Dancing Through It: My Journey in the Ballet

by Ringer, Jenifer

  There was a moment of silence while all the dancers stayed on the floor, looking at Peter and wondering if they had heard him correctly. Did he mean from the beginning, full out, all the way through to the end? Apparently he did.

  A few dancers, thinking quicker than the rest of us, got up into their opening positions, grim-faced and determined. The rest of us scrambled to follow suit. And we did it all over again, disregarding our exhausted bodies. This was the first of many times I would have to grit my teeth and push my hurting, unresponsive body through a rehearsal or performance. It was my first inkling that in this career I would be sacrificing my body, willingly, for the approval of whoever happened to be watching, whether it be a ballet master or an audience. And pushing through pain or “sucking it up” and hiding feelings of tiredness or discomfort was expected and often rewarded. Showing pain or exhaustion was seen as a weakness, and there were plenty of other dancers to take your place if you were not strong enough to handle the workload.

  —

  For most young dancers who eventually get promoted, there is suddenly a year when a lot of chances come their way. That was how it happened for me in 1992. I was nineteen and had been in the company for close to three years. At that time, we were still calling in to what we termed “the tape”—a recorded phone message that listed the rehearsals for the day. As I listened to Rosemary read off who would be rehearsing which ballet in which studio at what time, I began to hear my name called for special roles more and more. I got to do some demi-soloist roles in Nutcracker and was a Fairy in Sleeping Beauty. It was usually a shock for me to hear my name called to a particular role in a ballet; my stomach would flip over, and I would immediately hang up and call the tape again to see if I’d heard correctly. Then I might call it one more time just for the thrill of it.

  One of the first featured roles I was selected for was in Jerome Robbins’s Interplay, a jazzy ballet that depicted youths romping around in the 1950s to an upbeat score by Morton Gould. Jerome Robbins was renowned as a director and choreographer for dance, theater, movies, and television and up until 1990 had shared the title of ballet master in chief with Peter Martins. His ballets made up a large part of the repertory of City Ballet, second only to George Balanchine’s. Just being called to rehearse Interplay at all was something—it had only four boys and four girls, and was filled with fun and lively dancing. Soloists and senior corps members usually danced it, so it was unusual for me to even be thought of as an understudy. But when I got to the studio for rehearsal the next day, I found out that I was to be learning the Pink Girl, the more romantic of the four girls in the ballet, who gets to dance a bluesy pas de deux in the third movement. It was the part I’d hoped for but hadn’t dared let myself expect. The only bad thing about the rehearsal was that I also learned that my best friend in the company, Yvonne Borree, would also be learning the part, and we were to switch off over the next weeks until the ballet master made his decision about who would go onstage when the performance season started.

  Yvonne and I had become friends my second year in the company. She was also in the corps but was one or two years ahead of me in seniority. One day I saw her doing something funny to make the other girls laugh and thought, I want to be her friend. She was the kind of girl I could be myself with, both serious and silly, and though she was also very talented and obviously an up-and-comer, we were never competitive with each other. We had a rich friendship outside of our company life and should have felt joyful to be sharing the same part. However, I felt uncomfortable with the situation we found ourselves in during the Interplay rehearsals; we both wanted to dance the part but we cared for each other and did not want the other to be hurt or disappointed. All we could do was dance our best and see what happened. Obviously, in a big ballet company there is going to be competition for roles, but I’d never been confronted with the situation of being pitted against a close friend.

  After almost two weeks of rehearsals, we finally came to the moment when the ballet master had to make his decision. He chose me to perform it with the first cast, or group of dancers, and Yvonne with the second cast. Now, though every performance is equally important and every performance is before roughly 2,500 people in the audience, there is still the feeling with many in the company that the first cast is the more prestigious because it gets the most attention and reviews.

