by Henry Alford
I thanked her, and expressed mild anxiety about the current class, let alone the more challenging-sounding workshop.
“I understand completely,” she said. “See how you feel after class, yeah?”
She explained that the pas de deux students would perform at a student-faculty showcase in a month’s time. This struck me as exciting—there aren’t many opportunities for ballet students, let alone beginner ones, to perform. It also seemed like a wonderful pedagogical goad. Carrot, stick.
The barre portion of Wildish’s class is longer than most teachers’, about an hour. We tendued, we arabesqued. So committed is Wildish to the concept of alignment—she talks a lot about how your inner ear should always be just in front of your ankles—that, half an hour into class, I decided that she should call her autobiography Ears Over Ankles. Throughout the barre, Wildish would walk up to various students, sometimes asking questions (“How’s the leg?” “How was your trip?”) that bespoke her sharp memory and stellar social skills. Most charmingly, she sometimes walks up to you and, instead of offering a correction or appraisal, simply widens her eyes in sympathy and says “I know.”
The most challenging barre exercise saw us putting the ankle of one straightened leg up on the barre and then, leg still up there, turning 180 degrees, folding at the waist and putting first our palms and then our forearms on the floor. It’s like you’ve jumped out a window and, mid-jump, decided to do a push-up. Equally difficult: go into passé by making a number 4 of your legs, then relevé on the foot that’s on the floor while putting your arms elegantly over your head en couronne, and then hoooooold it. I wouldrai if I couldrai.
As students around her thrashed and flailed, Wildish remained upbeat and delightfully loopy: Carole Lombard serving cocktails on the deck of the Titanic.
We dragged the barres aside for the “center” portion of class.
Wildish told us about a trip to Costa Rica she’d taken during which a two-toed sloth had approached her tour bus. She then led us on an adagio variation—she called out to the pianist, “Something slow, Benjamin! Painfully slow!”—during which she told us to extend our index and middle fingers as if we were that same sloth approaching a tour bus. A second variation, which did not have us reenacting part of Wildish’s vacation, ran glissade R-glissade L-glissade R-pas de bourrée L-arabesque-turn 90 degrees in arabesque-repeat, which is about as Absolute Beginner as Greece is Turkey. During a third variation I remembered that jeter means “throw” not “jump,” which seemed like a more accurate description of my untrained body’s grim and stolid lurching. Jeté-braham Lincoln.
In the last fifteen minutes of class, we twenty-two students—mostly women in their twenties—huddled in a corner of the studio while Wildish rattled off complicated variations that we would perform three at a time as we ran diagonally across the room. “Men first!” she said, in a reversal of almost every ballet class in the world. She explained, “It’s not fair that the men always get to go last, because seeing other people doing the variation really helps.”
It would also help, I would conclude some ninety seconds later, if the two other men in the class were absolute beginners. But, as it turned out, on that particular evening, one was a professional dancer who was rehabilitating an injury, and the other was a flawless Asian man whose name was pronounced hero.
* * *
Given that I’d been able to pull off only about 60 percent of the choreography, I felt that it was only fair to give Wildish the opportunity to rescind her invitation to the pas de deux workshop if she chose. So, at the end of class, I walked over to her and said, “As you can see, I’m working with a modest skill set. But I’d love to join you if you still need men.”
“Great!”
“Let me ask you, though—is there a lot of choreography?”
“I can’t really answer that,” she said, fiddling with her bag. “You should probably just come and see?”
“Okay. But I wouldn’t want to make you guys look bad, so please feel free to tell me if I don’t cut it.”
“That’s entirely up to you. I shouldn’t make that decision, you should.”
* * *
Oh, the tyranny of a laissez-faire government. It’s one thing for a highly trained, omniscient authority to take you aside and gently counsel you, “You’re not there yet, hon.” But it’s another to leave this question up to the hon himself, thus giving the hon the opportunity to prove himself both unready and deluded.
