A Body of Work

by David Hallberg

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  For Mom and Dad, who never doubted and always nurtured my passion.

  For Mr. Han, whose tireless commitment shaped that passion.

  INTRODUCTION

  I remember what it feels like to dance. To move so freely that my body releases and creative intuition takes over, leading me beyond the worry of executing technique to a realm where nothing exists but the movement, the music, the emotions. I miss those memories of freedom, but they are embedded in my mind and body. I can replay them whenever I wish.

  I think of the ballroom scene in Romeo and Juliet. She is seated, plucking a lute, while I dance for her, spinning, boldly flirting, an unapologetic intruder at the ball, unable to contain my magnetic attraction to this enchanting stranger as destiny binds us. Finally, the other guests leave the ballroom and we are alone, face-to-face, longing, gazing. We dance, playfully and innocently for the moment, but with an undercurrent that will soon reveal itself as tempestuous passion.

  When the scene is over, I dash offstage. I pant in the wings, out of breath. I slip out of the heavy, sweat-drenched velvet tunic I’ve danced in for the past forty-five minutes and wipe my face on a towel to remove what is left of my stage makeup. I put on a flowing white shirt, which clings to my still-damp body. My dresser drapes a floor-length brown cape over my shoulders. My lungs burn; I desperately fill them with air in preparation for bounding onstage again.

  All around me, the anticipation is palpable. I feel it backstage: from the dancers watching in the wings, from the stage manager cueing the lights in a hushed tone, from the musicians in the orchestra pit caressing their instruments as they play the hypnotic Prokofiev score.

  The scene changes. Juliet’s balcony appears in the distance. The audience waits in the piercing silence. The stillness, the soundless stage shrouded in dim lights, creates an atmosphere that is alien, unique, almost unearthly.

  I stand there, awaiting my entrance, eyes closed, seeking to break free from nerves.

  When the first notes of the pas de deux begin, I open my eyes. My Juliet is there, on her balcony, bathed in moonlight. The sight of her gives me strength, arouses me emotionally and physically. Erases all doubt and fear. I move toward her, beckon to her, enfold her, as we speak with our bodies in ways far more profound than mere words. It is love, I am convinced. Both real and staged. The lines are blurred. There are no boundaries. We dance as one person, one thought, nothing held back. No gesture ruled out, as long as it is truthful.

  Moments like this are worth it all. The doubt. The sacrifice. The injuries. The scrutiny. The burden of expectation. Those moments of living so intensely and fully on the stage are why I danced. Now, each day, I face one towering question: will I ever experience that euphoria again?

  * * *

  AT THIS POINT, the lengthy time I’ve been injured seems like a purgatorial dream from which I cannot wake. My life as a dancer seems distant, like another lifetime. Moscow. The stages I danced on. The partners I loved. The prime shape I was in. Circling the world once, twice, three times each year. I can’t let myself remember too much; when I do, it invokes despair and a knife-sharp pain of loss. It forces me to face what still seems unthinkable: that I no longer have the ability to be the dancer I was, the person I am meant to be. To answer my calling.

  Dancers say, “Our bodies are our instruments.” We know we must take care of them. Not abuse them and wrongly assume they will always be at the ready.

  But when you are healthy, you have no way to imagine how it would feel to be stripped of your art, your means of expression.

  I’m locked in a desperate fight. A fight with my body, which does not work for me anymore. And the longer I go on fighting, setback after setback, month after month, I lose, in a very slow but inexorable way, the ability to envision myself back on the stage.

  It’s been more than two years since my life became divided into two distinct parts: before the injury, and after. Before, I was dancing at full force, in one grand opera house after another. But I began to sense something was wrong. It was a gradual, encroaching sensation, barely noticed at first. In any case, I had a lot at stake and couldn’t be bothered. I danced in pain because I had to.

  MRIs, X-rays, CAT scans later it was determined that my injured foot needed to be surgically reconstructed. Wear and tear. A bone embedded in my deltoid, slowly fraying the ligament. No massage therapy, no acupuncture, no other known treatment could help. An operation would be a radical move; making the decision to do it left me anxious. But soon after that, I felt calm. Or was it simply resignation? Or immobilizing fear? In any case, I was desperate to be well, to fix the problem that had plagued me. Nearly two years after that initial operation, and the rehabilitation process that followed, I still had not returned to dancing and had a new and different cause for anxiety: the fact that everyone knew how wrong everything had gone.

  And so there was a second operation. The morning it took place, I walked into the hospital as a normal person, relatively free of pain (it was dancing that induced the unbearable pain). I left there an invalid, hardly able to put one crutch in front of the other. I was officially “out.” That’s the word the dance world uses to signify that someone is injured. “Is he out?” they ask. So there I was: “out” and aching and trying my best to crutch ahead. Anyone who has been on crutches knows the feeling. That feeling of being totally helpless. You can’t carry a glass of water to the couch. Middle-of-the-night negotiations to the toilet in the dark. Wanting to get out of the apartment; unable to go anywhere. A constant negotiation: the reactions of others. The gawking eyes when you are finally able to crutch down the sidewalk. Especially if they know you from the stage. As a dancer.