  I couldn’t really feel that happy about being chosen first at the time because I was worried about Yvonne. In a wonderful demonstration of her ladylike character, Yvonne came directly over to me, hugged me sideways, and put her head on my shoulder. We stood there a little while until it was time to dance. She taught me a lot that day about how to handle certain aspects of our company life with grace and poise. There were plenty of times when our situations were reversed and I was second cast to her; indeed, she went on to be promoted to soloist long before me, but we continued to be each other’s friend and supporter throughout our careers and our friendship was never affected by the whims of the company.

  A short while after the Interplay experience, I called the tape one night from home and heard something that sent a lightning bolt through me. I was to learn the balcony pas de deux from Romeo and Juliet. After calling the tape four more times, I ran around my apartment just to get some energy out. Not only was it a nine-minute pas de deux, with just one man and one woman, a part that only principal dancers performed, but it was also my dream role. Some girls dream of dancing the Swan Queen or Princess Aurora. Not me. I’d always wanted to be Juliet. At the time, City Ballet didn’t have a full-length Romeo and Juliet in its repertory, though now it does. All we had back then was this simple and, to my mind, all too brief pas de deux. It had been choreographed by Sean Lavery, the former City Ballet principal dancer who was now a ballet master for the company.

  I was called to dance with Peter Boal, one of the most beautiful principal dancers in the company. I don’t think I had said much more to him than a passing greeting up to then, so I was terrified before my first rehearsal. He couldn’t have been nicer, though, and must have realized how nervous I was. Both he and Sean were very patient while teaching me the steps. Ballet is already a different language, but pas de deux work is yet another. A man and woman can speak to each other silently just in the way they give and take their weight or the direction they move their hands. Placement of the partners’ clasped hands can make the difference between staying on balance and falling over. It is very subtle, takes a long time to learn, and requires trust and consistency from both dancers. I was still acquiring the skills to partner well, and Sean’s choreography was difficult in places, but I slowly learned how to do it. Most difficult for me were the partnered turns in which I had to change my leg position from the front of my body to the back. I had a hard time controlling the force and speed of my turns as the balance of my body changed, and I didn’t know how to use Peter’s help to make the step work. Sean kept telling me, “Let Peter do all the work. He’s got you.”

  At the end of the scene, there was a kiss before Juliet went back up the stairs, but since Peter was such a gentleman, we never did it in the studio, much to my relief. I was nineteen and had never had any real kisses—just some toddler smooches in preschool. I had no idea what to do.

  Our stage rehearsal proved to be a little rocky. Suddenly confronted by sets, lights, and costumes, I felt as if all of my preparations had gone out the window. A giant winding staircase led up to my balcony, with no handrails. As the curtain went up, I was supposed to be hiding behind the balcony wall, but there was only a very narrow space that barely fit my feet and then dropped off nine feet to the stage below. Again, no handrails. The lighting was dark and dappled, surely a lovely effect from the audience, but it made me feel as if I were on a tilt. After peeking out from the balcony, I was supposed to glide down the stairs, looking passionately into Peter’s eyes and not at the dark, twisty steps. This all took several tries with much nervous laughter on my part; I just couldn�
�t stop picturing myself as a befuddled Juliet bumping down the stairs on my bottom during the performance.

  Before Peter exited at the end of the scene, I was supposed to wrap his thick velvet cape around his shoulders and lovingly send him on his way. My first try, I put it over his face. The next one, I strangled him. The next, it hit his stomach in a ball. I later got my first fan letter from a member of the New York City Ballet Guild who had been allowed to watch our stage rehearsal—a long explanation of how she had never laughed so hard during a rehearsal as when I was trying to get the cape right. Either I finally was able to do it or we just ran out of time, but eventually the rehearsal was over. Ironically, the rest of that day I had other rehearsals for other corps ballets that I was learning. That was just the way things were for young corps members; there were always five or six hours of rehearsals, no matter what you were performing that night. It was a good thing in a way, though. It kept the mental image of my tragic plummet from the balcony before a shocked audience of 2,500 people from repeatedly running through my mind.