As we would do for the next four Mondays, Wildish and three other students and I left the Gibney class together and took the subway fifteen minutes up to City Center for her private pas class. On the first of these nights, walking down Broadway toward the F train, Wildish told me that she had just taught in Italy and then spent two weeks lying in the sun in Sardinia.
“All that sun!” she said. “I’m going to look so old. But you know what? I don’t care.”
“You’re beloved,” I said. “When you’re beloved, you get to make the rules.”
Wildish smiled modestly.
This seemed like the moment to tell her that I was fifty-four.
“I’m older than that,” she said unfazed. “And I’ve had two hip replacements.”
“You still move beautifully.”
“Thank you. I danced into my forties.”
“Lots of older folks dance,” I said, savoring the fact that professional dancers are thought only to have about a decade’s worth of good dancing in them.
“Right? Look at Alessandra Ferri, who just danced Juliet for ABT at fifty-three.”
“Or John Selya, who just toured with Twyla Tharp at forty-six. Or Margot Fonteyn, who danced into her sixties.”
“It can be done,” Wildish said.
“If you sell it, they’ll buy it.”
* * *
The pas classes were held in a large studio in midtown, and were mostly being conducted not by Wildish but by her colleague Jon Drake, a sly, good-looking dude in his thirties who has danced for Oregon Ballet Theatre and was in the national tour of Dirty Dancing.
“You’ll like Jon, he’s Southern,” Wildish whispered to me as we exited the elevator and approached the studio. I said, “Oh, you mean he has nice manners?” Wildish shook her head and said, “Even better: he has sarcasm.”
Once in the studio, Wildish introduced me to Drake with “Jon, this is Henry With Four Classes.”
Drake drawled, “Hi, Henry With Four Classes.”
Over the next three Mondays, an ever-shifting group of sixteen or so of us dancers in the workshop rehearsed a ninety-second-long routine. In it, the man rotated the woman 360 degrees while she was en pointe; then he’d hold her in arabesque, outstretching his leg behind him; then they’d do a series of elegant steps taking them closer to the audience, the man twice holding the woman around the waist so she could do a series of pirouettes.
The women had the much harder work here. Yes, in between some of these moves, us fellas were meant quickly to put our arms en haut, but that ain’t all that. No, the much more difficult part for me was holding my en-pointe partner around the waist so that she was perfectly upright.
Throughout the workshop, we’d switch partners every fifteen minutes or so; Wildish announced at one point that we wouldn’t know with whom we’d be dancing at the presentation, so we should get used to working with everyone.
The first three en-pointe women I worked with exhibited a tendency, under my unsure administration, to topple. I couldn’t figure out when a partner was perfectly upright. Should I look in the mirror? Look at her neckline? Nothing seemed to help.
On seeing my frustration, Wildish padded over to me in her pointe shoes. She dismissed my third partner and stood en pointe in front of me. I clutched onto her waist.
“No, you’re grabbing,” she said.
I readjusted.
Better.
“But I’m not on,” she said. “You’ve got me leaning to the left.”
I guided her rightward.
I tried again. She grimace-smiled.
She came down to the floor and said, “You try. Show me your sous-sus.”
Uh, sous-sus? Have we not established that I am Henry With Four Classes? A sous-sus has you go into fifth (right foot in front of left, but pointing in opposite directions), then demi-plié, then relevé while you put your arms en haut.
Wildish saw me flail and suggested, “Okay, try going into arabesque instead.”
I did, to the best of my ability. Whereupon she deftly wrapped her hands around my waist with the amount of pressure you’d exert if you were pushing an elderly woman out of the way of an incoming bus but were anxious you were going to pierce her papery skin.
Ah. Got it.
I think.
* * *
I soldiered on. Shortly into the second pas class, I realized that the more my partner’s body resembled my own, the better I was able to gauge her verticality when en pointe. But whenever I worked with a tiny ballerina, or a willowy one: Topple City.