  Rest is the physical and mental devil. But rest is the healer. With idle time come the waves. Waves of elation and positivity followed by waves of depression. A wave of people come to wish you well. Keep you going. Bring you soup or flowers. Have a chat. The feeling is light; you are thankful to have the support. They try to make you believe you’ll get better.

  But the visits tail off and time alone becomes more and more frequent. I have always thought that if I had a stretch of free time I would use it to the fullest advantage. Learn the piano. Improve my Russian. Read War and Peace. God knows I have enough books. Their collection has been an obsessive pastime. But as the days slip by, I remain unproductive, shadowed at first by the stupor of oxycodone, then by the paralyzing reality of the long road ahead, a road that seems to lead far away from the stage.

  It’s the uncertainty that has killed me the most. The inability to say for sure whether I will ever be back on the stage, where everyone expects me to be. As the months crawl on, my ambition to get there never wavers, but the dream of being there seems exactly that: a dream. I wear emotional armor, necessary protection against the thoughtless things otherwise kind people say. Even my mother, who is only well-meaning, asks, “Well, honey, what if this doesn’t work? What will you do then?”

  As if the thought hadn’t crossed my mind that maybe I am on the road to not recovering.

  I go to see a dance performance in New York City. Someone spots me, yelling across the aisle at intermission, “David, is there any hope?” I look at him, stunned, and say, “Of course there is hope. There is always hope.” What else could
I say?

  In fact, there are many hopes. The hope that I will be able to jump again. The hope that the simplest steps won’t cause me pain. The hope that I can dance a show I committed to a year and a half before. The hope that I will not disappoint the ballet companies that rely on me.

  Thick in my disquieting haze, before I realize it, three more months have passed. Then another month. And another. The goal remains as distant as ever. Even the smallest goal becomes a long shot. A proper tendu. One pirouette. A bend or stretch of the leg that does not cause pain.

  And so I am faced with the truth: the power of my will is all I have at this desolate time.

  CHAPTER 1

  Morning class was an essential daily task. Like making that pot of coffee first thing in the morning. Out of bed, half-asleep, and straight to the coffee machine. Filter. Water. Coffee grinds. On switch. Every day. Day in. Day out.

  By nine thirty a.m. I would shuffle into a worn studio that was always empty and silent. The only light came from the morning sun edging in through huge windows. Outside, one floor down, the streets and noise of New York City.

  At first, my body resisted the task at hand, especially when I was drained from the previous night’s performance. But the work continued the following morning, as if no exertion occurred, as if I hadn’t given to the performance every ounce of my emotional and physical energy.

  I started with what I often dreaded: that first small physical movement that would call me to attention, easing me out of my slumber into another day. I would always begin with the same exercises. Done at my own pace and with the understanding that if I skipped them, I would not be set up well for later, when I would need to push my body in order to transform ballet’s absurdly difficult steps into seemingly effortless movement onstage. I began with small, basic movements, continuing on to those that are more advanced and complicated, each of them essential to achieving huge jumps and whiplash turns. People often wonder why we need daily ballet class when we are already professionals. But it is when we are performing virtuoso moves that we need those classes more than ever.

  The deeper I went into the movements, the further I escaped into thought. The exercises slowly became a meditative experience. My mind would wander to last night’s show, my coming travels, the day’s rehearsals, a project I wanted to develop, a choreographer I needed to contact, emails I needed to write.

  As the start of class drew near, other dancers trickled into the studio, shuffling in just as tired as I was. Everyone spoke in hushed tones. The lights would be turned on by someone who needed to feel they were officially starting class. As more dancers arrived, the volume and energy picked up. Some chatted about the show the night before, about what they did after it. Others discussed the new ballet they were learning, talking as they stretched or strengthened. A few, with headphones on, weren’t yet awake enough to discuss anything. We all wore different “uniforms.” Mine was Nike sweatpants, tights underneath, a cotton T-shirt, an insulated track jacket. Traditionalists wore nothing but tights and a T-shirt or leotard, as we all did when we were training and weren’t allowed to wear “junk”: the sweatpants, leg warmers, and baggy clothes that obscure the body and keep it from being exposed to the teacher’s critical eye. But I like junk. It’s comfortable.

  Fads in dance attire come and go. In the 1970s and ’80s the more tattered and ripped your practice clothes were, the better. Maybe the wear suggested the dancer was working harder than others or was too dedicated and rehearsing too hard to take the time to buy new clothes. That has changed. I’ve gotten flak from my colleagues for having holes in my dancewear. When I was promoted to Principal Dancer a friend said, “Now you’re making Principal salary, so you can afford some better-looking clothes.”

  But class is not a catwalk. The important thing is not how good the clothes look on the dancer; all that matters is what’s being danced in those clothes.

  Moments before class was to begin, the teacher and accompanist would enter the studio, the former standing in the front of the room, the latter taking a seat at the grand piano.

  “Are we ready?” the teacher would ask, “or do we need five more minutes?”

  Always five more minutes. Compulsory for dancers to do their last stretches, yoga positions, exercises with weights. Or merely to delay the recognition that the day’s responsibilities were calling.

