by Eric Flint
Finally we were ready for a run-through. Humming the beat, I had Joseph, and then Carl run through their solos. Then I had Carl dance with each of the girls. We had to make slight changes because of the size and shape of the performance area, but we were ready for a full rehearsal to music. I asked Carl to let the servants know we were ready for them, and the room quickly filled with servants of all ages and some of the children of the duke’s guests and their governesses. With an audience of almost a hundred people waiting eagerly, Harvey started the generator and brought it up to speed. The lights were turned on, and then I started the music.
From the first notes the audience was spellbound. Brillo made his entry to cheers, and Carl played up to the audience. Joseph, as the young upstart Merino ram did well. He was greeted with hisses in true pantomime villain fashion, making me wonder what videos the people had been watching. However, his leaps and pirouettes grabbed the audience. There was many an oh and an ah as they watched. I couldn’t wait to see how they responded to Carl in his solo. The fact that Carl was half-Asian in appearance-something which was very exotic in Europe of the time-would make him somewhat fascinating to the audience anyway, I thought. Add onto that his tremendous talent and skill . . . If they thought my baby was impressive, Carl was going to blow them away.
I was right. He had been practicing hard since the school recital for this performance, and it showed. The hesitation and momentary stumbling I had seen in that earlier performance were gone. He was moving faster, and leaping higher, with great sureness and confidence, seeming to hang in the air at times. The audience was so appreciative we had to stop the music until the applause quieted before going into the sequence of pas de deux. But finally the audience let the performance continue.
The girls danced well. They weren’t giving their all; they were saving something for the evening performance. However, they put on a good show. There were gasps and applause at each gravity-defying lift, but it was the girls dancing en pointe that really stole the show. The sense of wonder I could see on many of the faces in the audience was a reward in itself.
As the last strains of music faded the audience burst into spontaneous applause. Young servants presented each of the girls with small bouquets as they took their bows. It had been a good rehearsal. Nothing drastic had gone wrong. Occasionally the spotlights had lost the dancers, but hopefully they should be better in the evening.
After the rehearsal we were led to a side room where a light supper had been set out. As everyone ate, the dancers sparingly, Harvey and the rest of his crew with gusto, we discussed the rehearsal. Nobody had any complaints or suggestions. We were as ready as we could be.
It would be several hours before we were called upon to perform. We were an after dinner entertainment for the duke and his guests. So our little troupe passed the time as best they could. Harvey and his crew checked and rechecked the generator, lights, and sound system, talking amongst themselves. Most of the dancers huddled in a group talking, or sat and read. Everybody tried to get some rest, with varying degrees of success. Carl shuffled off into a corner, wrapped himself in his sleeping bag, and was out like a light, much to the envy of the others.
Finally, around ten o’clock, the duke’s majordomo came to the supper room to tell us the guests would soon be ready for our performance. A couple of the girls slipped over to Carl, ready to prod him awake, but he was moving before they could get to him. Seeing his grin, and the way he poked his tongue out at them, I was sure that there was something I was missing. Seeing the look on the girl’s faces, I had the distinct impression that they had intended to be less than gentle wakening him. Joseph had also been watching. He appeared amused by what had happened. There didn’t appear to be any malice involved, but I made a mental note to ask my son what it was all about.
The cast quickly got into costume and helped each other apply the stage makeup. They pulled on loose coverings before starting their warm-up exercises. With ten minutes to go they stripped to their costumes and wrapped themselves in blankets. Meanwhile, Harvey and his crew started up the generator and tested the lights and sound. We were ready to start.
While we had been waiting in the other room, servants had been busy arranging extra seating and candelabra. Just before the guests started entering the room the extra candles were lit. When the last guest was seated, His Grace’s majordomo gave the signal to begin. With that, I gave a brief introduction of the piece to be performed before starting the music.
It was, even if I do say so myself, a brilliant performance. Nothing went noticeably wrong. The spotlights tracked the dancers, never losing them like they had in rehearsal. Nobody stumbled or missed a beat. Joseph rose to the occasion, as did the whole cast. Carl was his usual dynamic self, and the girls were graceful and beautiful. It was some of the best dancing I had seen outside of a professional performance. Come to think of it, this was a professional performance, but I felt they had all earned their pay. Topping this performance would take some doing.
As the music died and the cast took their bows to the applause of the audience, I took my first good look at the guests. I was tempted to cut and run. Other than the Swishers and Pierces from Grantville, I only knew the duke and his family, and Helene.
As yet another duke and duchess complimented me on the performance, Harvey and Carl joined me. At last, someone to lean on. I latched onto my husband, a little afraid that he might leave me to the wolves. Fortunately Carl came to the rescue, his German being much better than mine. With Carl interpreting when necessary, I was able to talk about the performance they had just seen and about ballet in general.
Talking with the guests I started to realize how much they had appreciated the performance, and how interested in modern ballet they were. Several of them asked when I would be putting on a full-length ballet, something like the ones they had been watching on video. I was flabbergasted. I hadn’t thought there would be the demand, and said so. The response was surprising. Apparently the guests, especially the males, were accustomed to performing “ballets” as part of the normal run of entertainments, but nothing like what they had seen on the videos.
