Dancing Through It: My Journey in the Ballet

by Ringer, Jenifer

  During the day when I’m not performing, I like to keep the table in front of the mirror clear so that I can more easily sew pointe shoes; yes, we all have to maintain and repair our own shoes, even the principal dancers. I’ve gotten my shoe-sewing time down to an efficient seven minutes—ribbons, elastics, and all—after so many years of practice. Sometimes I read or even pull out a computer during my downtime. But when I’m getting ready for a performance, I pull down the containers of makeup and hair stuff so that everything will be in easy reach once I finally sit down in front of the mirror.

  I always start with my stage makeup, and if I’m going at my usual leisurely pace, it takes me about thirty minutes to accomplish it all. First I apply a concealer stick over my entire face. This helps my base stay on when I start sweating. After the concealer comes a thick stage base that is a shade lighter than my normal skin tone. Our makeup adviser told me that this helps me to look ethereal and otherworldly, not my usual look. The base comes in flat cakes, and I use a wet sponge to get it from the disk and onto my face. I have to apply it fairly thickly because my skin easily flushes, and the second I exert any energy, I get red in the face. No one wants to see a sweaty, red-faced ballerina.

  After the base comes some loose powder. I use yellow powder because of my skin tone and because I read in some magazine that movie stars use yellow powder to look younger and more vibrant. I then apply two colors of blush to shade and contour my face and then extend my eyebrows slightly with an eyebrow pencil. I don’t have to do anything else to my eyebrows because God blessed me with the Ringer gene for bushy black brows. Next come my eyes. I put a purplish eye shadow in the middle of my eyelid following the line of my eye socket and then extend it out toward my temple about a half inch. I then line the top of my eyelid with a black pencil, blending it up and out at the outer corner, kind of like cat eyes. Then I partially line my bottom lid with a brown pencil, not closing the eye at the outer corner but again extending the line straight out. I put some eye shadow over that lower line to make it look softer.

  Next comes the false eyelashes, and at City Ballet we like our lashes huge. I enjoy wearing mine as big as I can without looking ridiculous. We apply them directly to our lashes in order to look as doe-eyed as possible. I always did like to dress up, and stage makeup still gives me the opportunity to look like a serene princess even though underneath the paint my face might show the exhaustion of work or of being up all night with a sick child. Stage makeup serves two purposes: it heightens, glamorizes, and enlarges our features so that audience members at the back of the house can still see our faces under the intensely bright stage lights, and it hides the fact that we’re working so hard onstage that our faces are flushed and sweaty.

  The last thing I apply is my lipstick, usually something very red unless I’m doing a more muted ballet such as Dances at a Gathering. Each ballerina makes her own makeup choices and has her own way of doing her makeup that makes her feel beautiful and confident. And after finishing my makeup, I’m ready to start taming my hair.

  My hair and I have been battling since I started wanting to fix my hair myself like a big girl. Though my hair isn’t particularly thick, it is somewhere between wavy and curly, and depending on the meteorological circumstances, it can be downright wild and frizzy. It varies in length; I got my first short haircut in the 1980s when I was eleven or twelve, and I remember the enormous quantity of hairspray necessary to make my “wings” stay in place. I used to have to walk with my face constantly pointed into the wind, no matter which way my feet were pointing, because if the wind blew from behind me my wings would stick out like elephant ears.

  I had long hair past my shoulders for my first years in the company, but constantly slicking it back into a bun started to do a lot of damage. I began to trim it shorter and shorter until finally one day I chopped it all off to the nape of my neck. I did it at the beginning of a twelve-week layoff so that it would grow back some before I began performing again. Though the only real requirement from the company is that we’re able to slick our hair back into a bun somehow, I think management would probably prefer that their ballerinas all have long hair. But I loved the short hair. I think I loved it because it was a small rebellion against the ballerina type. I longed for an identity separate from being a ballerina and didn’t want to walk down the sidewalk instantly recognizable as a dancer because of my long, untrimmed locks and turned-out walk. There were so many things I had to conform to as a dancer and so many rules I had to follow. I wanted to be able to control my own hair.

  Even when I had long hair, a good stage hairdo was a problem for me. I could make a very nice bun and a beautiful French twist. That wasn’t my issue. The trick was getting all of the little frizzies on the sides and top and back of my head to lie down flat and stay there. My willowy ballerina friends with their pliable, cooperative straight hair would brush their hair a bit, bend over to sweep the glossy strands into a ponytail, and then flip back up to reveal a flat, smooth, perfectly executed bun. They would then squirt just a bit of hair spray on, to ensure that nothing moved.

  I, on the other hand, would wrestle with my hair until it felt as if all the blood had left my hands and pooled into my elbows, using water, mousse, gel, and hair spray to try to slick down the curly horns that sprang up all around my head. I would use a brush and a comb and my hands and even try to time the hair spray so that it would be slightly dry and sticky before I pressed my hair into place. Ballerinas were supposed to have smooth, perfect hair pulled back into a smooth, perfect bun. And oh, how I aspired to that vision. Often, after I thought I’d successfully wrangled the beast, one horn would suddenly pop out of its confinement, reverberating mockingly as if it had just been released from a spring. At these times, I sat at my mirror and stared at the scissors on my table, wondering how bad it would be if I just cut the darn thing off.