  Grace period over, the talking ceased. We assumed our usual places at the barre. These barre spots are not free for the taking. There is, in every ballet company in the world, a pecking order. All the spots—by the piano, by the mirror, at the end, in the center—are accounted for. Some are claimed by Principal Dancers, others by members of the Corps de Ballet who have stood in the same spot for years. When outsiders come to take class with a company, they know not to claim a place at the barre until class starts. And God help the new kid who takes a much-coveted spot.

  With one hand placed on the barre, we began with pliés. The most basic of movements. A dancer’s training commences at a very young age and starts with pliés at the barre. Whether you’ve danced once or a thousand times, it is the plié that begins your day.

  A plié is a bending of the knees with the feet positioned in specific ways. This fundamental movement is the precursor to more advanced steps. Every turn and every jump—however high or low—starts with a plié. It’s the essential taking-off point to things far more difficult and impressive. For so many years I did pliés every day with a mindless ease and agility gained through repetition. I had done this series of exercises daily for twenty years. That is what we do: repeat the same movements every day throughout the entirety of our careers. It never ceases. If we think we don’t need class and the daily focus it provides, our work slips and that slippage is eventually visible on the stage. The audience can tell; they may not know in technical terms what isn’t working, but they know that something doesn’t look right. “I can’t put my finger on it,” they’ll say, “but it didn’t quite do it for me.”

  So class is critical; if the basics go, the rest goes with them.

  As we moved along to more strenuous movement, still holding on to the barre, my mind would drift again. At times I would become bored. Distracted. Want another coffee. I would look out the window, wishing I could take advantage of the beautiful day. Especially on Saturdays, when it seemed that everyone in New York City was just a few blocks away, leisurely strolling through the stalls at the Union Square Greenmarket. But class pushed on. That was a saving grace. You had to dive in and take motivation from other dancers in the room as you executed the familiar steps in their never-changing order: plié, tendu, dégagé, rond de jambe, fondu, frappé, développé, grand battements.

  * * *

  CLASS ALWAYS HAS the same structure: barre followed by center work, during which we execute combinations of steps, some in one place and some moving across the entire studio. As they increase in complexity, class becomes more like a performance, with dancers caught between two desires: to show off to colleagues and to dance for the sheer bliss of moving. As the dancers grow ever warmer, layers of clothing come off, one by one. The daily strip-down to a leotard and tights.

  After a while, the windows would steam up from the body heat of eighty exhausted, sweating dancers. Inevitably someone would write on them in the same spirit that you’d write Wash me! on the dirty windshield of a car. Here, the words were always some variation of I LOVE BALLET!, in all their intended sarcasm.

  Some dancers would trail out of the studio and leave class early, saving their energy and bodies for the long rehearsal day ahead. But those who stayed would pull off stunning jumps and turns, soaring higher and higher across the studio, unleashing a whirlwind of grand leaps and fleet turns in the air. The pianist’s music would propel us as we sought to one-up each other with every successive combination.

  And the music . . . ah, the music! An essential aspect of dance. The skill and enthusiasm of the pianists and what they choose to play is paramount. Their music could tak
e me beyond where I stood. It could take me into the melody, into the small accents of the downbeat, in front of the phrase, or behind it just a bit. Or, if they were uninspired, their lack of enthusiasm could make the steps seem more grueling, deepen my fatigue, make me momentarily hate my profession. But music, as a whole, allowed me to envisage new ways of inventing my work. Lengthen where I once tightened, ascend more slowly where I once rushed. When I heard something I loved, the steps were forgotten and I just danced. Around me, others would be dancing too, all of us engulfed in the beauty that comes from the fusion of music and movement.

  That euphoria occurred for me on an early morning in a nondescript daily class years ago. The first chords of Schubert’s Moment Musicaux No. 2 took me somewhere beyond my place at the barre. I was simply doing pliés, but as I heard the first chords of the No. 2 opening, I became lost in its simplistic perfection. Suddenly, I felt I embodied the music. Bending and stretching my legs, coordinating my arm movements, this everyday exercise became something ethereal, heightened, spiritual. There was godliness in the movement. Meaning and purpose. It wasn’t the pliés that changed me. It was the beauty of Schubert that possessed me. This is what music can do to a dancer, if one is open to listening.

  In such moments of transcendence I was doing what I aspired to do, and loving it in the purest and most primitive way.

  * * *

  MY MEMORIES OF morning class bring to mind the eternal interplay among dancers that veers between intense competition and mutual support. The extreme physicality and grueling nature of ballet create unusually close attachments. We feel part of a special tribe, drawn together by shared dedication, experience, and the understanding that dance possessed us all at a very young age. Because ballet demands and consumes so much energy and time, for many dancers the world begins and ends with dance. They proceed from class to rehearsal to performance and back to class again, year after year, barely noticing life passing beyond the studio and stage. To fulfill what’s asked of us, in a physical sense, we feel that we don’t need to interact with the “real world.” Many of us never do, despite the fact that a knowledge of art and music, literature and poetry provides powerful enhancements to anyone’s dancing.