  I was incredibly nervous the night I performed that first Romeo and Juliet, but incredibly joyful as well. The thought of dancing to Sergei Prokofiev’s stunning music was a thrill. Even though I was a lowly corps member, Peter Boal very sweetly gave me a single rose for a merde gift. I remember that first performance of the pas de deux as amazing—I felt like a figurehead on the prow of a ship. It wasn’t perfect—I think some things went wrong, but Peter and I were able to cover them up and give a good performance. I didn’t fall off the balcony, I didn’t bump down the steps, and I didn’t kill Peter with the cape. I had a blast. And there on the State Theater stage, at the age of nineteen, I had my first kiss.

  Chapter Four

  Darkling

  During the years of 1992 and 1993, the parts kept coming. I was just turning twenty, and though I was still only in the corps, I was getting featured roles in a variety of ballets by our three dominant choreographers: Jerome Robbins, the late George Balanchine, and Peter Martins. I was also being noticed by new choreographers and was given lead roles in two of the ballets for New York City Ballet’s inaugural Diamond Project, a festival for new choreography. My sister was still in the city, finishing up her master’s degree at the Manhattan School of Music, and my parents were leaving Washington for their new post in Europe.

  During this time, something about my eating was a little off. For some reason, I began to enjoy trying to eat as little as possible. I’m not sure what motivated me; I don’t believe I was trying to be thinner at that point. I think I was trying to have some control over my life, and one of the few areas in which I had full control over myself was in what food I put into my body.

  In some ways, appearance is everything in ballet. Dancers spend all day long in front of a mirror, never admiring but always looking for things that are wrong and need correcting. It is only natural that a dancer’s critical eye will turn not only to her balletic line but also to her physical body as well. We’re supposed to be thin, fit, honed. Some would argue that ballerinas should be painfully thin and actually bony, something associated with the Balanchine “look.” I was told by Dr. Linda Hamilton, a former City Ballet dancer herself, that a professional ballet dancer actually falls below the ideal weight for height recommended for a healthy person. In scientific terms, a ballet dancer’s body is that of an anorexic, unless she happens to be among the 4 percent of the population who are genetically programmed to be at this low weight without eating disorders. And in the ballet world, very few directors care how a dancer maintains her weight—as long as it looks good, the means justify the end.

  Discussions about health and wellness have begun to try to help young dancers traverse this demanding ballet world and retain a normalized view of themselves. When I started out, there was a silence about eating and weight; there was even a popular joke in the company where dancers got the nickname Anna for anorexic and claimed that they would have only a grape for dinner. Everyone would laugh, but there was a disquieting sense of approval of anyone who garnered the name Anna.

  In the early 1990s I was reaching a new peak in my career, but because of my demanding schedule at the company, my time was not my own. I woke up, danced all day, danced all night, went to sleep, and then did it all again. Often I was learning new and stressful parts during the day and dancing completely different featured parts at night. My body often hurt. I was thrilled with the progress I was making in the company, but unprepared for the pressures of performing new parts at a high level of excellence daily. Rather than gaining confidence, I began to feel more and more insecure. I couldn’t tell whether I was meeting up to everyone’s expectations, no matter how much positive attention I received. We got notes from the choreographers and reviews from the critics, bad and good, but the only comments that stuck in my head were the negative, critical ones, and those seemed to blot out any positive reinforcement that came my way.

  Reflecting now, I wonder whether if I’d stayed in a healthy Christian community I might have avoided all of the problems I went through. Around my family and Christian friends, I was Christian Jenny, but at the theater, I was Dancer Jenny, and everything I thought and felt about myself and the world was seen through a ballet-centric lens. My family was busy with their own lives, and I rarely saw my Christian friends because I thought I was too busy for church. My faith in God was emotional; it had always been easy for me to believe. Therefore, while I was young I just had a “warm fuzzy” with God and never developed the more intellectual thought processes that might have helped me cope with the pressures of the dance world. My entire identity was starting to be wrapped up in ballet.