“It’s really not fair that you got stuck with me again,” I told a petite redhead when we were partnered up for the third time in two classes.
“No, no, it’s fine,” she countered. “Plus, it helps me to know what I need.”
Indeed, to a one, the ballerinas were all kind to and indulgent of me. Unlike the men, the women had all had to audition for the class, and many of them had been dancing since they were children, yet I detected none of the hauteur that we associate with the bunhead.
I was now taking Wildish’s Monday and Wednesday classes in addition to the pas workshop. Having thrown out my back three months earlier, I was surprised not to be experiencing any lumbar soreness or exhaustion as a result of all this ballet. My modest aching was confined to my feet, which throbbed gently—a lovely accompaniment to the more generalized bodily dread that my anxiety about the performance was visiting upon me.
“Don’t think of the presentation as a performance, it’s more like a lecture-demo,” Wildish announced at the second pas class. Nevertheless, was I crazy to think that I should be practicing a classical art in front of a paying audience after what would be only twelve lessons? I spent most of the second pas class waiting for Wildish to take me aside and gently give me the slip. The performance was to be one of eight or so six-minute-long presentations at the Peridance Capezio Center in the East Village, where Wildish also teaches, and presumably was meant to entice uninitiated students to take her class. But who in his right mind would look at my herky-jerky fumbling and think, I wanna dance just like that guy? I was the dancer equivalent of typos.
At the end of the third of my Absolute Beginners classes at Gibney, Wildish joked with a few of us, “Ballet is an addiction and I’m your dealer. I’m open 24/7.” Then she looked at me—at this point I’d taken seven of her classes in three weeks—and said, “Henry’s an addict now.”
“It’s true,” I said, nodding my head. “As Anna Pavlova said on her deathbed, ‘Prepare my swan costume.’ ”
Wildish cocked her head unsurely, as if she’d taken a bite of an omelette and encountered a raisin.
Then she smiled and enthused, “All right.”
* * *
A half hour later, at my third pas class, I told my partner that I was still having trouble determining the point at which a ballerina was perfectly vertical. I’d had a small amount of success in the second class, with a partner who was wearing dangly earrings; if the earrings weren’t oscillating, then I knew we were solid. But surely I couldn’t ask all the women to accessorize like Stevie Nicks for the performance.
Increasingly anxious about exposing my raw talent to strangers who had paid $20, I told one of the women, “I don’t care about looking like an ass at Peridance, but I wouldn’t want to make a partner look bad.”
“You won’t,” she said. “Kat won’t let you.”
“When I signed up for this class, I told Kat to tell me if I didn’t cut it, and she said, ‘You be the judge of that,’ which is slightly terrifying. That’s why I’m taking her Monday and Wednesday classes now—to be fair to you ladies. What’s that Thomas Jefferson quote about how a strong democracy relies on a well-informed electorate? I’m trying to be a well-informed electorate.”
“That’s great,” my partner said. “We’re all constantly improving.”
It was also during this third pas class that a fellow dancer referenced a group e-mail that Wildish’s assistant had sent out to all the pas performers. I’d not received it. My e-mail had been acting up that week, so I wasn’t sure if not having received the e-mail was a technical glitch, or whether it had been intentional. Maybe Wildish and Drake were sending me a message by not sending me a message? So I walked over to Wildish’s assistant and said, “I didn’t get that e-mail. If this is benign neglect, I totally understand.”
No, no, she assured me, and, whipping out her phone, proceeded to resend the e-mail, which I received. It explained that the last pas class would be our dress rehearsal, and was to be held in the space at Peridance where we’d be performing. Also: there was an optional but encouraged tech rehearsal on Friday night. And: the performances were Saturday and Sunday.
Two performances? Good God, I thought—I’m not only supposed to perform in front of a paying audience, but then I’m supposed to do it again? I remembered that, in the electric chair, Ethel Rosenberg required two zaps.
The next week, some thirty minutes before the rehearsal, five of us—three other students, Wildish, and I—went to get a bite to eat at one of those make-your-own-salad places near Peridance.
