by Charis Marsh
“What do you have to do to your pointe shoes to make it so you can stand in them?” Taylor asked her curiously.
“Quite a bit,” Theresa answered. “Do you want to see?”
The students nodded enthusiastically, so Theresa brought her duffle bag into the centre of the room, and reached in to pull out a large canvas bag. She spilled the contents on the floor, and the students automatically drew closer. Taylor reached over Julian’s leg and tentatively held her hand over one pair. “Can I look at it?” she asked Theresa.
Theresa visibly winced, but then handed Taylor a different pair. “Here. You can touch these ones!” Theresa smiled brightly at her, and Taylor unfolded the shoes. They were neatly tucked inside each other with the ribbons wrapped around. Taylor unwrapped the ribbon carefully, checking the size — a pair of 4 Xs. The Freed Classics were completely bent and the portion of the box where Theresa’s bunion lay had been completely worn down to the point where there was no box left, just canvas and satin. “So cool,” Taylor said.
“All right, let’s get back to class,” Theresa said. Taylor handed her back the shoes and went back to the barre.
“Not many people have good posture,” Theresa said, looking around, frowning. “Come back to the centre. Lie down on your back.”
They obeyed.
“Now, try to stretch out your back and let every part of it touch the ground. Each vertebrae.”
“My butt is getting in the way,” Taylor whispered, wiggling as she tried to accomplish what Theresa asked.
“Well, then chop it off,” someone whispered back. Taylor started to giggle and couldn’t stop, so she sat up to watch Theresa do it.
“Like this,” she explained, lying with her legs bent and turned out, every part of her back on the ground.
“Yes, but she doesn’t have a butt,” Julian complained beside Taylor.
“Yes,” Taylor agreed. “I don’t think this is going to work for us.”
One by one the other students sat up, looking sheepish. “I did it,” Jessica informed them.
Great, Taylor thought, rolling her eyes. Three points to the anorexic. She looked over at Julian, and realized that he was thinking the same thing. They both started giggling.
“Now, let’s go do some centre work,” Theresa said hesitantly. She didn’t seem at all sure of her class syllabus.
Alexandra put up her hand. “Ms. Bachman —”
“Call me Theresa,” Theresa assured her. “No one ever calls me Ms. Bachman. It makes me feel old.”
The class giggled nervously: Theresa was almost fifty years old. “Theresa,” Alexandra began again. “How come you decided to leave the Vancouver Ballet?”
Theresa looked sad, and Taylor wished Alexandra hadn’t asked that question.
“It wasn’t really my decision,” Theresa informed them, smiling unhappily. “I was given a choice, retire, or — be let go.”
“But why?” Alexandra persisted. Taylor winced.
“Because,” said Theresa. “They wanted to move in a different direction with the company, and I wasn’t a part of their vision.”
“Why? Was it a different style or something?”
“Yes. Younger.” Theresa laughed. “New generation in the company, they couldn’t find roles for me. Well, they could have if they’d tried, but they decided to just move on instead.”
There was a widespread sigh.
“I’m fine with it,” Theresa assured them unconvincingly. “It’s time for a new path. And I’ve started teaching — you are my first class, as a matter of fact!”
“You’ve never taught before?” Kaitlyn exclaimed.
“No,” Theresa admitted, hugging her legs into her chest as she looked at the circle of students surrounding her. She had dressed in dance clothes to teach them, a pale yellow bodysuit, black tights, and a flowered wrap skirt, and before she had taken them off she had been wearing canvas shoes. If it weren’t for the wrinkles and lines on her body, she could have passed for one of her students in size and attire.
Taylor bit her lip. She was worried for Theresa, she was telling them too much; teachers needed to keep their distance, otherwise the class wouldn’t run properly. And this was only the first day.
“I like that we are getting to know each other,” Theresa said. “I think this is a good idea. I think I could teach you a lot just by answering your questions — your regular teachers already teach you technique, but I can answer any other questions you have.”
