Our Grand Finale

by Laraine Denny Burrell

  To build up stamina, we begin to practice our lifts during the day in a studio we rent, but still continue to practice between the two shows at night. We create new lifts that no other adagio team can do. Other members of the cast come out to watch us rehearse and give us ideas and encouragement. Our lifts are difficult, and we know we have to learn how to be consistent and able to perform them again and again. We start putting our lifts to music, choreographing highly difficult routines. One of our greatest supporters is Carol Channing, who brings her chair out of her dressing room, plops it down on the front of the stage, and watches us rehearse, giving encouragement, support, and ideas.

  author and partner, family photo

  Stuart and I become a great team both onstage and off. We marry in July 1984, and shortly thereafter Stuart legally adopts Mark. Stuart brings a new dimension to my life. For the first time, I feel as if I do not have to shoulder life’s burden alone. I have a partner by my side, and we can offer each other support and guidance. Stuart introduces Mark and me to new and varied activities, including sailing and fishing. We buy a boat and I learn to water ski. I like this all-American persona I am developing, and I like learning to do activities I would never have thought I could do, or would enjoy. Mark is now six years old and growing up into a fine-looking American boy.

  But the dedication and practice and determination to do lifts that no other team performs comes at a price. First I fall and break my right forearm, a compound fracture requiring surgery to place metal plates and screws into the bone to help it mend. The breaks do not mend. The doctor tells me the bone at the break on my ulna is dead. I then endure a bone and bone-marrow transplant in a second surgery, together with the replacement of plates and screws. Before I am recovered from the second surgery, Stuart and I commence practicing our lifts again. It isn’t long before I fall and break bones in both feet right across each set of meta-tarsals. My injuries do not make me popular with the company managers and the other girls who have to fill in my spots on stage as I spend weeks away from the show, healing my injuries. I might have been fired if it had not been for Carol Channing taking me under her wing and shooing away anyone from any management likely to do me harm.

  For the first couple of weeks after breaking the bones in my feet, I wear a plaster-of-Paris cast on both lower legs, and I have to crawl on my hands and knees to get around. Once I am able to put weight on my feet again, Stuart and I go back into the studio and continue practicing our lifts. We ignore the casts on my legs, working on the time I am in the air and off my feet, gaining strength, improving balance, and working on choreography.

  Another year has passed, and it is time to reaudition for the show. Stuart and I ask to audition as an adagio team, hoping the producer, Donn Arden, might allow us to perform our act in the show. Our audition is on the main stage, in front of the entire cast and crew, and is to the music from Somewhere in Time. By now we have mastered never- before-seen lifts, including a reverse bird that ends in me doing a slow-motion and very controlled somersault from above Stuart’s head to land on my knees on the floor. Our repertoire also includes the kiss lift, a lovely moment where I am held upside down above Stuart’s head and our lips meet, and our most difficult lift, the forward flip, where I am standing in Stuart’s hand extended up above his head, he flips me forward into a somersault, and I land in his arms in an embrace as he kneels down and returns the embrace.

  Other than the music, not a sound disturbs our performance as the entire theater holds its breath, watching intently as we perform our intricate and dangerous moves. The number is athletic, requiring strength, control, stamina—all with the appearance of effortless movement. We have trained well. Our bodies are well conditioned to this artistic discipline. We finish our routine with an elegant lift. Stuart holds me above his head while I am posing in an arabesque, my leg extended straight out behind me. Moving with the music, I change my position, bringing my raised leg down and into a front attitude as Stuart walks us off stage while the music fades away. Immediately the silence is replaced by an eruption of applause and cheers. Finally, feet firmly on the ground again, I try to catch my breath, all while taking in the stunning accolades from the cast and crew. We walk hand-in-hand back out on stage to face Donn Arden, known for his diva personality and acerbic tongue.

