A Body of Work

by David Hallberg

  The other boys snickered and I looked around, confused. I inched up to one who spoke a little English and asked him what she’d said. “Uh, she said you look like . . . what’s the little animal that is very sharp? Like needles?”

  “A porcupine?”

  “Yes! A porcupine.” He looked at me with contempt.

  That remark, with its gratuitous insult about my hair, and the chuckles that ensued, set the stage for the way I would be treated throughout the year by almost everyone.

  * * *

  ALL YEAR LONG, the other students either ignored me or saw me as a nuisance. As far as most were concerned, it was a privilege for me to be training there. Nothing more. I did consider it a privilege to study at one of the best ballet schools in the world. But I didn’t understand why I was treated that way.

  From the start it was evident that the other boys didn’t want me in their class. I was placed in the graduating class, where the focus for the entire year is a coveted contract with the Paris Opera Ballet. By just being in the studio with them, I was seen as a roadblock to the goal they all desperately wanted to attain. I never had any ambition of joining the company, but even if I had, it was made abundantly clear by the boys that I had no chance. They peered in my direction at times, observed how I danced, but didn’t encourage any sense of camaraderie. I wasn’t like them, they reminded me. I was an outsider. There was never any regard for what I could do. I came to the studio with no ego, no attempt to become the star student. I came to learn. Which was just as well, since there was no way I could prove that I had the same amount of talent as the French students.

  * * *

  THE HARDER I tried to make friends, to please the crowd, the more I was pushed away. I swam upstream the whole year with the current of the detractors against me.

  At first, I had looked around for acceptance. I wanted my classmates to be my friends. I begged for them to like me, and by doing so gave them the power to reject me, which they happily did. It had been so easy to make friends back at ASA, where (just like at Paris Opera) we shared the commonality of dance. But here, in this foreign territory where cultural differences were rife, I couldn’t crack the barrier between me and them. They excluded me from group gatherings and outings. I had no one to connect with, no one to talk to. I felt their disdain on a daily basis. I had gone from the taunting of public school to a paradisiacal student life at ASA, then, in Paris, back to being bullied, but in a completely different way. All I had to rely on was myself and my sheer will to get through the year.

  One student in particular was a ringleader. Sophie was the cool girl in the school, with a mane of blond hair and a nonchalant sense of style only the French can possess. As our level finished partnering class one day, and we were on our way to the cafeteria for the afternoon gateaux, Sophie and I were side by side as we headed down the six-flight spiraling wooden stairway. Suddenly, I slipped down a couple of stairs, grabbing on to the handrail before I fell on my butt. She looked at me and laughed a coy, sarcastic giggle, as if to say, Isn’t it obvious you don’t belong here, you dumb American?

  On another occasion, I walked down the corridor of dorm rooms, heading to my own room at the end of the hallway. I passed two twelve-year-old boys who made fun of my walk. Their imitation suggested a girl walking down a street perched on high heels. My blood boiled as stinging memories of being bullied in seventh grade came rushing back. I made a feeble attempt at putting them in their place, cornering them against the wall. They couldn’t have cared less what this American outsider might do to them. I would be the one blamed for anything that transpired, so I just hurried away, knowing that even a hint of violence would send me right back to Phoenix. There was nothing I could do but ignore them.

  * * *

  EACH DAY AT lunchtime, I would wait in front of the closed doors to the cafeteria with the other kids. Through the small window I would see the cooks making final preparations and the attendant standing by the table closest to the door, sorting the daily mail. I eagerly anticipated the mail delivery. Mom would send packages every other week filled with Jif peanut butter, Kool-Aid packets, Rolling Stone magazine, photos. Each time I opened a package I realized how much I missed home. Mom and Dad, my car, my brother, my freedom, my friends, my peanut butter. Paradoxically, it had taken a leap away from the nest to bring me closer to my family and the beauty of home.

