A Body of Work

by David Hallberg

  * * *

  THE NIGHT AFTER my second surgery, I lay in the hospital bed, my foot again wrapped in bandages, just like a year before. My disbelief and despair were temporarily replaced with optimism and relief. I was taking care of the problem at last. Once I get out of the hospital it will be smooth sailing, I told myself. I’ll pick up where I left off and get quickly back to rehearsals and full class, making up for the time lost.

  The only perk of possibly having RSD (my nerve pain) was receiving ketamine to mask any symptoms. Naively, I asked what the drug was.

  “Don’t you know about Special K?” the nurse asked me.

  “Of course I know what it is. I was a raver in the late nineties.”

  Though my teenage raving days were spent sober, everyone on a drug around me was taking either Ecstasy or Special K.

  “Well, now you can do it legally,” the nurse said as he inserted the needle into my arm.

  As the ketamine filtered through my body, my hospital bed became part of a lively circus act.

  The nurses came in to ask how I was doing.

  “Great!” I told them.

  The sliver of the East River outside my window became a sea of glitter dancing before my eyes. The Kardashians, on TV, became my instant best friends. They were a family I’d loathed for years, refusing to watch them until now, when I was fully drugged and loving them.

  At two a.m. the night nurse interrupted my mental plans to conquer the world, asking yet again how I was feeling. I looked at him, bug-eyed, beaming. “I still feel great!”

  “Maybe we should give you something to help you sleep. I think you’ll feel better in the morning if you have some rest.”

  I didn’t want to end the trip with my newfound best friends, but I knew morning was coming soon enough.

  * * *

  BLEARY-EYED, THE NEXT day I woke up to the reality of post-op handicap. I looked down at my swollen foot, hidden beneath bandages. I was eager to leave the hospital, fast-forward through the weeks of rest, and get back into the studio. I’d already wasted enough time. My new doctor beamed with optimism, telling me that he wanted me walking on it in a week, giving it just enough time for the incisions to heal and the sutures to be taken out. The “mess” inside the foot had solidified his hunch that surgery was the only way. There was scar tissue all around the ankle, blocking almost every part of the natural glide of the talus when I would try to plié. He’d methodically gotten every bit of unwanted tissue out of my foot. It had been a success.

  As I rode to my building in a taxi, my armor came up once again. I knew I would have to confront the same comments as the first time. Cue inquisitive doorman. Cue neighbor’s shock and abrasive questions. Cue looks of confusion from everyone with whom I came into contact. After this second surgery, I knew the question they were secretly thinking but didn’t dare verbalize.

  Why don’t you stop?

  I was coming to that question in my own time. But not just yet.

  CHAPTER 46

  Once I was given the go-ahead to walk and then to start pushing the foot through dancing and exercise, I returned to the studio. I worked alone. My plié was certainly better. I had a range of motion that I hadn’t had before. But with this new range of motion came fragility. My foot was weak. I was able to move it in directions I hadn’t in over a year, but it didn’t have the muscle to support that movement. It felt like a flat tire.

  I just wanted to dance.

  I’d try to do a little more each day. With frenzied determination I attempted steps that my body wasn’t strong enough to do. I was delirious with the desire to get back as quickly as I could. I thought, Too much time has already been lost.

  I had no methodical approach. I had physical therapists, massage therapists, acupuncturists, Gyrotonic teachers, and personal weight trainers, but no one to help me in the studio. I would take any class that was available, and what was available was usually way too advanced for me at that moment. I needed slow, studious work and repetition, not what was given to healthy dancers in a daily company class.

  In Craig’s morning class for ABT, I tried to execute a speedy diagonal of piqué turns, pushing off the left foot onto a straight-legged right foot. I tried to keep up with the dancers circling around me, but my foot was too weak to handle the fast tempo and such quick transitions. When I pushed off the left foot and felt it, I knew I had done something. There was a sharp twinge right by my ankle. I stopped and went to the side of the studio while the other dancers continued on. I had gone too far without realizing it until it was too late.

