What a gift.
Chapter Twelve
The Mirror
Dancers are surrounded by mirrors. They fill our dressing rooms and line entire walls of our studios. We’re constantly checking ourselves: What looks right? But much more often, what looks wrong? What needs to be fixed or changed or hidden or eradicated? Even if we’re alone in a studio, working on something just for ourselves, we cannot get away from the mirror. It is there, projecting a truth that can be easily distorted by the dancer’s mind’s eye.
Somewhere along the line, I gave the mirror way too much power. It became a malevolent presence in my life, always lurking around corners to suddenly appear on a wall or a door and taunt me with evil images of myself. There was a certain seduction it wove over me that drew my eyes ever toward it, even while the rest of me was constantly trying to run away. I hated the mirror, but I was still ever trying to please it, hoping that one day it would gaze back at me with approval.
When I was a child, the mirror was my friendly companion as I discovered myself and became aware of my appearance. The mirror brought me nothing but entertainment as I watched how my limbs moved or saw how my body bent when I was sitting down. It helped me experiment with my facial expressions as I sat in front of it and tried to act out the exotic feelings I would read about in my beloved books: dismay, shock, horror, euphoria.
In my pretend stories, I was always a princess of some sort who had to escape from being captured by some villain. Princesses were always beautiful and perfectly behaved. I clearly remember being devastated one day when I looked in the mirror after dressing up in my red velvet princess dress and tiara. I had the chicken pox, and my face was covered in spots. Princesses were not supposed to have spots.
When I started to take ballet, the mirror became my compass. Was I going in the right direction with my positions? Did I need to make adjustments to where I put my arms or how I held my shoulders? Were my legs going as high as I wanted them to? In the mirror I saw my actual self overlaid by my vision of myself as a perfect ballerina, and I constantly strove to reconcile my reality with my ideal. The mirror was a source of hope and a promise of what I felt I could achieve.
Slowly, subtly, without my noticing, a darkness crept over the mirror like an oily film. As my body began to change into its womanly form, the mirror showed me shapes I didn’t recognize or want. I was not matching up to the ideal I’d always assumed I would eventually reach. I still felt the same—why was the mirror showing me something different? The mirror became something for me to distrust; it was no longer showing me a princess or a perfect ballerina, and no matter what I did, all I could see staring back at me was an ugly stranger.
The mirror had betrayed me. It was now something hateful to be denied and avoided, but I still had to use it and was confronted by the necessity of it every day. Gazing into any mirror was a torture, but I could never tear my gaze away. I would stare at myself, lingering on the distasteful parts of my body that the hateful device would flaunt defiantly, displaying my failure with awful clarity.
Finally there was a break. I stopped dancing. I stopped looking at anything but my face in the mirror. I struggled for a new identity, a new worth divorced from my appearance. I withdrew inside myself and there found God, in whose image I am made. It is the reflection of His glory that brings me joy, and it is the striving for His image that brings me identity and humility.
As I mended, I warily struck up a new relationship with the mirror. It was one of fragile acceptance and even, finally, approval for just the normal, imperfect person that I was. I was not a princess, and I had good, beautiful parts along with weird, ugly parts, all making up a whole being who was just fine. I’d taken away the mirror’s power.
And now I can use the mirror as the tool it is meant to be. I often forget to look into a mirror all day long and then catch my reflection and find my hair sticking out in a funny direction or baby food stains on my shirt. After a wild morning with a grumpy toddler and too much to do, I force myself to use the mirror to make sure I don’t leave the apartment in a state that would embarrass my family. Grace is starting school, and I want her to be proud of her mother.
I also now have the precious privilege of teaching my daughter how to use the mirror, and I hope to infuse her with physical self-confidence as well as the knowledge that her appearance does not define her worth or her identity. Grace already has a tender, kind heart and a generous spirit, and I hope to teach her to always look to the heart of a person when she is making decisions about the people she meets.
Often as she is getting dressed, she will pause and stare at herself naked in the mirror, her face a neutral expression of curious interest.
“Oh, Grace,” I’ll say. “Look at the beautiful body you have. It is so strong and healthy and can do so many interesting things. God gave you exactly the right body for you because He knew what you needed. And inside that body is your beautiful, precious soul.”
And I’ll see her expression change to one of pride and pleasure as she gazes at herself and wriggles around, shaking her arms and legs and twisting to see her tummy and back.
“Yes,” she will say with the confidence of a child. “God gave me a beautiful body. Watch me, Mommy!” And she will dance before the mirror, beaming with joy, her beautiful spirit shining out through her eyes.
Playing at being ballerina at home, about age four.
My grand introduction to the stage: singing a solo in my school’s Christmas pageant.
