Dancing Through It: My Journey in the Ballet

by Ringer, Jenifer

  “The truth is, James, I’m . . . I’m really heavy right now. I’m overweight. I don’t think you are going to want to dance with me. I think you should just get someone else. But I so appreciate you asking me to do it, and I really thank you.”

  There was a pause that I hoped would lead to the end of the conversation so that I could get off the phone as quickly as possible. Then James spoke.

  “Jen, I don’t care about your weight. I just want to dance with you. Let’s do the gig. I really think it would be fun.”

  I was stunned by his response. And touched. No one from the City Ballet world had ever told me that my weight didn’t matter to them. No one else had been able to get past the fact that I was heavy. Feeling both confused and pleased, I agreed to give it a try and meet with James to rehearse.

  I was extremely nervous for our first rehearsal. Now that there was a prospect of performing again, I realized how much I wanted to be back onstage. What if James saw me and changed his mind? I was at least twenty pounds overweight for a ballet dancer. I wasn’t sure how much I actually weighed because I’d thrown my scale away in an effort to become less obsessed with it. But I knew I was heavy. I told myself that I would be all right if James wanted to do the gig with someone else. I was stronger now and would not fall apart if James decided to go with another dancer. I faced my fears and gave it a chance.

  The rehearsal went surprisingly well. James seemed pleased to see me and had almost no trouble in the partnering sections. He never once gave my body a second look. I honestly don’t remember many details from that rehearsal or any of the subsequent ones because I think I was in a very strange emotional state for them; I was anxious and excited and battling all of my habitual insecurities with the new weapons of God-centered identity that I was acquiring. The only choreographic concession we had to make to my weight was during the sustained grand jeté lifts, where the Cavalier holds the Sugar Plum aloft for three slow counts of music. James, though one of the strongest male partners in City Ballet, couldn’t keep me in the air for that long, and we changed it to a quick throw of a lift that lasted only one count. We would then run into an arabesque and continue into the regular dip that followed.

  I was slightly mortified by this, but not surprised. In fact, I was relieved that we changed the step a little so that I didn’t have to feel guilty about James struggling to hold me in the air.

  Later, James told me that he believes God gave him a different way of seeing me. To James, I hardly appeared overweight, and he just saw a pretty girl with whom he liked to dance. He thought that the reason we couldn’t do the proper grand jeté lifts was that he was a little out of shape and not as strong as usual. He always prided himself on his strength and his ability to lift any girl over his head; he figured that since it was the beginning of the season, he was just a little weaker than normal.

  James and I fit rehearsals in wherever we could between our two conflicting schedules. I was really enjoying the process and was having fun spending time with James again. But reality hit when James told me that I needed to get a tutu. Somehow I’d completely forgotten the important detail that I would need a costume. That meant I would have to approach City Ballet’s costume department to ask for a rental.

  I worked up my courage and called Dorothy Cummings, the ladies’ wardrobe mistress. She and her assistant, Norma Atrides, were warm, motherly women who took on the task of making sure the women of City Ballet were properly attired for the stage. They also handled costume rentals when dancers went out on independent gigs. Dotty was happy to hear from me, and we set up an appointment to meet at the theater and find me a tutu.

  I hadn’t been to the theater since the end of the spring season, and it was strange to go in knowing that I no longer worked there. The building still seemed oppressive to me, but I reminded myself that I was there for my own purposes and that I was no longer subject to the company’s judgment.

  Dotty greeted me with a warm hug and twinkles in her big brown eyes.

  “Let’s get you fixed up, all righty?” she said in her cheerful British accent.

  I followed Dotty to “the pit” where they kept the costumes for rent. We tried on tutu after tutu. None of them fit me. Some would not go past my hips, but those that did were too tight around my torso. I was soon close to tears.

  Dotty stayed calm and matter-of-fact. “There is one last costume we can try,” she said. “It isn’t a tutu but has a romantic tulle skirt that comes down to your knees. I think it could be very pretty. And everything on the bodice is made of stretchy material.”

  I agreed to try it on, not knowing what I would do if this one didn’t fit me either. I imagined the phone call I would make to James, telling him that he would have to get a different partner after all. Blessedly, this costume fit me, and the mirror showed that it was even somewhat flattering. Dotty was encouraging and said she thought it was lovely.

  Grateful for her gentleness, I hugged Dotty. I couldn’t tell her how much her kindness meant to me; no words would come out. I accepted the costume and went home, hoping that I would still look enough like a Sugar Plum Fairy to satisfy both James and the owners of the school we were performing with.

  After a few more days of rehearsing, all too soon it was time to travel up to New Paltz, New York, for our gig. James and I would be taking the train together and were getting there the night before our first performance, which was an early-morning school performance. During the train ride James and I chatted and teased each other intermittently while I did some homework; I was taking a drawing elective at Fordham and had brought my sketchpad so that I could meet the course requirement of drawings for the semester, which ended the next week. I did self-portraits using my reflection in the train window and even convinced James to let me do his profile. James made up a silly train song and serenaded me from time to time.

