Dancing Through It: My Journey in the Ballet

by Ringer, Jenifer

  A senior corps member who was also in the ballet, Sean Savoye, must have noticed something off in my demeanor. He came up to me and looked me in the eyes for a moment.

  “I know what you are thinking,” he said quietly, “and I want you to know that you look great. You look beautiful, and you have nothing to feel bad about.”

  Then he walked away. I was shocked that he had been able to read me so easily, and very touched by his sensitivity. And he did give me the courage to go through with the rehearsals and performances. I thought, Maybe I’m imagining things. Maybe I actually am all right.

  The second ballet with a minimal costume was George Balanchine’s Ivesiana, choreographed in 1954 and set to the sometimes disconcerting music of Charles Ives. This ballet is divided into dramatic sections like acts, and is almost more of a theater piece, or an imaginative exploration of different dream states through dance, than it is a fully choreographed ballet. I portrayed a woman, seemingly blind, who wanders through a forest and then is attacked by a stranger. My costume was a leotard with a short, sheer skirt, and we were reusing costumes previous dancers had worn years ago. When we got to the stage rehearsal, we discovered that the skirt was too short for my long-waisted body; it didn’t even cover the bottom of my rear.

  I had to go out and do the rehearsal anyway, feeling exposed and knowing that the costume was horribly unflattering. Peter came onstage, obviously displeased with the costume, and questioned the costume mistress about it. Her response was that the costume was what it was, and nothing could be done about it at this late notice. The performance was that night. Peter was angry, and I couldn’t tell if it was because of the costume or because of how I looked in the costume. I immediately assumed that it was because of my body and felt terrible.

  I tried to solve the problem of my body with a classic cycle of binge and starve. I fell into a pattern where I would eat very little for days and then suddenly let go like a snapped rubber band and eat whatever I wanted. My weight began to fluctuate subtly, going up and down depending on what I ate and how hard I was dancing. Nothing was right. I constantly felt insecure about how I looked and danced. I couldn’t remain confident in myself for long, and my eating was about to have a terrible effect not just on my psyche but on my career.

  I believe that it was during this year that I got my first gentle suggestion that I lose weight. I don’t even remember who said it or what was said to me, but the realization that the company wasn’t pleased with my appearance dramatically changed the way I thought. No longer was I just afraid that management might be unhappy with me; now I knew that they were not happy with how I looked, and my insecurity changed into shame and self-hatred. How could I, the perfect, straight-A, always smiling and well-spoken daughter of the South have allowed myself to be chastised for something as simple to control as my weight? My solution: I stopped eating again.

  There was no one I wanted to turn to for help. I could admit my failure to no one. Throughout my whole life, I’d been able to find guidance and strength in prayer, but God was not in my life at this point. I’d stopped going to church. I just didn’t have the time or the energy. Religion seemed to have no place in my new world; I still prayed, but only in moments of extreme need. It was as if God were up on my shelf and I would pull Him down when I needed His help, only to put Him right back into His spot again when I felt strong enough to get going on my own.

  All during the season of 1994 I was given more and more demanding corps roles, along with bigger featured parts. I didn’t get any more of those “hints” from the company, but my eating was still wacky and out of control, veering between under- and overeating. For the most part, I managed to stay slim enough that I figured I was on safe ground—or at least could get away with my erratic habits. I was getting noticed in the press and did my first Sugar Plum Fairy in December of 1994, with Peter Boal as my cavalier. I was singled out for principal roles both in the regular repertory and when new choreographers came to work with the company. Peter even used me as the soloist girl in his new work that season. I was overworked and overtired and overstressed, thrilled with how my career was going but underneath still unsure of myself. I had no self-confidence but relied solely on others’ approval to feel that I was doing okay. An approving comment would only last me a short time before I was in need of another one. If only I was promoted to soloist—the rank in between corps and principal—then I would be happy, I thought. Soloists are set apart from the corps and given the company’s official stamp of approval. Even better, they get a pay raise. If the company made me a soloist, I would know that I was okay. Then I could relax. Then I would be normal.