I stuttered a little before collecting myself. I ran through some of the problems. Mainly those had to do with the size of the pool of trained dancers, and a need to be able to pay them so they could spend the time training, but also the cost of costumes, and a need for somewhere to practice and to perform.
That’s when Helene broke in. She had been quietly listening while I laid out the obstacles I saw. “So, the problem is money?” she asked. It was a brazen question, but it did cut to the crux of the matter. Given enough money I could recruit and train students to perform, but where to get that money?
“Ballet doesn’t make a good investment,” I said. She just shook her head and waved a hand indicating the guests. She smiled and said, “Ballet might not provide a good monetary return to investors, but for some, there are things mere money can’t buy. For the merchants amongst us, there is value in advertising.”
Then she dragged me off to talk money and just what it would take for me to create a ballet company capable of putting on performances just like those on the videos.
* * *
I spent that weekend worrying. The duke’s bank draft for twenty thousand dollars was burning a hole in my pocket. I kept on touching it to make sure it was still there. I pulled it out constantly, tracing a finger over the strong handwriting, and all those magnificent zeros. It was more money than I had ever held in my hands before, and I couldn’t bank it until Monday.
My loving son Joseph didn’t help matters when he suggested dramatically that I should think of all the interest I was missing. I worried about that until I spent a few moments on a calculator. Then I stopped worrying and started hunting. It came to less than five dollars a day at the on-call rates, and I meant to make it all up out of his hide for scaring me like that.
As for what I was going to do with the money, we had all agreed on the distribution of the
money when we agreed to put on the performance. Ten thousand would cover expenses, plus wages for everyone involved, leaving the other ten thousand to put towards a professional ballet company.
Come Monday, I asked for time off work to go to the bank. The boss, Linda Jane, was a bit unbelieving, until I showed her the check. Then she dragged me straight to the bank herself. On the way back to work she asked me what I was going to do with the money. Her interest faded a bit when I told her how I was going to try to create a ballet company, but she managed to ask a few pertinent questions. Like, would I still be working full time for her, and did I have enough dancers to form a company. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any answers.
Over the weekend I’d spent the time I wasn’t worrying about the bank draft thinking about starting a dance company. The first question I asked myself was: did I really want to start and lead a company? That was a no-brainer. Of course I did! All I needed was some trained dancers, and a supply of money. The latter would help ensure I had plenty of people willing to train.
So I had to think about the problems. The big one was the makeup of the potential company. There were eight girls who had been dancing en pointe in the recital. There should have been nine, but Glenna Sue Haggerty’s mother insisted that she was needed to help around the house, and she had been forced to miss the recital. There were about a dozen other girls coming to classes who could develop into real performers, given a little time, and regular lessons.
Then there was the girl I considered the jewel in the crown of my up-coming students. Cathy McNally had been taking dance with me since the first grade. Much to her mother’s distress, she just about lived to dance. At eleven going on twelve she was still growing, and I wouldn’t let her near pointe shoes. However, her ability was such that her performance really didn’t seem to miss it. When she started performing en pointe, well, up-time I would have said, “the sky’s the limit.” I’m pretty sure she could have won a scholarship to one of the best schools, maybe even Juilliard. She had real potential and, with the support of her parents, the world would have been hers for the taking.
So I had a good core of girls. The real problem was guys. I had two leading men, Carl and my eldest son Joel. But the army owned Joel, while Carl was heavily involved in the local construction industry. It was unlikely that I could ever be sure of having one of them, let alone both of them. The next best males were my son Joseph and my nephew Mike Matowski. Both were coming along well, Joseph being the better dancer, something to do with training every day with me, Joel, and the girls.
However, neither was strong enough to lift any of the older girls. At least the girls weren’t confident they could lift and hold them. That lack of confidence was important. It meant the girls would be constantly on guard. There might be easier ways to ruin a performance, but at least I could avoid that one. I’d have to restrict them to working with the schoolgirls while they worked on their strength and technique. Although I didn’t think I’d phrase it quite that way.
So, where did that leave me? Up the creek without a paddle. I had a useful core of girls. The real problem was reliable males. An oxymoron if ever there was one. My two most capable males had commitments that meant they might not be available when I needed them, and the only alternative male dancers needed time to develop. Maybe next year, if they trained regularly, and the damned army didn’t grab them.
It was with a heavy heart that I made my way to dance class after work. Without at least one male lead I couldn’t have a company, at least not one capable of putting on performances for paying customers. As I entered the room set aside for the dance class I passed a gaze over who was there. My eldest daughter Staci, and two of the other senior dancers, Casey Stevenson and Marcie Haggerty, were busy supervising the children’s warm-up. I was surprised to see Marcie’s half-sister there. Laurie Haggerty had been very forceful just before Christmas about how she didn’t want her Glenna Sue wasting her time on ballet, and had put every obstacle possible in the way of her training.
