Mikhail Baryshnikov became ABT’s artistic director in 1980. But just a few years earlier, he was a performer, at Wolf Trap. It was a tour de force. He and Gelsey Kirkland, the famed ballerina of the 1960s and 1970s and one of George Balanchine’s muses, danced the pas de deux from Don Quixote, and I watched the videotape of their performance perhaps a hundred times. It was then that I decided that I wanted to be Kitri.
In Don Quixote, Kitri was the innkeeper’s daughter, sensual and full of fire, refusing to marry the wealthy nobleman and wanting instead to be with Basilio, the barber. She communicates her sass and spunk with every move, gently turning her torso while tipping one shoulder—an épaulement—all the while seductively opening, closing, and waving her beautiful fan.
With a simple flick of the wrist, or the childish stomping of her feet when she is being forced to marry someone she doesn’t want, she oozes attitude. The ballet is full of quick, explosive footwork, as well as fierce, large jumps. But the choreography is only part of it. The dancer must take on Kitri’s personality, must become her, to convey the tale successfully.
I don’t know why I saw myself in Kitri. I just felt a connection.
Gelsey Kirkland made me fall in love with Kitri, and it was through Kitri that I discovered Paloma.
Paloma Herrera was one of the youngest stars in the history of ABT. Born in Buenos Aires, she was fifteen when she joined its corps de ballet, seventeen when she was promoted to soloist, and nineteen when she became a principal dancer. She became my idol, and I followed her the way other teenagers obsessed over Winona Ryder’s next movie or Madonna’s newest love affair. The first time I ever saw Don Quixote performed live at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in downtown Los Angeles, Paloma was the star.
She had just been promoted to principal and was playing Kitri to Angel Corella’s Basilio. At that time, the two of them were the hottest thing in ballet. They were both young, beautiful, and Latin—and ideal for those roles. Cindy and I went to see them together, and I remember sitting in my seat stunned, starstruck.
I followed Paloma’s career for years, collecting articles about her in Dance and Pointe magazines, as well as the New York Times. The luxury watch company Movado was also a sponsor of ABT, and Paloma’s visage graced their ads.
I was desperate to follow Paloma’s path. I, too, had to join a major dance company as soon as I could, and I resolved that by the time other girls were picking out their dresses for senior prom, I would be a principal dancer taking the lead in Romeo and Juliet or La Bayadère.
Of course, that made no sense. I had come to ballet too late to be a soloist or principal before I exited my teens. What Paloma had done was rare even for ballerinas like her, those who had danced their entire lives.
Four years later, when I was seventeen and had joined ABT, I would meet Paloma. We would share a stage and become good friends. But long before we were peers, she was everything to me.
WHILE BALLET WAS THE center of my life with Cindy, it was only one part. The rigors of ballet, classes, rehearsals, and a growing number of performances were cushioned by the warm rituals of family life.
This was new for me. I’d experienced structure when I lived with Robert, but that had been accompanied by violence and fear. The routines at the Bradleys left me feeling protected and loved.
I don’t know if Cindy and Patrick were exactly wealthy. But based on what I had been exposed to, they definitely seemed well-off financially, and stable. When I did my homework, it was against a backdrop of stillness and quiet. I even had a family pet for the first time, a little black poodle named Misha that Cindy had named after Mikhail Baryshnikov.
Not long after I moved in with them, Cindy, Patrick, Wolfie, and I went to a photo studio and had family portraits taken. The pictures of us—me in a black leotard, and Wolfie in a pint-size Danskin—were perched all over the house. We had become a family.
When I met Cindy’s parents, Catherine and Irving, they told me to call them “Bubby” and “Papa,” just like Wolfie did. We spent so much time in each other’s home that, when Bubby and Papa eventually bought a house around the corner, Wolfie and I each had our own room there.
I also began to learn the rites and traditions of Judaism, Cindy’s faith.
Growing up, there had been many Sundays when Harold would drive to Robert’s, scoop up my brothers, sisters, and me, and take us to church. But I was Christian primarily in an “it’s Easter, it’s Christmas, let’s go to service” kind of way.
Now, I occasionally went to temple with Bubby and Papa. And every Friday we would dine together to celebrate Shabbat, lighting candles before sundown and reciting the special prayers:
Baruch atah, Adonai, Eloheinu, melech haolam
(Blessed are you, Lord, our God, sovereign of the universe)
asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu
(who has sanctified us with His commandment and commanded us)
l’hadlik ner shel Shabbat.
(to light the lights of Shabbat.)
Amein
(Amen)
I came to know those words by heart.
I was also back in the kitchen, like I’d been with Robert, but now Bubby was the master chef, and I was learning how to make matzo ball soup. We’d stir the matzo meal, eggs, water, and chicken fat in a large bowl, then spoon the mixture to make big dumplings. I’d drop them into a pot of bubbling hot broth and watch them float to the top.
Finally, I thought to myself. This is what a family is supposed to be like.
There were no other blacks at the synagogue we attended. But I know that only from the snapshot of my memory. It wasn’t something I really noticed at the time, though perhaps Bubby did.
One Saturday, when I was visiting her and we had finished puttering around the kitchen, Bubby put a cassette in the VCR. It was To Sir, with Love, the 1967 film starring the legendary black actor Sidney Poitier as a teacher trying to educate a group of mostly white children in the slums of London.