  That was the start of a series of harsh realizations that the environment in New York, rehab in New York, and my life in New York wasn’t working for me anymore. I was pushing myself too far, too fast, too frantically. From that moment in class, with the feeble ankle joint pinched together, unsupported because of a lack of strength around it, a constant pain was induced. Each time I tried to plié there was a sharp pinch, like a dull needle being stuck into my bone.

  * * *

  AFTER THE FORCED positivity following the second operation came an all-too-familiar despair. By the middle of fall I had lost control yet again. I had no end goal to look to anymore. I knew I was completely floundering. I couldn’t go anywhere without people asking me what was taking so long.

  Mornings were the worst time. Sleep seemed a preferable state to waking life. As I came to, I would feel a sense of utter disbelief. I would get out of bed, an emotional weight already on my shoulders, and shuffle through the day in a thick haze. A dull numbness. I sank deeper and deeper, caring just enough to complete the day’s routine of physical therapy and class. But not enough to be proactive about bettering my mental state.

  I would show up at Michelle’s office for my physical therapy appointment, sit on the treating table, and cry. I couldn’t hold it back. As hard as I tried to get on with business and take care of the problems, the real problem was that everything that mattered to me was spinning wildly out of control. I was more and more paralyzed. But Michelle always pushed me forward, even when I didn’t have the energy to do so myself.

  * * *

  I STOPPED CONNECTING with friends. Never a smoker before, I took up the habit, and passed time with my legs up on the windowsill, blowing the smoke out my window, staring down at Twenty-Second Street below me. I enjoyed this. It felt like rebellion.

  From my window I could see people passing by with purpose. Rushing with the workday energy that only New York City can conjure. I photographed the people I saw, interacting with life not as a participant but as an observer. I watched the world go by without me. I was avoiding the problem. I refused to admit that the routine I was in wasn’t bringing me toward recovery. The physical therapy. The class. The environment. My gut told me otherwise. It told me that nothing I did was working. But I was in denial. Ultimately this taught me to always listen to my gut.

  CHAPTER 47

  Wherever I went in New York, people would ask how the recovery was going, expressing concern that it was taking far too long. Diana Vishneva came to me, tears in her eyes, worried as to why I wasn’t getting back onstage, eager to do anything to help, suggesting a specialist in Germany. Alexei Ratmansky, propelled by the same concern, cut right to the chase: “Are you jumping yet?”

  We both knew that jumping is the greatest stress on the body and the true test of progress.

  “I’m not even close,” I answered.

  Alexei’s wife came to me one afternoon, gazing at me, saying, “You look different. I cannot tell why, but you do.”

  I knew why, deep down.

  I was beginning to let go. Give up. Remove myself from the world that defined me.

  I had never been fearful that I would have to stop dancing at some point. That was an inevitability and a fact from which I had never shied away, one that made my dancing life all the more present and precious. Now I could see the increasingly real possibility that this debacle could be the end of my career. Suddenly, a possibility I had ne
ver considered loomed before me: that all the years of work and dedication would come to an end not by my considered choice but due to a series of events that were out of my control. I’d be finished by a “career-ending injury.” These, of course, are not unheard of. But dancers and athletes tend to assume they will happen only to other people.

  * * *

  I FELT I had two options. I could retire. I had been approached about opportunities to transition smoothly into a nondancing role that would assure that my commitment to the art and what I had learned as a dancer would not be wasted. I had a fervent desire to give back to my art form everything that I possibly could. I had experienced inklings of what this felt like: mentoring a young dancer through a scholarship program I’d established at ABT; discovering new creators through a choreographic program, also at ABT; envisioning what style of repertoire to commission and how best to nurture dancers within a ballet company; imagining how best to nurture yet challenge audiences. These were far more appealing options than being just another desperate artist clinging on to the scenery for one more show. I felt like I had more to say, not just as a dancer but as a champion for the art form.

