Chapter 38 – Back to Ballet
The Gulfstream flew Gale and Helstof back to Charleston in comfort, while Anna and Richard headed back to work on the film. Both were sorry to see Gale and Helstof go, especially Richard. Four is his number. The Ps picked them up at the airport and bombarded them with questions about the show and about Anna and Richard. How is the film going? When are they coming home? Are they still in love? What did the male models look like? Are they as skinny as the female models? How old are they? Whose designs did you like the best? What’s it like to fly in a Gulfstream?
Gale immediately started to tell about the fun and games in the hotel suite, but Helstof shushed her. “Gale, that’s private, put a sock in it (they had that saying in Russia, too).”
Gale said, “Oh, yeah.”
The Ps looked at each other, silently agreeing to wait until Gale had had a couple of drinks some time, knowing they would get it out of her. Helstof knew too, but had to try. Gale told them about the train carrying the models, the guy in the crowd dressed like an ostrich, the $5000 seats, and meeting the couple from the Paris Opera Ballet.
Pater said, “That’s the oldest ballet company in the world. Older even than the Mariinsky. What do they want?”
“They want two things. When Anna and Richard are done with the film, they’re going to get together in Paris with them, and look at the story and music for the ballet they created. The other thing is our production here. They’re coming over in a couple weeks to meet the rest of the team, and see what we’re doing in the rehearsals. They are really interested in how we’re taking an orchestral score and transcribing it for synthesizer. No one’s ever done that before. At least not at this level. And they’re really interested in how we’re spending $25 million on one production. That’s almost as much as their budget for an entire season.”
Peter looked at Pater, and said, “How are we spending $25 million? I haven’t been paid anything, have you?” Pater shook his head, no. He looked at Gale, who shook her head, no. Of course, thus far Gale hadn’t done much work, preferring instead to drink wine at lunchtime. Peter said, “What did you learn at the shows that you can use on our costume design? Some great stuff?”
Gale looked at Helstof, and said, “We were supposed to bring something back for our project?”
Helstof said, “Yes, Gale, that was our reason for going over there, to get stuff for our designs. Remember?” The Ps wondered how much champagne Gale had drunk over the four days she was gone.
“Well, I can’t say I saw anything I’d want to put my name on, in our production,” said Gale. “How about you?”
Helstof shook her head, said, “If we were doing a circus, we could have brought back plenty. But for a ballet, nyet.”
Gale said, “How’s the production going? Did things grind to a halt while we were away?”
The Ps thought Gale was kidding, and looked at each other. She had to be kidding, right? Pater said, “The Whosey is a madman, working twelve hours a day, which means we’re working twelve hours a day since we’re running the recording computer.” Peter thought he would stick it to Gale a little, having abandoned her post in order to screw around in Paris. In his thought process he used the word screw figuratively, not knowing he very well could have used it literally. He said, “Gwen says you’re gonna work twelve hour days too, like the rest of us.”
“Doing what?”
“She didn’t say exactly, but she had that special look on her face, the one she gets when she’s holding her gun.”
“We’ll see about that. What’s The Whosey doing during these long days?”
“One third of the time he’s looking at the score, one third he’s at the synthe, playing, and one third he’s with Selgey and Bart. They’re getting along great. He really wants to learn about choreography; how someone takes a story and some music, and turns it into dance movement. They talk a lot about the story, what Stravinsky wants to say through the music.”
Pater said, “You know what happened one day? Townshend asked Bart what it felt like to be a dancer. Then he asked what it felt like to dance with Selgey. Bart started to answer him, but Selgey said, ‘Don’t tell him. Show him.’ So Bart picked Townshend up under one arm like a sack of groceries, and danced up and down the theater aisles for a couple of minutes. He waved him around, then switched him to the other arm, flowing up and down, Selgey cheering him on. Then he put Townshend down, and he and Selgey got him in a sandwich. They waltzed around the stage for a while, sometimes Townshend’s feet were on the ground, and sometimes not. We played a little of the score from the computer, and they tried to dance to that, but mostly they just flowed around using their own music.”
Peter said, “The Whosey loved it. He’s a pretty small guy, and Bart can carry him around easy. He told us he fell in love with Selgey, after that, and we told him we wouldn’t squeal on him to Bart.”
Helstof said, “How’s the search for dancers going? Has the woman hired any?”
“She hasn’t really tried yet. Says she’s going to do PR stuff first, a whole campaign. But we think she’s scared she won’t be able to get enough under contract on this short notice. We think she’s just putting off the search. There are good dancers out there, but every company in the world is competing for them.”
Pater said, “You want to go home, or to The Hall?”
Gale looked at Helstof, then said, “We slept on the plane. The bed on that thing is better than the one in my house. Might as well go to The Hall, see what Gwen wants us to do.”