  In January 1995 we were putting the Balanchine ballet Harlequinade onstage. I was an understudy for the soloist girl, the character of Pirouette. I hadn’t been cast to dance it that season, but I knew the part cold because I’d been there when they were teaching the steps to Yvonne, who would be dancing the role. Even though it was understood that understudies should watch the stage rehearsals to make sure nothing went wrong, I was feeling exhausted and burned out, and I went back to my apartment to rest instead.

  A few hours later, I got a phone call from Peter Martins. This wasn’t normal, and I knew something was up. Had I royally screwed up by not going to the stage rehearsal? It was probably one of the few times I had ever not followed the rules, and it would be ironic if I ended up getting in trouble for it.

  “Hello, Jenny,” he said.

  “Hi,” I said, cautiously.

  “Weren’t you supposed to be understudying Harlequinade?”

  I stammered something about being tired and knowing it really well and not thinking it would matter if I was at the stage rehearsal or not.

  “Well, I was looking for you,” Peter said.

  “Oh . . . ,” I replied, feeling awkward.

  “I wanted to tell you I was promoting you to soloist.”

  And that was that. In a very anticlimactic way, I had gotten the promotion I was longing for. I gushed my thanks and didn’t really know what else to say. We got off the phone fairly quickly, and I was left alone in my apartment, thrilled but oddly at loose ends as to what to do with myself or even how to feel. This was the moment a switch was supposed to go off, turning me into a happy and confident person who was no longer obsessed with compulsive eating. But I was still the same person, with the same fears—and the same solution. I went out that night and bought a box of cookies and a pint of ice cream and ate all of it.

  Over the next year I dug myself further into my hole. I defined the binge-and-purge mentality; I would grossly overeat at times, and then not eat at all for a period. I never threw up, though I tried, so I would take extra ballet classes to compensate for my overeating. I couldn’t seem to achieve a normal way of putting nutrition into my body. But like most people with compulsive eating problems, I worked extra hard at keeping it all a giant secret, locked away inside my own apartment and my own head. I was determined to present a perfect façade; I assumed that if I told no one my problem, then no one would ever know. When I went grocery shopping, it was furtively and with shame, hoping that no one would see the items I put in my basket.

  Meanwhile, my career was going wonderfully. This of course only accelerated my quest to hide my disorders behind a happy, beautiful shell. At the beginning of the year I was working closely with Jerome Robbins on his hilarious spoof ballet The Concert as well as the debut City Ballet cast of 2 and 3 Part Inventions, which Jerry had originally choreographed on students from SAB. I was sought after by new choreographers and featured in articles in Time magazine and the New York Times.

  Despite all the accolades, my self-confidence fell lower every time I looked in the mirror—and in the ballet world, there are mirrors everywhere. I constantly felt like my body was horrible, and was particularly ashamed of my thighs. I remember a stage rehearsal for a new Kevin O’Day ballet called Huoah where I sobbed in the wings. The costume w
as a short skirt with no tights, and the two other women in the piece were Wendy Whelan and Stacey Calvert, two ladies who were all beautiful muscles and angles. I looked at my own softer body and felt completely inadequate.

  I stood in the wings, gasping and sniffing as I tried not to cry.

  Wendy took my shoulder. “Jenny, what’s wrong?”

  “I . . . I just feel awful in this costume,” I choked out.

  “Why, girl?” asked Stacey, adopting a lighter tone to try to cheer me up.

  “I just . . . I just don’t think my . . . my body looks good in it. It’s not right for it,” I finally managed.

  “No, Jenny. You look beautiful,” said Wendy.

  “Seriously, Jenny,” added Stacey. “You have such a wonderful feminine body. You should be proud of it. Lots of us wish we had a body like yours!”