  My way of responding to all of these confusing emotions was to limit my eating. Despite my grueling schedule and the huge number of calories I burned up in a day, I remember sometimes having just an apple for breakfast, an apple and yogurt for lunch, and then just some vegetables for dinner. Or sometimes I would eat nothing all day and then have a big, regular meal. I remember my friends marveling at my metabolism because we would go out to dinner and I would eat a large plate of pasta. But I never told them that I’d had nothing else to eat that day.

  I began to lose weight, and I grew very thin. Some fellow dancers spoke to me with concern. Stacey Calvert, a senior corps dancer who eventually became a soloist, took me aside during a Serenade rehearsal.

  “Jenny, you are looking awfully thin. I just wanted to make sure everything was all right,” she said, looking at me kindly.

  “Yes, I’m fine,” I responded brightly. “I’m just working so hard right now.”

  “Okay, but just be careful and try not to lose any more weight, all right?” she replied, with a pat on my arm.

  Her words made me feel good, however, instead of serving as a warning. Besides, management seemed very pleased with my appearance, and I was getting nothing but professional encouragement. They said nothing about my weight, but ballet masters seemed friendlier than usual, and I was constantly getting cast in better and better roles. The only thing different about me was my weight.

  In July 1993 I flew overseas with my mother as she joined my dad at his new post. Both of my parents would be working for the government overseas. I hadn’t spent much time with them since they’d left New York, and now I passed a couple of weeks with them. Since they were waiting to move into their new house, they were living in a very small temporary apartment, and I was allowed to use the one right next to them while I was visiting. I was on vacation, but I exercised every day and ate even less than I had before. I was losing more weight all the time and ate hardly anything, but my parents didn’t notice. They were working during the day and only saw me for dinner every night, and they were stressed with their own life transitions; they probably thought my very low weight was just a result of my job. I certainly didn’t tell them about my eating.

  We used to have twelve-week layoffs in the late summer and early fall. When I got back to
New York I spent the time taking ballet class, working on my Fordham summer course, and hanging out in the city. I knew that I’d been acting strangely with food, and with the pressures of professional ballet life relieved, I felt myself striving toward saner, safer ground. My eating normalized, and I regained some weight. The fall started up with another college course and rehearsals for City Ballet’s winter season.

  During the 1993 winter performance season, I began feeling uncomfortable in my body. I’d gained back all the weight I’d lost in my starvation period, and I didn’t like it. My curves were back, and they felt wrong. The ideal at City Ballet at the time seemed to be very thin, boyishly athletic bodies with not much evidence of a feminine shape. Now, looking back at images of myself during this time, I realize that I was actually at a very good dancing weight. But I’d gotten used to myself as a waif-thin anorexic, so I saw only an overweight dancer in the mirror. My self-image was skewed, and I didn’t look realistically at my body. I was beginning to identify myself as a pretty dancer who had areas of her body that were bigger than they should be. I focused too much on the parts of myself that I was dissatisfied with: my thighs and my hips.

  Two of the ballets I premiered at this time were ballets in which the costume was basically just a leotard and tights—no long, thick skirts for any excess flesh to hide beneath. The first was Jerome Robbins’s Moves, a ballet that has no music at all. It is a brilliant exercise of choreography in silence, where the movements of the dancers create the rhythms from which more dance emerges. It is largely an ensemble piece, but individuals are singled out in different sections. In my section, I had a brief pas de deux in which I portrayed an angry woman stamping her foot while her partner tried to soothe her.

  I was excited to do the ballet and loved all of the rehearsals, but when I was confronted with the costume rehearsal onstage, I was suddenly miserable and self-conscious. I remember standing in my leotard on one side of the stage, arms crossed over my body, silently wishing for a skirt or leg warmers or anything that might cover up the parts of my body I was unhappy with.