  The cheapest way to send care packages was in the large red-and-gray envelope the U.S. Postal Service provided for a fixed price. I would eagerly peer through the door’s small window to see if one was among the pile of mail. In that lonely environment, when I spotted a red-and-gray envelope, it meant that day would be better than others.

  One day, I made the mistake of opening a coveted package at the lunch table alongside some other students. They peered over at me with a mixture of disgust and mild interest. As discreetly as I could, I looked through the contents and found the yearly brochure of the School of Ballet Arizona. I was on the cover doing a grand jeté, a midair split.

  “Fait voir?” A kid in my class smirked at me. He put his hand out, gesturing for me to pass it to him. I handed it over reluctantly. He took one look at it, squinting as if to examine it more closely.

  “Mais, Daveeeeed,” he said. “Your leg in the back. It is not turned out. Bowlegs, non?”

  Giggles around the table. Another shot to put l’Amérique in his place.

  I said nothing, but after that, I made sure to always open my treasured packages in private, where I could savor these reminders of the comforts I’d known in Arizona and taken for granted.

  * * *

  ONE THING THAT placed me on an emotional par with the other students was the fear we all felt when Madame Bessy was in the studio. She had no problem expressing her opinions of various students in front of the class or, for that matter, the entire school, telling some to gain weight or muscle, wear different support under their uniforms, or put on less makeup. She maintained a tight leash on the teachers and students alike.

  It wasn’t a pleasant environment, but as harsh and terrifying as Bessy could be, she produced the best students, who in turn became the greatest French stars: Sylvie Guillem, Patrick Dupond, Manuel Legris, and countless others.

  As each daily class progressed into jumps, the students moved at a lightning pace, displaying the precision and clarity they had honed for years. Normally when the tempo accelerates the body tenses up. But the French students remained light, at ease whatever the tempo. This was the result of the majority of students beginning their training at the school by the age of eight. I was fascinated by the way their lower bodies blurred with speed while their upper bodies exuded refinement and calm. It was the French style. No huge jumps, no big tricks or multiple pirouettes. The training turned out dancers every bit as elegant, tasteful, and sleek as the quintessential French style and demeanor.

  * * *

  A COUPLE OF times a year, the entire school joined with the Paris Opera’s dancers to take part in the Grand Défilé, a majestic event enacted on the stage of their home theater, the opulent Palais Garnier. The Défilé is the signature march of the Paris Opera Ballet. It consists of a stately progression that proceeds from the back of the stage toward the audience, beginning with the smallest girl in the school and finishing with “les Étoiles” (literally, “the Stars”) of the Paris Opera.

  The Défilé is French pride and style at their most conspicuous and lavish, and is meant to exemplify the grandeur and ongoing relevance of this historic institution that was founded in the seventeenth century by King Louis XIV.

  I had been at the school for eleven months when all the other students began to mysteriously disappear in the afternoons. During the free time before dinner, we usually did our homework or milled about the grounds, but suddenly there was not a soul to be seen. On the third day I searched the building and finally made my way down to the lower-level theater, where the school held rehearsals. The entire student body was on the stage rehearsing the Grand
Défilé, receiving their marching orders from Claude Bessy. They formed the most precise soldierly lines. Of the 180 pupils, I was the only one not invited to walk the stage of the opera house, because I wasn’t French.

  * * *

  WHEN THE DAY came for everyone to head onto buses to the Palais Garnier and perform the Défilé, I was left to entertain myself on the school grounds. Once again, as I had been so often before, I was the outsider. The one who wasn’t like the rest because I was simply myself.

  The condescending form of bullying I encountered in Paris was different from the bullying I’d experienced before. I wasn’t being taunted. I was being discounted, which felt just as painful. I swallowed whatever pride I still had and got on with it. And yet, I would have recurring nightmares, seeing myself in them as smaller than the other students, belittled by the group, unable to connect with them in any way. It was a traumatic experience that haunted my dreams for years to come.