This is from a photo shoot Terry Shields arranged at her ballet studio in South Carolina. I was about eleven.
Trying out a “fish dive” with Dad—my first pas de deux partner—at my grandmother’s house.
Grand jeté under the oak tree in my yard in Summerville, South Carolina.
My mother took this photo on the balcony of our New York City apartment in 1988. I was wearing a real New York City Ballet tutu for the first time, for a performance with the School of American Ballet.
Dancing with Arch Higgins during SAB’s performance of Balanchine’s Serenade at the New York State Theater, at the age of fifteen.
In costume for the role of the Maid in my first Nutcracker as an apprentice with the New York City Ballet, in 1989.
Waltz of the Flowers costume from The Nutcracker.
Hot Chocolate costume from The Nutcracker . . . along with a famous visitor. Meeting Michael Jackson was definitely a highlight of my first Nutcracker.
The Waltz Project performance with James Fayette during which I hurt my back, a serious injury for a dancer.
Dancing in the third movement corps from Balanchine’s Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet, in the early nineties.
Now a soloist, leaping as the lead in the Winter section of Jerome Robbins’s The Four Seasons.
Visiting an ailing but still elegant Alexandra Danilova at her apartment.
The dreaded ice bucket.
On tour in Italy with one of James’s independent performing groups.
Jerome Robbins’s The Concert with Russell Kaiser and Ethan Stiefel in the midnineties.
George Balanchine’s Divertimento No. 15. I remember being very self-conscious of my body in the tutu during these performances.
From my sister’s wedding, in the dress I had to buy because I could not fit into the original bridesmaids’ dress.
Graduating from Fordham University in the spring of 1998, during my year away from dancing.
Francis Patrelle’s Romeo and Juliet with James. Not back with City Ballet yet but performing again and on the road to recovery.
Karin von Aroldingen coaching New York City Ballet principal dancer Jenifer Ringer in George Balanchine’s Robert Schumann’s “Davidsbündlertänze.”
[Brian Rushton. The George Balanchine Foundation Interpreters Archive]
In the studio with Peter Martins.
Fellow principal dancer We
ndy Whelan took this picture of me preparing my pointe shoes during a rehearsal of Robbins’s Dances at a Gathering while the company was on tour in China.
Le Baiser de la Fée (original version, 1937), Maria Tallchief coaching Jenifer Ringer and Nikolaj Hübbe, in 2003.
[Brian Rushton. The George Balanchine Foundation Archive of Lost Choreography}
“Fish dive” with Philip Neal during the Wedding Scene from Peter Martins’s The Sleeping Beauty—just like the photo with my dad!
Dancing the girl in pink from Robbins’s Dances at a Gathering with Jared Angle as the boy in purple.
Swanilda in Balanchine’s Coppélia with Damian Woetzel.
Peter Martins’s Thou Swell with James.
Grand jeté as the Sugar Plum Fairy. The setting is just a bit different from my backyard under the old oak tree.
From a fashion-meets-dance photo shoot for a cover story of Dance Magazine. My costume, for Melissa Barak’s Call Me Ben, was designed by J. Mendel.
Peter Martins’s Swan Lake.
In rehearsal with James.
On the way to the church, in the wedding dress that the saints of the NYCB’s amazing costume department saved from disaster.
It’s July 29, 2000, and we just said, “I do.”
From the infamous performance of “Sugar Plumgate” with my wonderful partner, Jared Angle, 2010.
Self-portrait with stage makeup! Now you can see why it takes so long to prepare for a performance . . .
Balanchine’s Serenade with James and my good friend and dressing-room-mate Maria Kowroski.
I have always been proud of this picture of the Wind Waltz from Robbins’s Dances at a Gathering because Sébastien Marcovici and I are completely in sync.
Alexei Ratmansky’s Russian Seasons.
Waving at my daughter in the front row during final bows after Francis Patrelle’s The Yorkville Nutcracker.
Backstage with Grace after a matinee of Balanchine’s The Nutcracker.
Our family.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I never expected to write a book about myself, and I must thank Todd Gold and my agent, Dan Strone, for having the idea and getting it all started. Also I want to thank my friend Robert Lipp, who is responsible for creating the Dance On scholarship for City Ballet dancers, through which I was able to get the college education that gave me the confidence to write this book myself. In fact, Bob is the one who introduced Todd and me in the first place.