All was revealed when the Marcie came up to me. “Miz Bitty, you better watch out. Glenna Sue’s mother is on the warpath. She doesn’t think it is right that neither her Cameron nor Glenna Sue were included in the private performance of Bad, Bad Brillo.”
I can’t say I was totally surprised. It was a complete turnaround from Laurie’s position leading up to the recital. Then she had insisted that Glenna Sue was needed at home and couldn’t be spared for rehearsals for the recital performance of Bad, Bad Brillo. However, the envelope in my pocket was probably the reason for the about face. In it were bank checks made out to the cast and crew. Glenna Sue’s share, if Laurie had allowed her to perform as the ewe she was originally cast as, would have been worth about eight hundred dollars.
“Your stepmother’s heard about the payments for the performers?” I asked Marcie.
She nodded her head, a wry smile on her face. “Saturday night Jonathan Fortney was at the City Hall Coffee House talking about what he was going to do with his share.”
I sighed over that. It was a good bet Cora, the proprietor, was aware that Laurie had pulled Glenna Sue out of the cast for Bad, Bad Brillo. No doubt she had heard and passed on the tidbit. She had probably done so deliberately, with relish, and maybe a bit of malice. There was little love lost between them.
“How do you feel about the performers getting paid?” I asked.
“It’s the luck of the draw. I didn’t audition for one of the parts. Nobody thought of the piece as anything more than a bit of fun. Certainly nobody thought those people would pay for a private performance. The guys earned the fee. The money would have been nice. Maybe next time.” Grinning, Marcie asked, “There is going to be a next time, isn’t there?”
I told her that I expected there would be similar evenings spread through the year. I wasn’t ready to tell everyone about my dream of putting on a performance of Nutcracker. Currently only my family knew how much the last two years without a performance had affected me. I had spent part of the Christmas break watching my collection of Nutcracker videos, but they knew it wasn’t the same as being there.
After that I was caught up in teaching the class. Every time I looked at a student I found myself examining them, looking to see if they had what it takes to perform. I was reassured with what I saw. There were a number of promising up-time boys and girls who had been taking lessons for a number of years, and some who had only been coming since I started teaching after the Ring of Fire.
What really interested me, though, was the number of down-time students who were doing well. Not only the girls, but there were guys, and some of the guys were late teens. For some reason, the down-timers didn’t have a problem with guys and dancing. It was similar in the advanced class. There was one guy about the same age as my youngest boy, Mathias Steinbach. I had high hopes of him. He had been coming for about a year now, and his suppleness had improved considerably. If I could keep him, he would make a great foil for Joseph in another couple of years.
The long-term prospects were good. All I needed was a few good men to hold everything together until the youngsters were ready.
After class I hunted for my few good men. I had checks for three of them. Joel I just wanted to talk to about his military commitments. Eventually I traced them to the gym. Through the windows in the door I could see them. Joel was running Carl, his cousin Mark, and his baby brother through some dance sword-fighting moves he had learned while he was at college.
Joel was directing Joseph and Mark, with Carl watching, when I tried to sneak in. Carl turned almost immediately. Seeing me, he waved me over. Apparently Joel, hearing from Joseph that I wanted to put on Nutcracker, had suggested that the fight scene between the Nutcracker and the Mouse King should be a real swashbuckling affair, and had been teaching the others the basics of performance fighting.
Joel was pretty sure he would be based in Grantville for a while. He was being trained to be an officer and here and now, an ability to dance was, if not essen
tial, very desirable. He was sure he would be able to continue training and maybe even drag along a few of his fellow officer trainees. Unfortunately, he wasn’t sure where the army would be sending him when he was commissioned.
Carl, on the other hand, could tell me he would be working just outside the Ring of Fire on a major building contract. With a bit of effort, and the cooperation of his fellow directors from Kelly Construction, he was sure he could, barring an act of God, continue training and, outside of the summer period, be available for any performances.
* * *
Over the next few days it seemed as if I was forever dodging questions from parents about why their child hadn’t been involved in the Bad, Bad Brillo production. The worst of the offenders were those who had been against their sons and daughters being involved in dance in the first place. Fortunately, the real ballet mothers understood just how unexpected the request for a private performance had been. That didn’t stop more than a few of them dropping hints about how much their sons or daughters would love to perform if something similar was offered though.
It soon got to the point that I called a meeting of students and parents to discuss where I thought ballet was going here and now. One of the first things I told the assembled horde was that profits from the private production were going towards providing pointe shoes, and the development of improved pointe shoes. This went down well with all the girls and their parents. Most of them had first hand experience of the bloodied torture devices called pointe shoes, or they had seen the damage.
I then described how I wanted to put on a full performance of Nutcracker next Christmas. There was a mixed rendering of ohs and ahs from the crowd. Some had, like me, missed the annual performance and were happy that it was coming back. Others made it obvious that they didn’t want to wait that long. Many of the dancers just wanted to perform, but others were thinking about the money. They asked if there was any chance of me putting on performances for a paying audience like the private performance of Bad, Bad Brillo.