Alexandra put her hand up again. “How do you do your hair?”
Theresa patted the French roll that her hair was firmly bound in. “I can teach you and whoever else wants to learn on your lunch break if you want.”
“Awesome!” Julian said loudly.
Everyone turned around to look at Julian and his newly cut hair, and began to laugh.
“You can come, too — Julian,” Theresa said, reading his name tag. “But this might be a bit difficult for your hair. It looks a little short.”
“Who was your favourite partner?” Tristan asked suddenly from the back.
“Who was that?” Theresa asked, sitting up so she could see him. “A boy!” She looked excited. “I love it when the men take an interest in partnering,” she explained. “So many male dancers, they just don’t work in that area of their dancing. Which I find foolish. The old ballets, they don’t really have well-fleshed-out male leads, and the men really have to focus on the partnering. So many fine young male dancers can get ahead by being a good partner and dancing with a more established female lead.”
Tristan nodded, a little embarrassed. He’d already come to the same conclusion, but it was an entirely different matter to have it told so bluntly in front of the class.
“My favourite partner — let’s see,” Theresa said, sitting back as she considered. The last of the students that had been standing to keep warm in case they were going back to the barre sat, and Taylor adjusted her position a bit so she was sitting closer to Julian and could feel the heat from his body. It was a cold spring in Vancouver that year, despite the sun. Julian had told Taylor that it was probably global warming, which didn’t make sense to Taylor, but she let it go — science frequently didn’t make sense to her. Besides, Julian tended to get overemotional and boring when he started talking about things like the environment.
“Well, I guess I would have to pick Isaac,” Theresa decided. “Isaac — he was a bit younger than me, and a very good partner. We never really matched well in the studio: he never wanted to rehearse as much as I did, so in that way we didn’t suit. But our style of dancing, what we were trying to achieve artistically, was very cohesive.”
“Did you ever fight about how much you rehearsed?” Tristan asked.
“Yes!” Theresa laughed. “All the time. That’s why the company stopped pairing us together — he didn’t take criticism well either.”
Taylor giggled. She could picture Theresa obsessively scolding some partner over the correct way to lift her.
“He had awful timing, as well,” Theresa said, reminiscing. “I have excellent timing, so that was always difficult. It was hard to be tactful at times, and of course he was very sensitive.”
“How would you tell him his timing was off then?” Tristan asked.
“Hmm — this one time we were rehearsing a lovely piece to set to Handel, and he kept lifting me up on the upbeat when it should have been the down. It was awful, because you would hear this definitive down” — Theresa hit the floor with her foot — “and then he would lift me. It completely ruined the choreography. So I told him,” Theresa started to giggle, and they giggled along with her. “I told him — oh dear. I said: ‘Isaac, we are not leaving this studio until you lift me up on the right count.’ He was not impressed, but we stayed in the studio for three hours until he got it right. Then he stormed out and went and got drunk, he was hungover for class the next day. He knew I would’ve complained to the artistic director if he hadn’t stayed.” Theresa shook her head, smil
ing dreamily as if recalling a fond memory.
“Poor Isaac,” Taylor whispered to Julian.
“Do you mean Isaac Claire?” Alexandra asked, wide eyed.
Theresa covered her mouth. “Yes. Don’t tell him I said that. He is a very sweet man, and I’m sure he’s more mature now — we didn’t really keep in touch after he left the company, apart from writing a few times. Now he choreographs. His work is a bit mechanical for my taste, but he’s doing well.”
Taylor giggled. It was so cool to hear gossip about ballet dancers that she looked up to. Theresa looked like she was having fun, too. Taylor had the odd impression that Theresa really wanted them to like her, as if their approval meant something to her. Which Taylor found strange; why would one of the most treasured Canadian ballet dancers of her time care what a class of young students thought of her?
“Did you ever have sex with any of your dance partners?” There was a sudden hush, and everyone turned to look at Delilah. “What? I was just curious.”