  My dancing career had been more than I ever could have dreamed. I remembered walking home after my shows with Paris Opera, thinking, Yes, I could retire at this moment. So why not let it all go and rest assured that I had done everything I could until the very last exit off the stage?

  My other option involved a fight. I could battle this plagued injury head-on, but somewhere else completely. I could place myself in the hands of what I had heard was one of the best rehabilitation teams in the world of dance. Dr. Sue Mayes, a physiotherapist at The Australian Ballet, presided over a department of specialists she had developed over the span of a twenty-year tenure with that company. She was Sylvie Guillem’s personal physiotherapist, and I had met her in Japan, when Sylvie and I were dancing in the same gala. I had witnessed firsthand the work that Sue and her team did when I guested in Melbourne. I had always felt welcome down under. But it would be a gamble. I would have to leave everything behind and put my entire career in the hands of people who were strangers to me.

  I contacted Brooke Lockett, a dancer with The Australian Ballet and a dear friend who was just coming back from a knee injury. When we connected via Skype, she was shocked by my appearance. “You look lifeless,” she told me. I couldn’t help but cry. She was kind and encouraging and explained the details of her rehab schedule there; how they built her up, what they focused on, whom she had helping her. It sounded idyllic and safe. She was completely in their hands. We made a deal that she would speak to Sue privately the next day and ask if she would be willing to take me on.

  Brooke relayed to me Sue’s reply: “How soon can he get here?”

  * * *

  I WENT TO Kevin. Always one to offer grounding advice, he had seen me grow into the artist I had sought to become. I was ready to present to him what seemed the only two options: I could seek a different perspective from the rehabilitation team at The Australian Ballet widely believed to have the finest program for dancer injury prevention and rehabilitation. Or I could retire.

  I sat across from his sturdy oak desk on the third floor of ABT, the large windows behind him revealing the familiar view of New York. I held back my emotions. Although he knew I had cracked long before, I wouldn’t let him see me cry. So, with a mixture of begging and asking, I posed the two options.

  “What do you think I should do?”

  I held my breath as I waited for his answer.

  “Leaving a career behind in the state you’re in isn’t a solid decision. You haven’t tried everything. Go to Australia and see what they can do for you.”

  He then finished with something direct and frank that I have carried with me ever since.

  “You are at your lowest right now. You cannot make a decision as momentous as that of retiring when you are in this state.”

  * * *

  THAT WAS IT. The moment when I decided to leave New York and see what could be done for me elsewhere. I was certainly not a stranger to this sort of move. Paris. Russia. Now Australia. I seemed to thrive in the unknown, in distant places. My gut told me the same thing Kevin had. Go and seek.

  I booked a one-way ticket to Melbourne. I now had a plan. I could look forward to something. Immediately I experienced everything around me through different eyes. ABT. The streets of New York. The bustle. The energy. My diner. My routine. The stoop I would often smoke my rebellious cigarettes on. I was somewhat nostalgic, but I couldn’t wait to get on that flight away from all of it. It was time to move on and give this one last effort. I was vanishing, in order to come back with an answer to the oft-repeated and terrifying question: Will I ever dance again?

  * * *

  WITH MY BAGS fully packed, the last thing I did in New York, hours before my flight, was to go to a no-frills barbershop on a side street in my neighborhood. A Dominican man sat me in his chair, placed the robe over my shoulders, and asked what I would like.

  “Shave it all off,” I said.

  He looked at me, puzzled, apprehensive to take the razor to my long blond hair, essential for my princely roles.

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “Yes, a number two.”

  “Let’s try a number four first.”

  He shaved, one lock after another. I stared at my reflection, watching every chunk fall to the floor. It was incredibly cathartic. When he completed the number 4, he asked my opinion.

  “More,” I said.

  He meticulously shaved almost to my scalp.

  I walked out free. Free of everything behind me.