  But I couldn’t or wouldn’t let myself believe it. Much of my dancing began to take on a frantic edge; I simply wasn’t comfortable in my own skin.

  On another occasion, during a second performance of Peter Martins’s Sinfonia, everything seemed to go wrong for my three fellow dancers and me. We were young and inexperienced to have principal roles, especially those with such tricky partnering as a Martins ballet, and we didn’t realize that if a week or two passed in between performances of a certain ballet, we needed to take it upon ourselves to rehearse with each other, even if a ballet master didn’t call a rehearsal. Several key partnering moves went badly, and the timing between the four of us was way off. After the performance, Peter was furious with us and told us we were irresponsible. It was terribly upsetting to be chastised by the artistic director, but what I secretly believed was that he was actually unhappy with how I’d looked in the short white costume, and upset with me because of my weight. I completely ignored the fact that I’d indeed made a mistake by not maintaining the ballet with extra rehearsals. I couldn’t seem to stop obsessing about my appearance.

  Gradually my behavior unraveled to the point where I was no longer cycling between eating and starving. I was almost continually overeating, and I started to gain weight. In a desperate effort to head off the pounds, I joined a gym and would do long, intense workouts every day in addition to my regular dancing schedule to compensate for the amount of food I consumed every night. I told no one about my struggles. When I went food shopping, I would go to different stores so the cashiers wouldn’t see the quantity of foods I was buying every day. If I saw someone I knew in a store or deli, I would run out before they could see me. If I saw someone on my way home from the store, I would try to hide the contents of my bags so they wouldn’t see the cookies and cheese and ice cream in my shopping bags.

  In 1996 I was selected to be part of a new cast of The Waltz Project, a ballet by Peter Martins for four couples dancing to music by a variety of American composers. It was a jazzy, sexy ballet, and despite my personal struggles, I was excited about being called, especially when I learned I would be doing the part of the girl who dances the funny “Sneaker Pas.” In the middle of the ballet, I would actually change into running shoes for one of my dances. My partner was to be James Fayette, a corps dancer whom I enjoyed dancing with and who I knew was a great partner.

  Despite the desperate emotions inside me, I did manage to enjoy a lot of the rehearsals for the ballet. The ballet mistress for The Waltz Project was Suzy Hendl, my favorite coach to work with. She knew how to bring the “ballerina” out of a dancer and could always inspire me to dance better. It was wonderful to work with her, and I loved dancing with James. Since he was such a good partner, I always felt secure and knew I didn’t have to worry about things going wrong. However, despite how strong he was, I didn’t like to practice the lifts with him; I felt that I was too heavy and maybe hard to lift. I kept trying to avoid the lifts, or at least avoid doing them repeatedly. After another day of me saying, “You don’t have to do this lift,” James stopped the rehearsal.

  “Stop saying that. I want to do this lift. It’s easy with you. You are a piece of cake. Don’t worry about it,” he said.

  He made me feel better, and I stopped asking him not to lift me, but I still had anxiety about my body. Peter came in for a couple of studio rehearsals, since we were a new cast. He is great to work with in the studio and gets very excited when new dancers are learning the choreography for the first time. He was also known as one of the best partners in the world while he was dancing, so he is particularly good at coaching difficult pas de deux work. Since his choreography for The Waltz Project contains a lot of difficult partnering, we definitely needed him for some of the moves.

  Our rehearsal for Peter was going great until he decided to actually do a lift with me in order to show James how to do it. Mortified, I tried desperately to get out of it.

  “Come and show me what position you are in,” Peter said to me.

  I indicated the position loosely, not close enough that Peter could actually get a good grip on me. I was hoping Peter would just show James how to place his hands properly.

  But Peter stepped closer. I just stood there, not preparing to jump as I would have if I were actually going to be lifted.

  Peter met my eyes in the mirror. “Go on,” he said. “Do it.”

  Cringing inside, I did it. Peter had to pick me up and flip me completely around head over heels before putting me back on the ground. After he had done it, I felt myself blushing and couldn’t think straight the rest of the rehearsal.

