks.
“Um, yes.”
“Wow,” Jodie squeals.
I hold out the backpack. “They were a present from a friend. You can borrow them.”
Jodie and Cassidy grab Elle and Lucky and then head out to the shade under the trees. Logan hesitates, her hand above the bag. “It’s okay,” I say.
I watch her face twist into a frown. “No thanks.” She joins Jodie and Cassidy to look at the magazines with them instead.
* * *
The next afternoon, instead of water activities, the contemporary dancers meet for our first rehearsal for our evening dance performance. The room hums with energy. I hang back, not even bothering to warm up.
It takes Tara several minutes to calm everyone down so she can speak. “I know you all have a million ideas, so I’ve gone ahead and chosen some music I think you’ll love. You guys can form groups of your choice, and you have the afternoon to compose a routine. Tomorrow we’ll figure out the sequence of the groups and how to get everyone on- and offstage smoothly.”
Off Pointe Page 3