  * * *

  BY THE TIME the year came to a close, I was fluent in French and able to throw barbs back in the other students’ direction. They still laughed at me as they had all year, but by then, I didn’t care. I had changed. The absence of friends had forced me to look inward instead of outward, to search for fulfillment and happiness within myself. I would sit in my dorm room alone for hours, reading and writing. I fell in love with opera and would see at least one, sometimes two operas or ballets at Palais Garnier or the Bastille Opera House each weekend. I immersed myself in my budding interests, educating myself about art. It was in Paris that I saw works by renowned modern choreographers for the first time, some of which I would dance in the future. As I roamed through the streets, visited museums, viewed performances, or practiced in the studios alone, I taught myself that solitude is a form of contentment. The eagerness to be accepted had faded. I didn’t even feel the need to try. I stopped attempting to give to people who had no interest in me. I learned how to give to myself. My sense of worth came not from the acceptance of others, but from a self-acceptance I had not experienced before. It was liberating. I was who I wanted to be. I had come as an outsider and I left as an outsider. But I was no longer the smiley golden retriever, begging to be liked. I had gone to Paris to learn what made the French such great dancers. And I had. My goals were clearer to me than ever before: Work hard. Pave my own path. From discomfort comes strength; from hardship comes perspective. I left France thankful that I had stuck out that solitary year, but even more thankful that it was over.

  Someday, I thought, I will return there, dance there, and prove my worth to them all.

  CHAPTER 10

  I was determined to return to ABT, this time as a member of the Corps de Ballet. During my difficult year in Paris I had been comforted by the fact that Kevin McKenzie had said he would welcome me back and give me a contract. Naturally, given the power of my dearly held dreams and growing ambition, I assumed he meant a contract to be a Corps de Ballet dancer, which would mean I’d be joining the company.

  But when the school year in Paris was coming to a close, I received a letter saying they had saved a place for me in the Studio Company, which functions as a training ground for young dancers and, for those who do well, as a conduit to becoming a member of ABT’s corps. Its alumni include some of the finest dancers at ABT and other world-class companies.

  Unquestionably, it was an honor to be one of the twelve dancers chosen for the Studio Company, to be given the opportunity to develop under the watch of Kevin and the Studio Company’s Director, John Meehan. But it was not the honor I had in mind.

  The Studio Company? I thought, brimming with premature, youthful pride. My heart was set on joining the main company and nothing else. I wrote back, friendly but naively self-assured, saying that I greatly appreciated being chosen for the Studio Company but that I was also looking at other options with different companies. The truth was, I had no intention of dancing anywhere else, but the Studio Company invitation threw me off. I was oblivious to how much time and effort it would take to become worthy of a position in the company. I naively compared myself to dancers like Paloma Herrera, who became a Principal when she was nineteen years old, and Angel Corella, who was promoted to Principal at the age of twenty-one. Both shot up the ranks, creating a sensation when they first danced Don Quixote together. They were the “new, young things.” I wanted to be just that as well.

  But I agreed to join the Studio Company because the truth was, as Kevin clearly saw, I hadn’t developed enough to be a member of the Corps de Ballet and was nowhere near the level I would require to become the Principal Dancer of my dreams. I had to face the fact that there were so many things I lacked. Basic skills like stamina and finesse. I needed to build muscle and have the time to fill out physically. Upper-body strength was crucial for me so that I could execute the required partnering. I needed to learn how to access emotion from my natural instincts; I needed to be onstage and gain experience in stagecraft. The list was long and the Studio Company internship could help me with all these things, readying me to make the crucial move from being a student to becoming a professional. It certainly wouldn’t happen overnight. It would take a full year of transition at the very least.

  * * *

  THE DIRECTOR OF the Studio Company, Australian-born John Meehan, had been a refined, dashing Principal dancer with ABT, best known for his partnering of Margot Fonteyn in the ballet The Merry Widow. He had a paternal, nurturing presence and an intuitive sense when it came to helping young dancers. He could sense my hunger to push myself and my impatience to progress.