“Oh my God, Delilah,” Alexandra said shaking her head, embarrassed.
Delilah shrugged.
They turned back to Theresa to see if she would answer. “Well, yes, a few,” Theresa answered to their surprise. “But I found that the extra layer of complication that added was harmful to our ballet partnership, so I stopped doing that.”
Taylor didn’t know what to think of that statement. It sounded perfectly logical, and more than a little odd at the same time. She wanted to be a ballet dancer who was as amazing as Theresa, but she hoped she wouldn’t be so strange when she was.
“Did you ever think of leaving the company?” Julian asked. “Dancing in a different one? I know you did some guest stuff, but …”
“Not a lot of guesting,” Theresa filled in for him. “And yes, I did think of leaving for a different company. I got offers for bigger companies that would have made me more of a name internationally, but honestly I just couldn’t do it. Vancouver Ballet is — was — my home, my safety net.”
“So you were happy there,” Kaitlyn prodded.
“Yes,” Theresa said hesitantly. “Yes — yes, I was. I was happy there. I was surrounded by so many people who wanted me to do well, you see, and I needed that support system. Some companies are big and make dancers stars, but with Vancouver Ballet it was the other way around. I put them on the map. So they needed me, and I needed them — until they didn’t need me anymore, of course.”
There was silence. No one really knew what to say.
After they finished class, Taylor hurried, wanting to catch up to Julian before he left. It was difficult, because the boys always took far less time to get changed than the girls. She found him sitting on a bench, texting. “Julian!”
“Hey, Tay,” Julian said, not looking up. “How do you spell ‘superficial’?”
“I don’t know,” Taylor said, sitting down beside him. “I have dyslexia, I can’t spell. What are you trying to write?”
Julian passed her his phone. “This,” he sighed. “I’m trying to tell my friend Caspian that he shouldn’t be dating this girl because she is really annoying and superficial. But my phone’s spell check won’t work.”
Taylor looked at the screen. “Just send this,” she suggested. “He’ll probably understand what ‘superphicial’ means.”
“Ah, here, got it,” Julian said suddenly taking the phone back. “It’s an f. I’m an idiot.” He pressed Send.
“Anyway,” Taylor said, “I was wondering, you still want to do two pas de deux with me, right?”
“Yeah, of course!” Julian replied, surprised. “Like, I worked on the contemporary pas de deux we’re going do on Christmas break and everything.”
“Yay,” said Taylor.“Hey … do you want to maybe go back in the studio and rehearse?” She looked at Julian hopefully. “I really, really, really want to see the pas de deux you choreographed. I am actually so stoked.”
Julian looked around. There was an empty studio in front of them. He grinned. “Yeah. Come on.” They both ran into the large studio, giggling. Taylor did a cartwheel in the middle of the room. “The whole studio, for us!” she said happily.
Julian set up the music.
“I like this pas de deux,” Taylor said, as she and Julian lay on the floor, panting. “It’s so fast and fun. I like that better than slow and serious dances.” Taylor and Julian looked up, hearing a noise in the doorway.
Theresa was standing there, dressed in her street clothes. “What have you been doing?” she asked.
“Uh … fooling around, choreographing,” said Julian carelessly, ruining the effect immediately by blushing.
“Choreographing what?” demanded Theresa as she walked closer to them. “You like choreographing?” Her eyes were focused on Julian, and Taylor scooted a little bit away from him.
“A … just a pas de deux… it’s sort of stupid, but I like choreographing, you know?” said Julian. “It’s just so … so much fun.”
“Show me?” asked Theresa.
At that moment Julian’s cell began to ring. Taylor turned it off for him. “It’s Tristan,” she said, grimacing.
“Oh, yeah, we have that RAD class today!” Julian said, horrified. “I totally forgot about it. I can’t go now, there’s not enough time.”
Taylor turned Julian’s phone to silent.
“Do you think I could see some of your choreography? If you don’t mind?” Theresa asked Julian.