  “Wow!” he says to us over the microphone he is holding. The applause quiets as people wait to see what he says. “Wow!” he repeats. “It is rare for me to see something I have never seen before, and your lifts were not only new and unique, your entire routine was stunning!” He turns around to the people in the theater behind him. “Don’t you agree?”

  We receive more raucous cheers and applause. Stuart slips his arm around my shoulders and hugs me tight. Our months and months of sacrifice, effort, and determination have paid off. We have even wowed Donn Arden! Not only that, we learn that our audition is successful. The producer and company manager allow us to perform our act a couple of times a week as part of the fabulous Space Ballet in the space scene.

  “Wow!” I say to Stuart. “The Space Ballet!”

  “The Space Ballet!” Stuart’s excitement and surprise mirrors my own.

  What was once believed to be unattainable, through hard work and perseverance became routine. Stuart and I choreograph our own adagio number to perform in the Space Ballet. We perform on those nights when the regular ballet dancers have nights off, or are on vacation. There is one point during our number when I am leaning backward and looking up at the living curtain suspended high above the stage, waiting for the space disco number in the next scene. I see my fellow ponies leaning over the edge of the curtain, waving down at me as I look up. My smile widens as I see the support of my fellow ponies.

  Performing our adagio before a live audience and garnering great appreciation and applause for our lifts, Stuart and I decide that we have a skill set we can use to advance our careers, and we decide to become our own act. We travel down to Los Angeles and audition for producer Jerry Jackson, well known for his shows such as the Folies-Bergere at the Tropicana in Las Vegas. We are offered roles as principal dancers and adagio team at the Princess Hotel and Casino in the Bahamas. Stuart and I are ready to leave Hello Hollywood Hello and take our act on the road. On our last night with Hello Hollywood Hello, the cast gives us the most stunning tribute a performer can be given.

  It is our last performance in the Space Ballet. Stuart and I run from the wings, down the long silver ramp, across the huge stage to front center stage to begin the ballet. We take our positions, facing the audience, waiting for the music to start. The stage lights dim, ready to focus their glow only on the ballet. For a moment there is complete silence. We wait.

  The music begins, we start our ballet, we grab hands and pull away from each other as our arms move through fifth position above our heads, and we turn away from each other to face the back of the stage. As I turn, I am surprised at what I see. The largest set stage in the world behind us is empty. The entire cast of dancers and singers, even the Space Queen, have left, leaving the entire stage to Stuart and me.

  As we dance together, as I am lifted high and smoothly brought down low, as we embrace, kiss, and create lyrical art with our bodies, the enormity of the moment hits me. It is as if the entire world is focused only on us. We are the center of the spotlight universe, the only life-forms in the dark cavern of the theater. Dancing our ballet alone on this massive stage feels incredible, and having the entire cast step away to give us the sole spotlight creates one of the most memorable moments of my dancing career. The scenes and dreams I once imagined as a child have come to life. As I am held aloft in the black space with the bright glow of the spotlight illuminating only me, I feel like a star.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-ONE

  “You’re the dancer in the show!” A woman stops me as I am walking along the waterfront in Hamilton, Bermuda. “You are fantastic!”

  “Thank you very much.” I smile in appreciation of the recognition.r />
  “Can I have my photo taken with you? Please?” The woman thrusts her camera at a man I presume is her husband. “Here, honey, take my photo.” The woman turns and poses next to me.

  “Would you like my partner and husband in the shot?” I motion toward Stuart standing to the side with a sour look on his face, no doubt because he wasn’t recognized or complimented.

  “He’s your partner? Oh sure, sure. Come on, honey.” She grabs Stuart’s arm, pulling him next to her, and the photo is taken. “Thank you! Are you performing again during the cruise?”

  “Yes. Friday night.”

  “Great! We look forward to seeing you again.” She points a finger toward me. “You guys are great!”

  The woman grabs her husband’s arm and pulls him toward the next store.

  Stuart and I continue on our own route along Front Street back to the cruise ship. I throw my arm around his shoulder. “You’re a great partner. We’re a great team.”