  When my hair is short, I scrape it into a tiny little ponytail on the top of my head that looks a little bit like a Hershey’s Kiss. Once I’ve slicked the rest of my hair, I get out my fake ponytails and braids. I love using the fake hair because I can do so much more with it than I can with my own hair. Once I have a nice bun in place, I put in my headpiece for whichever ballet I’m doing that night. Often the principal ballerinas have a lot of freedom when it comes to the headpieces for their costumes, and we can wear them however we feel is the most flattering. I prefer putting my headpieces on asymmetrically and view my head as my own little canvas on which I get to create a shiny piece of art.

  Once my hair and makeup are done to my satisfaction, I take out my large sponge and put the same thick base I use on my face on the parts of my arms, chest, and back not covered by my costume. I do this because if I didn’t, once I started dancing, my face would stay one light color while my arms and chest would flush red from exertion.

  Finally, I put on an extra sweatshirt and my ballet slippers and check to make sure I have everything ready that I’ll need for the performance. I look at my pointe shoes. I have a pile of them in various states of use on the floor of my side of the dressing room. Earlier in the day, I’ve usually decided which ones I’ll wear for the show that night. To help me remember, I write something on the bottom of the shoe, such as the first letter of the ballet I’ll be dancing. I make sure the ribbons and elastics are still well sewn, with no threads coming loose, and check that the tips and sides of the shoes don’t look horribly messy. I get out my tights and anything else I’ll need to wear under my costume. I make sure the costume, usually already hung in my room by one of our wonderful dressers, is ready to go and has no problems. Once I feel that all is in order and that I just need to return to my room to get dressed for the performance, I go out to the backstage right area, just around the corner from my dressing room, and start to warm up.

  My hair and makeup generally take an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes to finish. When I get backstage, I find a spot at one of the two warm-up barres there and sit down
to stretch a bit. Other dancers are usually there as well, and we chat. If I’m warming up before the first ballet of the performance, the backstage lights are on but not the stage lights. Stagehands are starting to prepare the stage for the first ballet of the show: one person is mopping the stage, another is checking the lights, another is making sure the dancers’ workstation has all the resin, Band-Aids, sewing needles, and other emergency items that might be required at a moment’s notice. The curtain is still up, and from the orchestra pit we might hear the harpist plucking her strings as she tunes her instrument. The audience hasn’t been allowed into their seats yet.

  If I happen to be in one of the latter ballets of the evening, I watch the performers onstage while I warm up, gaining inspiration from them as they dance their hearts out in that other world that I will soon be entering. I feel that I have the best seats in the house because I’m able to watch my amazing fellow dancers up close as they unfold their artistry on the stage.

  A half hour before the performance starts, the backstage area suddenly gets very busy. A stage manager calls into the intercom, “Half hour please! Half hour until the top of the show. Please sign in if you have not already done so!” We’re all required to “sign in” by writing our initials onto the company roster highlighted with those performing that night, so the stage managers know that everyone is at the theater and not stuck in the subway or oversleeping. Anyone who forgets to sign in when he or she arrives at the theater—and it happens inevitably—wanders downstage to announce his or her presence. The full contingent of stagehands arrives to finalize the preparations for the first ballet. The curtain is lowered so that the audience can be allowed into the house.

  About twenty minutes before I’m due to go onstage, I return to my dressing room to get into costume. I tape my toes and add whatever padding I’ll need in my pointe shoes that night. I check my hair and makeup and say a short prayer about the performance, which I added into my preperformance routine as I started incorporating my faith back into my life. This prayer helps remind me that the performance is about something larger than me, and that it points to God and not to myself. I thank God for letting me dance that night, for the opportunity to do something I love that also glorifies Him, and ask that things go well. Most of all, I ask that no matter how it goes, the ballet might move the audience and bring them some joy. I then put on some thick leg warmers, grab my pointe shoes, and head out the door.

  Backstage again, I go directly to one of the workstations located on each side of the stage. I dip my heels, clad in their pink ballet tights, in a water bucket and then rub them in the resin box to make them sticky so that the heels of my pointe shoes will not slip off my tights. I tug my pointe shoes on, making sure they are comfortable on and off pointe. I then tie my ribbons in a knot and tuck the ends in, sewing them to the ribbons around my ankles with a couple of stitches so that the ends will not fly out during the performance. Then I take a scraper, a brushlike wooden object whose bristles are actually metal tines, and scrape the leather bottom of my pointe shoe to make it rough. Last I step into the resin box, getting the sticky powder onto the bottom of my shoe and then wiping it over the sides and tips of my pointe shoes with a paper towel.

  Pointe shoes fixed to my satisfaction, I head onto the stage, where the curtain is still hiding me from the audience, trotting to get my heart rate up. I practice a couple of steps for the upcoming ballet. If my partner is around and there is something we need to talk about or try, we do it then. The stage is usually filled with other dancers getting ready, and we all try not to bump into each other as we move around. In order to get my first “puff” out of the way, I usually do jumping jacks and a series of big jumps in place so that my heart isn’t shocked when I suddenly start dancing hard onstage. I’ve found that this prevents me from getting out of breath too quickly once the performance starts.