  “What you want will happen in time,” he told me, “but for now you should focus less on getting into the company and rising through the ranks and more on the work at hand.”

  I couldn’t see the work at hand. My only focus was at the top of the mountain I so desperately wanted to climb. I didn’t ask myself the questions I needed to answer: What choices as a dancer do I want to make? What kind of artist do I want to become? What work is most important to me? What are my strengths? More important, what are my weaknesses? My relentless drive wasn’t an asset in this situation. Sure, I was working as hard as I could, but how I was working was much more important. My ambition was a distraction that kept me from progressing as effectively as I otherwise could.

  * * *

  OVER THE COURSE of my year in Studio Company, John and the teaching staff somehow managed to get through to this young, blindly hungry rookie whose unshakable goal was to become a Principal Dancer in American Ballet Theatre. Thanks to their expertise, I became stronger and more polished. They took the time that was needed to allow me to develop properly. They saw no point in rushing into anything, but instead continued to lay the foundation down. I needed that year of transition. I needed John harping on me about my impatience, insisting I focus on the small but crucial details. But often, my naiveté and rigid ambition were stronger than my patience.

  Toward the end of our year with Studio Company, each of us would meet individually with Kevin and John and be told, after all that work, whether he or she would be taken into the company as an apprentice. There were only a few contracts, and twelve eager dancers dreaming of transitioning to ABT, so this event was as anticipated as it was dreaded. Some of the dancers walked out of Kevin’s office looking elated. But others exited in tears. A talented boy from Japan who had a weightless, soaring jump didn’t land a contract. We all tried comforting him. But nothing we said could alter the reality that he would have to dance somewhere else. Kevin and John were fair and caring directors, and I imagined these all-or-nothing meetings must be one of the hardest aspects of their jobs.

  When it was my turn to walk into the office, I took a seat beside John, facing Kevin, who was sitting behind his desk. “I’d like to offer you an apprenticeship with the company,” he said matter-of-factly, “for the Met season.”

  The Met season is the highlight of the year for ABT’s dancers, during which, for eight weeks, they perform the world’s greatest ballets at
the Metropolitan Opera House. This was the offer I had always dreamed of hearing. I nearly laughed out loud from a mixture of relief and euphoria. I was mindful that Kevin wasn’t making a huge fuss over me or my talent. He was direct and to the point. No need for unnecessary praise or promises about my future with the company. He simply offered me the next step. It was not a full corps contract but an apprenticeship. A trial to see how I acclimated, how I adapted, how I played with others. But I was in. And I felt ready, after a year’s worth of guidance from John.

  As it turned out, after building strength, polishing technique, and learning choreography, the “playing with others” aspect of the equation would pose the most significant challenge.

  * * *

  I WAS FINALLY promoted to the Corps de Ballet one year later, bringing me a bit closer to my all-consuming goal of becoming a Principal Dancer. My mind-set was all about the work. I had a task to accomplish. Laughing and chatting with other dancers in rehearsals or when passing by in the hallways wasn’t going to get me there. I didn’t argue or fight with my colleagues; I just wouldn’t engage. My head was in the sand.

  But ABT is a big family; the dancers joked with each other in the studio and dressing rooms. When the joke was at my expense, I didn’t bother to take it in. It was all work and no play for me.

  Every year, at the end of the Met season, an annual roast is held during which the peccadillos of certain dancers and staff are ridiculed in front of the entire company and administration. No one is exempt, not even Kevin. Everyone is forewarned that it’s all meant to be fun and is just a way of letting off steam at the end of a grueling season. Awards are passed out, including one for “Quote of the Year.” To my mortification, the winner of the Quote of the Year was a certain dancer who’d said to another, “Do you ever get the feeling we are becoming less and less worthy of David Hallberg’s time?”

  I was blindsided. It never occurred to me that my exclusionary behavior was offensive or even noticed. Now I recognized that my drive had gotten in the way of basic human interaction. That was a personal turning point. Work hard, but also relax; say hello to others in the hallway; and notice your fellow dancers.