I’d been wanting to ask Wildish something. I looked at her as she tucked into her turkey salad and said, “A possibly ignorant question.”
“No question is ignorant.”
“How come, if ballerinas can pirouette and spin all on their own—if Swan Lake’s Odile can do thirty-two fouettés all on her own—then why does it get harder once you add a dude to the equation?”
Wildish grinned as she put down her plastic fork.
“Well, it depends who the dude is. He makes it easier for her if he’s not grabbing her. It’s like any relationship.”
“Huh. Right. I don’t know why I’m still finding it so difficult.”
“Ballet is hard, yeah?” Wildish cooed.
“It is.” I jested: “Maybe my homosexuality is getting in the way.”
“It has nothing to do with sexuality! Rather, it has everything to do with sexuality and . . .”
“. . . And nothing to do with orientation?” I offered.
“Exactly. For instance, all us ballerinas loved Marcelo Gomes as a partner,” she said, referring to the openly gay ABT former principal. “He’s like”—here she outstretched her arms elegantly—“ ‘Here is my shiny, new refrigerator!’ ”
Shiny new refrigerator: I liked that. Food for thought. Food storage for thought.
* * *
I had assumed that at the last rehearsal we would be running the ninety-second routine over and over so that muscle memory would kick in. I’m a slightly nervous performer even with activities I’ve done for years and am good at, so I think you’ll understand me when I say that my current abdominal swirling seemed especially jangly, eel-like. The best antidote would be rote repetition. Yes, I’d practiced by myself in my office and at home (while thinking ‘Shiny new refrigerator!,’ which had helped), but running the routine at least several times in the space where it was to be performed would be highly reassuring to me.
So you can imagine my surprise when, at this last rehearsal, it turned out that we spent only ten minutes on the routine. Instead, we worked first on entering briskly with a partner in that synchronized clippity-clop clippity-clop that motors ballet dancers out from the wings; seldom have I felt more like a sexy centaur. Then we practiced a move in which the ballerina goes up en pointe and the man holds her at twenty-degree angles to the left, right, and back. Shiny new refrigerator, with a tend
ency to lean.
As for the routine, it was gradually becoming clear to me that during the presentation, we might or might not actually run it, just as we might or might not do some of these new moves that we’d just learned. Add this to the fact that we might or might not dance with the people we like to dance with, and you get a giant neon sign in your head that reads, “Be prepared . . . to improvise!”
Then came the bombshell. In the last seven minutes of the rehearsal, Drake taught us the most difficult move yet, a “fish.” A feature of many pas de deux, a fish dive sees the man wrapping his arms around his partner’s legs so he can hold her up in the air while she’s in arabesque, and then tilting her floorward (in an even more challenging version, the man holds her in this position above his head).
“Jesus Christ! I can’t believe he’s teaching us this now!” I said with a huff to my partner, who smiled at me with the vague sympathy of a fellow shopper staring at an empty Power Rangers shelf the night before Christmas. She and I proceeded to do three fishes, each of which came out a little less accomplished than its predecessor. This led me to believe that I better tell Wildish and Drake that I had pulled my back out three months earlier, and thus was probably not a reliable fisherman.
I found Wildish over in the corner of the studio, fiddling with her camera. I told her about my back, and said I wasn’t sure I could be relied on to pull off a fish.
“That’s fine! You don’t have to do it,” she said, and then, responding to another student’s question, she flitted off.
You don’t have to do it. Meaning, “Please don’t”? Meaning, “Please don’t make me have to tell you not to show up on Saturday”? Meaning, “When the rest of the class does a fish, please go into a Monty Python routine and slap your partner with a haddock”?
I wasn’t sure. So I walked over to Wildish again and said, “So should I still come on Saturday if I can’t do a fish?”
Wildish turned to Drake, who was standing next to her, and said, “Jon, we have an injury here, so we just won’t have him do the fish, okay?”