“Um, sure,” said Julian, cracking his feet on the floor nervously. “Do you think you could turn on the music for us? That button. Thanks!”
He walked over to the centre of the room and stood next to Taylor, waiting. Theresa pushed Play.
Julian finished the pas de deux not terribly well, as he suddenly remembered that Theresa was watching him and might think that his choreography was weird, and he left the floor muttering, “Not very good of course, it’s just for fun, you know? Kind of stupid, I know.”
But the beginning and middle were good enough for Theresa to sit up even straighter in order to pay better attention and to exclaim when he had finished, “You really are talented! How long have you been working on this?”
Julian shot a glance at Taylor: he had told her that he had been working on it since Christmas break, but he had really just finished choreographing most of it today, and the first half the night before. “I’ve been working on it for — um, a little while.”
“You really do have talent,” Theresa said excitedly. “We have to talk tomorrow. I think I have an idea.” She left the room, smiling, and lost in her own world. Julian stared after her, confused.
As soon as she left, Taylor turned to Julian. “That was so random,” she whispered, staring after Theresa. “But, she’s right. You are really good at choreographing! And you dance so much better when you are dancing your own work. This pas de deux is way better than any of the academy’s contemporary teachers have ever done that I’ve seen. It’s more like Leah’s. But different. I really, really like it! What is that song? I recognize it.”
“It’s ‘Sail,’” said Julian, his grin lighting up his whole face. “That Awolnation song? Thanks.” He sat down and stretched, out of breath.
“You need to dance like that more often,” said Taylor disapprovingly. “Full-out, I mean.”
“I’m just out of breath because I’m not doing soccer and stuff anymore,” Julian protested.
“You should be totally in shape if you’ve been taking class properly,” said Taylor. But she let it go. “Theresa’s right, you’re, like, really good. We should definitely do what you choreographed for competition!”
“Do we have to ask the Demidovskis?” Julian asked.
“Yes,” said Taylor, frowning. “But — let’s say we got a contemporary teacher to choreograph it for us. They’d panic if you told them you did it.”
“Yeah,” said Julian agreed. “They totally would. Okay.”
“Okay, let’s work on this,” Taylor said firmly. “Nobody’s
waiting in the hall, so we can use this studio until someone kicks us out. We just have to check the hallway every so often to make sure no one is out there waiting.”
By the time they got out of the studio it was dark, but it had stopped raining. Julian had learned the choreography to the Le Corsaire pas de deux and they had both learned exactly how hard they would have to work to get it ready for festival, they had both rehearsed their respective variations once (well, Julian three-quarters as he forgot bits of it) and they had experimented enough for Julian to get an idea of what changes he had to make to their contemporary pas de deux to make it work. Dancing with Taylor when he was choreographing in his brain was quite different from actually dancing with Taylor, and some of the lifts and ideas he had just didn’t translate into real life. They were both completely exhausted, but extremely happy.
“I am so tired, but I’m glad I finally got to see your choreography,” said Taylor, almost skipping as they walked to the bus stop.
“Me too,” said Julian, marking steps to music in his head. “Do you think Theresa actually liked my work?”
“I think so,” said Taylor, yawning. “Yay, bus!”
Chapter Four
Alexandra Dunstan
“You have a face for the radio, But I know you’d like to see it in a show …” haha, love The View, ultimate insult.
It was warm in the studios before class, and Alexandra could see the sun streaming through the windows onto the grey dance floor. It was pretty, and her body felt warm and loose after warming up. She rolled over and rose up into a bridge, grabbing her ankles and trying to straighten so her body was completely bent in half.
“Almost,” said Tristan admiringly. He tried himself, but wasn’t flexible enough to touch his ankles. He flopped down on the floor again in a pout. “It’s just because you’re a girl,” he informed Alexandra.
She rolled her eyes. “Sure,” she answered. Tristan pulled a Kleenex out of his tights and blew his nose. “Ew,” said Alexandra.