  “Yeah, we are.” Stuart looks at me and smiles.

  My dancing career has come full circle as I am back working on cruise ships, this time as a lead performer for Norwegian Cruise Line. After leaving Reno, Stuart and I took our act to the Princess Resort in Freeport, Bahamas, using the time there to hone our craft, develop the strength and stamina needed to perform our dozens of complicated lifts in two shows nightly.

  Living the island life was different from anything I had previously experienced and a great respite from city life. Our condo was on the waterway leading in past the Xanadu Hotel from the Caribbean Sea. We bought our own boat, embracing a life of fishing, snorkeling, and scuba diving. With an excellent stable on the island, I rode horses every day, taking lessons, jumping, working on dressage movements, and sometimes taking the tourists out on the beach rides.

  Our Chevy Impala station wagon, painted with lime green house paint and with extra air-conditioning by way of the holes rusted through the car floor, epitomized the character of the island. It was common for a friend driving along the road in the opposite direction to cross over into our lane to say “Hello.” Red traffic lights were mere suggestions as were the stop signs and speed limits. Tooting one’s car horn was an acceptable greeting to a friend or neighbor. Rather than laugh at the culture, we embraced it.

  Mark attended a private catholic school, Saint Mary’s of the Sea. We are not Catholics, but it was the only decent school on the island. He was the only white child in class, but that didn’t seem to faze him. I hope it always stays that way. But as always, life’s status quo is but a fleeting moment until pushed aside by the inevitable change. Mark was growing up quickly and no longer getting the education he needed in the Bahamas. I felt he was falling behind his counterparts in the States. Talking to other ex-pats, I learned they sent their sons to a naval prep school, the Almirante Farragut, in St. Petersburg, Florida. Stuart and I submitted an application for Mark to study at the school, which was followed by an in-person visit with Mark, who was impressed with the “really cool” naval aircraft displayed at the entrance to the school grounds. Mark was accepted into Farragut, meaning it was time for Stuart and me to readjust our own lives. We had honed our skills as an adagio team, and it was time to move forward with our act.

  author in Bahamas Show Costume, photo courtesy of a family friend

  author’s sister Loretta with cutout of author in dance costume, photo © Ian Denny

  author riding Eleuthera in Bahamas, photo courtesy of a family friend

  author’s son Mark becoming US Citizen in Miami, family photo

  Life in the Bahamas was history, and we got a job performing for Norwegian Cruise Line, first on the grande dame of cruise ships, the SS Norway and now on the MS Dreamward, sailing from the home port of Fort Lauderdale to Nassau, Grand Cayman, Cozumel, Cancun, and the private island. Twice a year we do a repositioning cruise that takes us to additional ports, such as Aruba and through the Panama Canal, until we arrive at our summer home port of New York for the New York to Bermuda run.

  We are still the main act in the Las Vegas review show but also have roles in the Broadway production show Dreamgirls, which has an integrated cast. I perform the role of Michelle Morris, a replacement for Effie in The Dreams. I also sing and dance in the Broadway tribute show. I may not be a well-known performer, but I am a big fish in my little pond.

  photo of author, photo © Mark Burrell

  author as Bride in Stage Show, photo © Mark Burrell

  Now a young teenager, Mark spends his vacation time from the naval academy onboard the Dreamward, learning to do spotlights for the shows, earning money for a guitar and for lessons from the guitarist with the ship’s band. With Stuart and I living on the cruise ship, we don’t own our own home. Imagine my chagrin when I discover that Mark told his schoolmates at the prestigious naval academy—most of whom are the sons of ambassadors, businessmen, and other notables—that his parents are homeless!

  “The lounge should be quiet with everyone ashore.” Stuart interrupts my thoughts. “Why don’t we get in some practice now?”

  “Sure. Sounds good.”