  We arrived in New Paltz and Peter Naumann, co-owner of the New Paltz School of Ballet along with his wife, Lisa, picked us up. Peter and Lisa were former City Ballet dancers who had moved upstate with their children when they retired from dance; they had opened the ballet school in a studio attached to their home. James and I would be staying with them and their two young boys for the weekend.

  Peter and Lisa were both very laid back and friendly and welcomed James and me into their home as if we were family. James had probably told them that I’d left the company, but they didn’t even appear to notice my weight, and happily gave us a tour of the town before showing us around their house. It was the typical home of a family with young children: decorated for adults but with random toys poking out of every crevice. There was a black Labrador named Chance that rang some bells with his nose when he wanted to go outside. There was a new gray kitten plopping and sliding on the slippery hardwood floors. And in young Trevor’s and Carl’s rooms, where James and I would be sleeping, the boys’ personal pets resided. I was given the choice of whether I would sleep with the snake or the iguana. I chose the iguana.

  After James and I got settled, we went back out into the living room to chat with Peter and Lisa. They told us hilarious stories of their days in City Ballet, which had overlapped with our own early years in the company, and we stayed up much later than we should have, given that we had an early-morning performance the next day. Then somehow the conversations shifted to the costume I’d brought to wear in the performance.

  “Could we see the tutu you brought for the shows?” Peter gently asked. “James said it was a little different.”

  “Sure,” I replied, feeling dread drop into my stomach. I was already here, and there was nothing anyone could do at this point, but how awful would it be if I had to do the next six shows knowing that Peter and Lisa were disappointed.

  I went into the Iguana Room, as I’d begun to think of it, found my costume, and brought it back out into the living room. Peter and Lisa looked at it seriously, and I could tell they were not thrilled with it. Wh
at is a Sugar Plum Fairy without a real tutu?

  “Jenny,” Lisa said with a little smile, “when we first came out here and opened our studio, I danced the Sugar Plum Fairy for our production. I was pregnant with Trevor at the time. My mother, who makes beautiful costumes, made me a tutu and it is really pretty. Would you feel like trying it on, just to see if it would work?”

  Of course I said yes. There was nothing else to say. But inside I was mortified. They were asking me to wear a tutu that a pregnant woman had danced in because I couldn’t fit into one that a real dancer would wear. I was so embarrassed. What must they think of me? And why did this have to happen in front of James? At the same time, Peter and Lisa were so considerate in the way they were approaching me. They were looking at me not with disgust but with understanding. They were treating me as a human being who had value to them outside of being their Sugar Plum Fairy. And I wanted them to be happy.

  Lisa retrieved the tutu, and it really was beautiful. I took it back to my room to try it on, hoping fervently that it would fit. How terrible it would be if I were even too big for that one! I put it on, and like a miracle, it fit perfectly.

  As I looked into the mirror, I forgot that I was wearing a maternity tutu. The tutu was dark pink, professionally made, flattering, and pretty, with beautiful small details. I felt comfortable in it because it fit me so well, and I felt beautiful. I felt like a ballerina. I realized that this was something only God could have done. How else would a perfectly fitting tutu have been waiting for me here in New Paltz, ready to be worn tomorrow with no alterations? God was taking me on some kind of journey, not revealing the whole path, but showing His love for me in tiny steps along the way. I felt a little bit of healing slip into my soul in the Iguana Room that night.

  I went back out into the living room, feeling shy about showing myself in the tutu and trying not to look too happy about it. It occurred to me that even if I thought I looked beautiful in it, they might not, and they might still want me to wear the other costume. But when I entered the room, Peter gave me a jovial smile, and Lisa laughed and clapped with happiness.

  James, looking at me with a quiet smile on his face, allowed Peter and Lisa to exclaim their delight before he looked me seriously in the eyes and said, “Jen, you look beautiful.”

  I didn’t sleep well that night. Part of the reason was nerves and excitement for the school performance in the morning. The other reason was the iguana. I couldn’t figure out how to turn the light out in his aquarium, and he stared at me with at least one eye all night long. From time to time he would suddenly spasm his body in his cage, changing his position so that he could focus his head on me from a different angle. It was disconcerting, and when I did sleep, I had weird dreams. I wondered how any child could possibly sleep in that room.

  The next morning, we awoke to a blizzard. It was not yet dawn, but the windows showed drifts of white deepening inexorably with the snow falling from the sky. Peter and Lisa were on the phone trying to figure out what this might mean for our school performances; they finally just turned on the local news to watch for school cancellations.

  The house was in the state of chaos that is normal in a household of two busy parents with young children. The boys were running around in their pajamas with their hair sticking up in funny directions. Lisa was making them breakfast while Peter drank from a mug of coffee, holding the phone to his ear. Chance was picking the kitten up in his mouth and then slinging it down the hallway, an activity that apparently agreed with the kitten. It made an impression on me to see two people from the ballet world living such a normal, love-filled life.