I want to thank my amazing editor, Wendy Wolf, as well as Margaret Riggs. Wendy gave me the freedom to “just write,” and then somehow she and Maggie made sense of the large quantity of pages I gave them, blessedly cutting much out. Thanks also to Brianna Harden, who crafted such a beautiful jacket cover. I am very grateful to Elisa Rivlin, Carolyn Coleburn, Kate Griggs, Carla Bolte, and everyone else at Viking. I also so appreciate the efforts made on my behalf by Dan’s assistant, Kseniya Zaslavskaya, and all those at Trident Media Group. To Steven Caras, Paul Kolnik, Rosalie O’Connor, and Joe McNally I give my gratitude and admiration for their ability to capture dance in a way that makes still images seem to move. Thank you to Rob Daniels, director of communications at City Ballet, for his guidance and wisdom, and to my friends from the ballet world who have been so supportive.
I extend so much love and appreciation to my Monday Mom’s Group from Redeemer Presbyterian Church for their prayers and support, and for the examples they all are to me of Godly women, wives, and mothers. Their vulnerability, senses of humor, and insight have helped me through so many days. Particularly I want to thank Katharine Cluverius for reading this book and helping me to better approach writing about my faith.
Last, and most important, I need to thank my family. My sister, Becky, is ever my ally and advocate, empowering me to be courageous and be myself. My parents are always my supporters and read several versions of this book, offering suggestions and encouragement with love and sensitivity. They have continuously prayed for me about every part of my life. I hope I can be just like my mom and dad as I parent my own precious children on their own life journeys. And my husband, James, continues to be my hero in ways big and small. Without his thoughtfulness and selflessness and wisdom and patience, this book would never have been finished.
There is nothing like writing a book about yourself to make you realize how far you still have to go and how many people have helped you get to your current spot. I have accomplished nothing on my own; it is only with God’s help and the amazing people in my life that I have done anything, and to them I am humbly grateful.
BALLET GLOSSARY
Adagio—movement that has a slow, fluid quality
Apprentice—the lowest rank of dancer at New York City Ballet; performs only a few ballets in a given season. Although most dance companies follow similar rank structures as City Ballet, some have no apprentices; others have first and second soloists; some have Etoiles, which are above principals; some have no ranks at all.
Arabesque—ballet position in which one leg is extended directly behind the body and one arm is often stretched out to the front
Balanchine style/technique—the stylistic way of dancing created by the choreographer George Balanchine that features a unique precision, quickness, and efficiency and incorporates elements of neoclassicism
Ballet master/mistress—the instructor in a professional company in charge of a particular ballet or rehearsal
Ballonné—a step that slices the working leg first away from and then into the standing leg, done either as a jump or in pointe work without a jump
Barre—the horizontal bar often made of wood that is fastened to the walls of a ballet studio for the dancers to hold on to during the initial exercises of a ballet class
Bourrée—a step where the dancer glides in any direction using many tiny steps en pointe
B-plus—a standing pose where one leg is bent and crossed behind the other with its toe placed on the floor
Center/Center work—exercises done in a ballet class in the center of the room, away from the support of the barre
Classical—the traditional style of ballet established in the nineteenth century
Corps de ballet—the first official rank achieved by most full-standing company members; the largest group of dancers in a ballet company that primarily does the ensemble dancing
Demi-soloist—a role in a ballet that is more prominently featured than the role of the corps de ballet
Divertissement—a short dance or interlude in a ballet
En dedans—a pirouette revolving inward, toward the supporting leg
En dehors—a pirouette revolving outward, away from the supporting leg
En pointe—to dance in pointe shoes; the act of rising up onto the toe box, or front section, of a pointe shoe
Grand battement—a high, controlled kick
Grand jeté—a jeté in which the dancers make a split with their legs in the air
Jeté—a jump from one foot to the other
Jeté battu—a jeté in which the legs cross over each other once and then switch places before landing
Mazurka—a Polish folk dance in 3/4 time
Movement—a section of music within the whole composition or a part of a ballet within the whole piece
Neoclassical—a style of ballet that is less formal and rigid than classical ballet and usually has no narrative
Partnering—when a man supports and assists a ballerina as she dances
Pas de deux; de trois; de quatre; etc.—a dance for two, three, four, etc.
Pirouette—a turn on one leg
Plié—to bend the standing leg or legs
Port de bras—how the arms are held and carried; the positioning of the shoulder, elbow, wrist, and fingers as they move through the air
Principal—the highest rank attained by a ballet dancer at New York City Bal
let; dances the most important roles
“Puff”; “puffed”—a part that is very hard and causes the dancer to become out of breath; to be out of breath
Repertory—the list of ballets shown during a performance season
Saut de basque—a traveling jump in which the dancer jumps from one foot to the other while revolving in the air
Scherzo—a sprightly musical composition usually in quick triple time
Soloist—the middle rank, between the corps de ballet and the principal at New York City Ballet; usually dances featured parts
Soutenu—a smooth turning step where both feet are on the floor
The tape—the voice machine that dancers at New York City Ballet used to call for their daily schedule
Dancing Through It: My Journey in the Ballet Page 29