  We change into rehearsal gear, do some stretches to get the body warmed up and supple, and meet each other center stage. Stuart takes the rosin bag, rubs rosin on his hands, and then hands the bag to me. I rub my legs liberally with the white sticky dust intended to prevent me from slipping through Stuart’s fingers when I am lifted high into the air. For the show I add a layer of hairspray to give the extra “stick” that is needed to combat the layer of sweat created by the exertion and bright stage lights. Stuart takes back the bag and rubs rosin behind my neck, on the front of my hips, and on other areas where he will grab me during a lift and wants the extra adhesiveness.

  We start our practice with simple back lifts, Stuart standing behind me, grabbing my waist and lifting me up above his head. With my arms in fifth position, I arch back, liking the stretched feeling as my muscles start to perform as trained. I point my feet hard, pushing out the kinks in my lower extremities.

  “Down.” Stuart’s direction for bringing me down to the floor. “Let’s run through each of the lifts in order.”

  I nod. We have our standard practice routine, itself a choreographed series of movements preparing us for the next show.

  “The bird,” Stuart directs as he does a couple of squats, readying his legs to plié low beneath me, using the impetus to lift me over his head.

  I take my position opposite him. I lift my arms to my side, dégagé my right foot in front, and take three steps toward Stuart, leading with my hips. On my third step our movements and weight coordinate as Stuart places his hands on my hips, and I roll my hips forward into his hands, lifting my legs behind me, transferring my weight from the floor into the cradle of Stuart’s hands while he simultaneously lifts me above his head, a careful balance of timing and weight distribution. We hold the bird for about ten seconds, enough time to allow Stuart to play with his position and placement of my body above his head, and for me to tighten every muscle in my body, making me one solid part as Stuart moves me around to test the stability of the lift.

  “Down.” We reverse the moves until I have both feet back on the ground.

  “How about the stand?” Stuart removes his shirt and adds rosin to his upper chest.

  “Okay.” I add extra rosin to the shin on my left leg. The area has permanent indentations of Stuart’s fingermarks from the years of my shin hitting his hand and him grabbing my leg as I run toward him. I present my left leg to Stuart, who then grabs it and lifts me into an arabesque as I stand high on his chest. The lift goes well.

  “The kiss lift.” We continue our practice for the next show.

  Show after show we perform our complicated and somewhat dangerous lifts, sometimes battling the rocking effect of the waves on the ship’s stage, but always with success. Our performances garner standing ovations, the ultimate recognition of the hours, years of work Stuart and I have put into our art, not only to be able to offer stunning
performances for our audiences but also to develop unique lifts that no one else can do. The hard work, the exhaustion, the injuries are worth those brief moments of an audience rising to their feet in your honor.

  “Hey! You’re the dancer in the show!”

  Stuart and I are walking along Fifth Avenue in New York. New York is our summer home port for the Bermuda cruises.

  I turn toward the female voice.

  author and partner, photo © Mark Burrell

  photo of author and partner, photo © Mark Burrell

  She points at my head. “I recognize you by your short hair.” She leans in closer to me. “You are my favorite dancer. I could watch you all day. And those moves you do are fantastic!” She waves her hands above her head, replicating her idea of the lifts. “I don’t know how you do it!”

  I feel a seething wave of hostility coming from behind me. I turn and grab Stuart’s arm and drag him closer. “Actually, I couldn’t do any of it without my husband, Stuart.” I pat his chest, making sure the woman sees him. “He deserves all the credit. He has incredible strength and ensures the lifts always work. He is the best adagio partner in the business.”

  Stuart offers a courtesy smile.

  “You guys are great. Well done! Hope to see you on my next cruise.” The woman walks on.

  Stuart is unusually quiet the rest of the day.

  A few days later I am running on the treadmill in the ship’s gym when something tears on the outside of my left ankle and, crying out in pain, I fall into an unceremonious heap onto the gym floor. I am taken to a doctor in Bermuda.

  “You’ve pulled tendons away from your heel and lower leg. You can’t dance for some time. You’ll need a cast for at least six weeks.”