  James and I drank coffee and waited to see what the day would hold for us. James was looking a little grumpy, probably due to the fact that I’d opened his bedroom door to wake him up, letting the dog run in and give James a very enthusiastic greeting. I really wanted to play with the kitten, so I went to find it. Chance had just bowled him down the hallway again, so I walked over to the sprawled-out bundle of gray fur and picked him up.

  His fur was stiff and matted, and when I brought him closer to my face, I realized he was covered in feces. I made a face and abruptly put him down, heading for the bathroom to wash my hands. Peter saw me.

  “Aw, no, is he covered in poop again?” he asked. Then he yelled, “Chance! Outside!”

  Apparently Chance liked to eat from the kitten’s litter box. The resulting slobber, which now covered the kitten’s fur, was pretty gross.

  James looked at me darkly from the kitchen. “Yeah, Chance licked me this morning when you woke me up. Thanks.” Ah, that explained his grumpiness.

  Soon we learned that school had been canceled. Due to the storm, there would be no performances that day, and so we had a whole day to ourselves. One day stretched into two, as the storm didn’t slow down. James and I spent the whole time together.

  We spent part of these days in the ballet studio connected to the Naumanns’ house, giving ourselves a ballet class and then rehearsing Nutcracker to keep up our stamina. But mostly we just messed around. We watched movies on television. We played with Carl and Trevor. Peter and Lisa took us up to a lodge on the top of Mohonk Mountain for dinner one night with the boys. I drew every living creature in the house for my art class. James laughed in disbelief at my regular clumsiness, learning as my family already knew that I was one of those walking oxymorons called Klutzy Ballerinas. We listened to more City Ballet stories from Peter and Lisa. We talked.

  I remember one conversation in particular. I was doing some homework in my room when James came in. After a couple of minutes of casual conversation, James started asking some curiously personal questions.

  “So, how old are you now?” he asked.

  “Twenty-four.”

  “When do you see yourself getting married?”

  What? Well, actually I’d always thought I would be married by the age of twenty-four, but I didn’t want to tell him that.

  “I suppose before I turn thirty,” I said.

  “Do you think you want to have kids?” James asked. The iguana cocked its head at me, as if he, too, were wondering why James was grilling me about marriage and children.

  “Yes, I would like to have children,” I told James cautiously.

  “Would you ever date a dancer?” he then asked. Many dancers have rules about whether or not they would go out with another dancer.

  “Well,” I said, wanting to be truthful, “I used to swear I would never date a dancer.” My life had already been consumed by ballet—I didn’t want to also have my date talking ballet nonstop. “But now,” I said, “I’m open to it.”

  After every question, James would nod and then go to the next one, continuing in this vein for a while. I knew there was something on the line, but couldn’t tell exactly what it was. During all of the rehearsals for these Nutcracker performances, I’d realized my crush on him was back full force, but it was still difficult for me to tell how he felt about me. I felt a tension in the air though, and even wondered if he might try to kiss me right there in the Iguana Room.

  “I’ve been thinking a lot about things,” James told me. “I’m twenty-seven now, and I’m thinking I want to get married before I turn thirty. My other goal is to keep my hair until I’m forty,” he added, laughing.

  The conversation moved on to other subjects, and finally James left, saying he knew I had homework to do. I gazed at the iguana and the iguana gazed back. No wisdom from him anyway. I had no idea whether the conversation meant nothing or a great deal. Confused but a little hopeful, I decided not to put too much thought into it and just enjoy the weekend.

  Because of the blizzard, even our regular performances were at risk of being canceled. But we finally got the go-ahead and drove to the theater for our first matinee. I was almost sorry to be returning to the “work” aspect of the weekend. I’d been having such a good time with James and the Naumanns that it felt str
ange to have to get down to the business of performing. And this would be my first time back onstage since the gig right after I was let go.

  James and I didn’t go onstage until the second act of The Nutcracker, so we put on our stage makeup and warmed our bodies up during the first act. We were in a very quaint old theater that was supposedly the “oldest hemp house in New York.” A hemp house is a theater where scenery is hung on hemp ropes that the stage crew can pull on and tie off, much like sailors, to raise and lower scenery for different acts. Since the theater was so small, James and I shared a dressing room underneath the stage, going into the bathroom when we needed to change.

  At intermission, I put on my tutu and went up onto the stage to warm up some more in my pointe shoes. I felt self-conscious and nervous and worried not only about how I looked but also about how the performance itself would go.

  But then two things happened. First, I remembered that God had a plan for me and that I was doing these performances for a reason. There was no need for me to be afraid; I should accept this opportunity as a gift. I might never dance onstage again, and this weekend was like a little last blessing and a way to find some positive closure to my dancing career.

  The second thing that happened was that the children performing from the ballet school arrived onstage to prepare for their entrances.

  “Oh, it’s the Sugar Plum Fairy!” they gasped with delight.

  They surrounded me, exclaiming over my tutu and asking me a million questions. It came to me then that this performance was not about me at all; it was about the children and the audience and bringing the magical beauty of ballet to life for the watchers’ imaginations. I put aside my self-centered worries and told myself to just enjoy giving a gift of dance to these children and their parents.