  I wondered, Had I felt heavy? Did my body seem squishy? Did he suddenly and magically know I was overeating every night with no self-control? It was almost as if I had entered a paranoid state where I thought he could read my mind and see my shameful acts. Obviously, in my mind, I’d given him way too much power over me. I ran home after rehearsal and binged again.

  The rehearsal weeks went by, and then, right before casting was due to go up, I saw a strange rehearsal on the schedule. I was called, by myself, for a rehearsal from six to six thirty in the Practice Room, our smaller studio. The rehearsal was strange for a couple of reasons. I never rehearsed The Waltz Project by myself; since I hardly danced a step in my part alone, I always needed my partner with me. And the company rarely rehearsed after six unless there was an emergency. I got a sinking feeling in my stomach.

  That night, Suzy called me. Her tone was kind, and she seemed reluctant to say what she had to say. “Peter wants you to come to the rehearsal in costume. He is concerned you are going to be too heavy and not look your best if he casts you.”

  I was devastated. I had been stressing about the costume already. It was just a unitard and a skirt, and I knew I was going to feel very exposed. But I didn’t think my weight was at the point where such an extreme measure needed to be taken. This was the first time my weight was directly affecting my casting. It felt humiliating. I knew the entire company must know that something was going on with me due to the weird rehearsal on the schedule.

  I started crying and refused. It was just too mortifying to think of walking through the theater with my costume on just to be examined and judged.

  “Suzy,” I said finally, “I would rather not do the ballet at all than have to show myself in the Practice Room like that.” We ended the call.

  I’m not sure what transpired after that. Perhaps they relented. Maybe they decided to take a chance on me. But casting went up, and my name was on it to dance in The Waltz Project. This sent me into a frenzy of working out, and I tried desperately to stop eating. I would starve myself for a day or two and then fall apart and binge. I would go to the gym for hours on end and then dance a full day of rehearsals. I prayed, but I did not feel like God was listening.

  I felt stiff and worried during the stage rehearsal one week later and wondered if everyone was staring in horror at my body. Afterward, I went home and frantically went through Pilates exercises in my living room. I felt something grab in my back, but kept going. I thought maybe some
exercise would miraculously thin out my legs before that night’s show.

  When I finally got out onstage to perform The Waltz Project, I felt like two people. There was the smaller, much diminished side of me that was enjoying the performance, loving dancing on the stage in a fun ballet with a great partner. The larger, monstrous side of me was consumed with anxiety about what my body looked like, what angle would be the best to present to the audience so that I would look the thinnest, and what I could do to look skinny to the dancers watching from the wings. Ultimately, during the finale of the ballet, my back grabbed again, but this time the pain couldn’t be ignored. I made it through the rest of the finale, but could hardly do the bows. It hurt to bend forward in a curtsy.

  Waiting at the elevator to the dressing rooms with James, I pressed my back flat against the wall and bent my knees. I was scared. I looked at James.

  “I think I hurt my back,” I said calmly. I couldn’t let the fear show.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. You should ice it,” he replied, not very concerned because I hadn’t sounded worried.

  I walked slowly to my dressing room and removed my makeup. I told Yvonne that I thought something was wrong with my back. When I went to put on my coat to go home, I froze with one arm in the sleeve. Yvonne met my eyes.

  “Do you need help?” she asked with growing concern. She helped me put my coat on. I took a cab home and ate dinner lying down. The next morning, I couldn’t walk.

  I’d had injuries on my feet before—breaks and sprains—but had never hurt my back. For all dancers and athletes, a back injury stirs up a primal fear, maybe because the primitive part of our brain knows that the spinal cord is crucial. I felt very afraid when I called the physical therapist to ask if she could see me. But overwhelming that fear was a sense of relief. I’d been given a break, and a reprieve. I didn’t have to go back into the theater and face my problems. At least not for a while.