  I keep track of the different stage calls so that I can be ready when the curtain goes up. The stage manager calls fifteen minutes, ten minutes, five minutes . . . When I hear “Places, please!” I run offstage to shed my leg warmers and then get ready for the curtain to rise. I usually feel a thrill of butterflies and adrenaline and lift the performance up to God one more time, reminding myself that the show isn’t about me. Then the conductor walks out to a clatter of applause, the house lights and backstage lights go out, the orchestra sounds its first chords, the curtain rises, and it is finally time to dance.

  —

  I’m often asked how we remember all of the steps to the vast repertoire we dance at City Ballet. Corps members might dance twenty ballets in a short six-week season. Principals might dance ten or more, and often we will rehearse three or four ballets during the day and then perform a completely different ballet that night.

  I find the music to each ballet to be the key to remembering all of the steps. With choreography as musical as what we’re blessed with in my company, someone just has to sing the music to me, and my body will do the steps. Each ballet must have its own little piece of my brain that is reserved just for that ballet, ready to be called up whenever the music is played.

  When we’re learning a ballet for the first time, whether it’s new choreography or one of the famous ones already in the company’s repertory, we do it systematically, going forward in chunks and then going back to the beginning to dance the piece through up to the point we have learned. Once we can successfully get from the beginning up to where we stopped learning, we then go forward to learn another chunk before returning to dance it from the beginning again. Layer by layer we train our ear to hear the music and how it matches up to the steps. With enough repetition, the music is inevitably linked by some mysterious connection to our muscle memory so that eventually, we don’t have to think about the steps. Our bodies know what to do, leaving our brains free to give flight to our imaginations in performance.

  It is certainly easier to learn a ballet if I’m already familiar with the music or have seen the ballet before so that I have a frame of reference for what I’ll be dancing. If I have not seen the ballet before, I’ll watch a tape if possible so that my brain can have a map in place for where my part in the ballet will go. However, I try not to watch tapes too often if I can help it because it is too easy to find myself mimicking the ballerina dancing the part on the tape; I’ve always wanted to do parts in my own way, even while I take inspiration and guidance from the wonderful ballerinas who have gone before me. Balanchine and Robbins often made different versions for different dancers, and they wanted their ballerinas to be unique. Though both choreographers have now passed away, their ballet masters try to follow in their spirit as they teach each successive generation of dancers these masterpieces. Though the steps might be mostly the same, artistry is left up to the individual.

  And each dancer’s artistry is radically different from another’s, so that ballets change and evolve according to which dancer is dancing which part. Most of the ballets in the repertory of the New York City Ballet have no story line; there is often drama, but that drama comes from the music and the steps. I’ve realized that a lack of story line actually gives the dancers more opportunity to place their own personal interpretation into a role.

  For example, in the last movement of George Balanchine’s Vienna Waltzes, a solitary woman dances in a ballroom with a man playing a partner who materializes as if from her imagination. There is a moment when the music comes to a standstill and then starts over, slowly and haltingly. I’ve never danced the role and have only watched it, but I’ve always thought that at that moment, the woman’s imagination becomes so powerful that she conjures up a real man from her fantasy world. I’ve seen some ballerinas interpret it this way, and have seen others remain remote, looking at their partners as if they were not quite there.

  One day while watching a rehearsal of Vienna, I asked my friend and fellow principal dancer Tyler Angle, “Do you think he becomes a real man there?”

  Tyler looked
at me with interest and said, “You know, I’ve seen it done both ways. It depends on the ballerina—I’ve always wanted him to become real. But Jenny, you and I are always searching for a story even when there is none.” And he is right about that. I’m one of those dancers who searches for some hint of a story, even in the plotless ballets.

  Musicians from the New York City Ballet orchestra have told me that they love to play for our company because of the great music the choreographers have chosen for the ballets we perform. But what may be thrilling for a musician to play can be difficult for a dancer to decipher, and some ballets have more difficult music than others. These I have a harder time learning and assimilating into my body. If I have to rely on counting the music to keep my place in the choreography, I find I have to use a different part of my brain that isn’t a natural part of my dancing. These ballets take more focus, and I’m often more nervous for them; sometimes the second I let the performance side of myself take over, I stop counting the music. With these ballets, I have to do a lot more physical repetition and mental dissection of the music before I feel that I really know the ballet.

  Also, the music we hear from the orchestra is often completely different from what we have been hearing in the studio. We have wonderful rehearsal pianists who play for us during the day, but often the piano accents notes differently than a full orchestra does. The arrangement written for the piano might highlight different sounds and melodies from what we would hear from the orchestra pit during a performance. Also the piano can set a more obvious tempo, whereas sometimes the orchestration is written as more of a wash of sound. There have been plenty of stage rehearsals, particularly of brand-new choreography, that have fallen apart completely because none of the dancers could tell where they were in the music. This is of course incredibly frustrating for the choreographer, and the dancers usually go into a panic as what seemed so certain and comfortable just the day before suddenly becomes an unknown.