  * * *

  I TOOK A photograph of myself on my normal smoking stoop, with head freshly shaved, cigarette in hand. I posted it on social media with the words “Goodbye, New York. There’s some stuff I have to take care of once and for all.”

  CHAPTER 48

  In November 2015, I began my first meeting with the rehabilitation team, lying on the floor of their treatment room, head freshly shaved and foot a swollen red ball. The three people who met me that day would watch my every move and dictate what I could and could not do for the duration of my stay. Sue Mayes. Paula Baird Colt. Megan Connelly. Respectively, Principal Physiotherapist, Body Conditioning Specialist, Ballet Rehabilitation Specialist. They would keep me from doing too much. Or push me if I wanted to do too little.

  When I had worked briefly with Sue some years before, in Japan, I’d found her to be gently confident, strong, and warm. She was of medium height with a welcoming smile and a striking bob of blond hair held back by a trademark headband. In Melbourne, Sue was in her element, treating dancers of the company and managing its entire program of rehabilitation. But I hadn’t gone there solely for Sue. I came because of what she had created. The team. The success rate. The individual plan for each and every dancer.

  Sue assessed the foot for a long while. I had previously sent her my most recent MRI results, X-rays, and doctors’ notes, so she had an idea of the course of unfortunate events. She had me plié (pain), tendu (blocked), and relevé (stiff). She looked at my reddened, bulbous foot and asked if it consistently looked like this or if it was just swelling from the flight.

  “It always looks like this,” I said.

  * * *

  AN HOUR LATER, Sue made the plan of attack. It was clear that my symptoms were not new to the team. I hadn’t come to them with an ailment they hadn’t dealt with previously.

  “We’re going to start you over. We will start cleanly with incremental progress from the beginning.

  “You won’t be doing ballet for a little while. We want to begin by building the strength you have lost. This is paramount. You’ll build up the chain to strengthen the support you will need for the foot. We won’t actually be concentrating on the foot for a while, just the strengthening you need above the foot. That strength is crucial in the entire chain leading down to the ankle: hip flexors, quadratus femoris, gluteus maximus/minim
us/medius, quadriceps, hamstrings, adductors, gastroc, soleus. You’ll be working with Paula for five hours a day. There will be no work with Megan, no ballet, at the beginning. But likely, after we assess the progress in six weeks, we will see if you are ready for some floor exercises with her. For now it is all about strength. I am not concerned with the foot and the pain it produces when you dance. This will be looked at later.”

  Sue would not give a time frame for when I would start ballet class, or when I would finish my rehab here and head back to New York or Moscow. No matter; I was there for as long as it took. It was a one-way ticket, after all. Sue conditioned me from that first meeting to know that we were, from this moment on, working from a clean slate. She didn’t concern herself with what happened before, what had gone terribly wrong or who had been involved. It just didn’t exist for her. What existed was what was in front of her. Me, head shaved, foot swollen.

  I said I would do everything they told me. No more, no less. I cautioned them that they would have to keep me busy. I couldn’t have idle moments and time to think. Idleness was toxic for me. I would descend into my thoughts, ruminating on how and where it went so wrong. It was a habit I’d developed in New York, back in the days when I was smoking and gazing out my apartment window.

  “You’ll be busy,” Sue said. “Don’t worry.”

  Most important, I was comforted by the three of them, all equally attentive and focused on my problems, I felt assured that I was in the right place. Far away from the people asking when or “if there is any hope.” Everything in New York became a far-off memory. I had flown to the bottom of the world. Now I was in it for the long haul. This was the last-ditch effort.

  * * *

  PAULA AND I started work the next day. I was rested from a good night’s sleep after my twenty-one-hour flight. We began with her hovering over me while I executed the most minute exercises. Paula had been a dancer in the company for more than a decade, transitioning to a teaching role afterward. She translated Sue’s methods of rehabilitation into a language that dancers understood. A warm presence with a quirky sense of humor, she was petite with a black pixie cut and a thick Aussie accent. The majority of the Aussie-isms I would pick up came from Paula.