They parked in the alley behind the theater and went in through the old employee entrance. Stravinsky’s music was blaring through the speakers, the synthesized sounds of trumpets and oboes discernible. The Whosey stood at center stage, waving his arms like a conductor, at Selgey and Bart, who stood together in the center aisle. Helstof looked over at the synthesizer, saw no one sitting on the bench. Townshend had played the music that morning, and captured it in the recording software on the computer. He was sending the playback out to Selgey and Bart, and at the same time speaking to them, correlating the story to the music. Gale and Helstof sat down in chairs next to Roger and Gwen, and they all listened. The Ps took up their station at the computer, watching the recording software, waiting for direction from the musician.
Townshend said, “The gypsy parents are yelling at the kids to run faster. Telling them if they don’t, the police are going to catch them, sentence them to four years of college, a fate worse than death. Telling them if they get caught, they’re going to end up as stockbrokers or dentists. Can you hear the derision of the parents in the tone of the oboes? The tempo picks up here, meaning the kids, symbolized by the smaller crows in the painting, start running around the field faster. The parents are training the kids for a non-conventional lifestyle. The traditional gypsy lifestyle. How are you going to dance to that faster tempo?”
Gwen got out of her chair and went to the front of the stage next to Townshend. To Selgey and Bart she said in a loud voice, to be heard above the music, “How many dancers are you going to have in this scene? The flock of crows in the field symbolizes the entire gypsy encampment, all the adults and kids. There are a lot of different activities going on throughout Act I, but this scene is about the parents teaching the kids about their lifestyle. So how many kids and how many adults do you need right here?”
Selgey leaned against Bart and whispered to him. He nodded, said, “This is a key scene in Act I. The tempo builds from slow to fast, and the orchestration from simple to complex. So we need a lot of dancers here, playing like the whole flock of crows. We need about fifteen dancers portraying the kids, and about ten portraying adults.”
Townshend nodded at them, and Gwen turned around to the woman. She said, “We need twenty-five here, ok?” The woman nodded, thinking, where am I going to get a total of forty world class dancers? Twenty-five for this scene, fifteen for Act I
II, thirty for Act II. Oh, shit. Am I going to screw this whole thing up? Townshend took a remote from his pocket, pointed it at the computer, and pressed some buttons. The music stopped, then started again at the beginning, doing a loop. He adjusted his arm waving back to the slower tempo of the beginning of the scene. Selgey and Bart watched him conducting, then began dancing together up the aisle, tuning their movements to his direction.
Gale leaned over to Roger, said, “How long has this been going on? They seem to be working well together. Is everything ok?’
Roger said, “Since you left. All day, every day. The three of them are indefatigable. Townshend works at the synthe early in the morning, then in the afternoon he plays what he has transcribed to them, and they choreograph to it. The Ps video everything, and then late in the day, we watch it on the computer monitors. We have four of them set up now, all connected wirelessly to the computer. When they see some movement they like, the Ps capture it in a video clip and save it. Same thing for Townshend. When he plays something he really likes, he saves that part to the computer. They’re figuring out this system as they go, but so far, it’s working.”
Helstof said, “What’s Gwen do?”
“She’s just watches everything, all the time. When the three of them get stuck trying something, she’s there to unstick it. So far, so good.”
This went on another hour, when, synchronously, the three artists stopped work. Townshend jumped down off the stage, went out to the dancers, and put his hands on their shoulders. They spoke together in whispers for a few minutes, then walked to the side of the theater and came back up onto the stage. Everyone sat down in a circle of chairs, Gale and Helstof saying hello, the others asking them if they’d had a good trip.
The team was back together, and work on the production had ratcheted up to full steam. Roger, intensely curious about the Paris fashion models, asked the same question the Ps had asked on the drive from the airport. “What did you two bring back from the show that we can use for the costume design?” Knowing Gale as he did, he doubted that much, if any, real work had occurred, but he wanted to set the stage for more questions about the models. Like, “Who are the people that think rail thin women are sexy? Is it the management of the fashion houses that pressures the women to eat one meal a day, or do they do it on their own, motivated by competition? What’s it like to, you know, with one of them?”
Helstof said, “The whole trip was boring, except seeing Anna and Richard. We spent time with them both days, went out to restaurants. They’re doing great. The fashions were weird, and the people viewing them even weirder. We met Stephan and Ingrid, and they are coming here in a couple of months to see our rehearsals. Very nice people, very interested in what we are doing. Nothing very exciting happened.”
The Ps looked at Gale, then at each other. They’d find out what really happened and tell the others.
Gwen said, “We’re doing good on the music and the choreography. Great start. We’re working on a PR plan, and when we get something preliminary together, that we can put out, then we’ll start the search for dancers.” She looked at the woman, who flinched ever so slightly. “Do you two need a day off to get over jet lag?” she said. Helstof and Gale shook their heads, no. “Ok then, everyone here again tomorrow, 8am sharp. Back to work.”
The Lost Ballet Page 38