We watched it together, and when it ended, Bubby sang along with the theme song, softly.
“He was the first black man to win an Oscar,” she said of Poitier when the credits had finally scrolled to the end. “He broke barriers. Just like you.”
Sidney Poitier was lovely and amazing, Bubby said. As was I. And our presence in these previously all-white worlds was a gift to all those who performed and to all those who watched us.
I think that was the first time Bubby addressed the fact that I was black. On the rare occasions when she did, it was never negative. It was just one of the many things that made me so special.
I’d never felt special before. I don’t think I’d ever really wanted to. That would have meant that everyone was looking at me, that I had to speak up, to risk saying the wrong thing and be judged. I preferred to hide.
But there was no disappearing at Cindy’s. When we were at the dinner table, eating the meal that Patrick usually had prepared, they wanted to talk about my day, about my future. Even with Wolfie, their biological son, sitting right there, Cindy and Patrick focused their attention totally on me.
“I think my jumps are getting stronger,” I’d say proudly. “I had higher extension in the adagio today.”
“Some dancers have the right physique for dance, and others have the ability,” Cindy would say as Patrick nodded approvingly. “You have both.”
“You’re going to be a star,” Cindy said. “You’re God’s child.”
WHEN I WAS STILL living with Mommy, and when she still had a car, she would sometimes pick me up from Danielle’s or Reina’s and we would crank up the radio and sing along to Toni Braxton.
Seven whole days, and not a word from you.
For those few minutes, it was as if we’d grabbed hands and were gliding together on a melody. But that was as close as Mommy and I ever really got. Conversation with Mommy was succinct, often superficial. Mommy was just too tired to delve deeply into my thoughts and feelings. Besides, I’m not sure that she eve
r developed the skills to communicate deeply when she was a child and therefore couldn’t teach us. By the end of the day, after working nine to five, raising six children, and dealing with an addicted or abusive partner, she had simply run out of words.
But Cindy and I would eventually get to the point of being able to talk for long stretches of time. When she dropped me off at school, picked me up in the afternoon, and drove me home from the dance center, she asked me an endless stream of questions.
This was the first time I recall experiencing someone focused solely on me, attempting to hear what I had to say. It was terrifying for me because it was all new. I almost felt threatened and attacked.
“What are you thinking this very moment?”
“How do you feel?”
“Who is your favorite dancer?”
“What do you want to eat tonight?”
“What’s so funny?”
I had no idea how to respond to her constant barrage of even these most simple questions. I started sweating. Did I even know what I was thinking or feeling? Why did she even care? It was incomprehensible that someone could have these conversations with me without critiquing my judgment and thoughts. The only times I remember Cindy showing me any anger was when she would get frustrated with my unwillingness to speak. She would not let me off the hook. She knew that being upset with me and giving me no other way out was how she would get me to open up. The Bradleys taught me to think critically, and I will forever be grateful to them for that. Still, I adjusted slowly.
Cindy would always act as though my conclusions were the wisest, most profound analyses she’d ever heard. Her approval started to pull me out of my shell. The din of life back home had made it easier, more comforting, for me to be silent, but her questions and unconditional approval bolstered me. I’d begun to hear the sound of my own voice. And I liked it.
Cindy, a white woman, also made me feel as if my blackness was the most beautiful thing in the world.
I’d always felt good about being black, despite the terrible things that Robert and his family had said about my mother and my siblings. I’d never wanted to be anything else. But to Cindy, my heritage gave me something even more exceptional.
She especially loved my full, curly hair. At home, my frizzy tresses were a bushel to be tamed. From the time I was little, my big sister Erica would blow-dry my hair, blasting away the curls and making them lie down flat. Or if I wanted to wear a ponytail, she’d pull my hair back so tight, my temples would hurt, and she’d drown every potential out-of-place strand under a glob of gel. That’s just what black women did. We used flat irons and sizzling straightening combs to make our kinks bow into submission.
But Cindy liked me to wear my hair natural and free. Once, she snapped a candid shot of me walking into her room wearing a polka-dot dress she had bought me, my hair hanging loose and curly. I have to admit that at first I winced when I saw that picture. That was not the way I was taught to wear my hair, especially not in a photograph that might sit atop a mantel for years to come. But the longer I lived with the Bradleys, the more comfortable I became wearing my waves.
One day I looked at that picture and thought, Wow, how beautiful. It was as if I was seeing it, and myself, for the first time.
Even before I was totally at ease with it, I began to wear my hair the way that Cindy liked it more and more often. It was hard to resist her yin and yang: her soothing nature that reassured you that there was no one prettier, and the passionate spirit that roared through our household like a gale wind.
Everyone in Cindy’s orbit flowed to her erratic rhythm. As the most dramatic example, she’d never asked Patrick if I could come live with them. I was just there. He may have been as mystified as Wolfie, but he never showed it and always made me feel as if his home was my home.
Cindy could also be impulsive, maybe even a little reckless.
The summer before I turned fifteen, we decided that it would be better for me to be homeschooled to allow more time for dance. There was an independent study program a few blocks from our condo. I would go there every couple of weeks to meet with a teacher, get new assignments, and be graded on the previous bundle of homework. Except for those twice-monthly appointments, Cindy no longer had to drop me off at school in the mornings. But most days she would be out the door anyway, off to run an errand, conduct business at the dance center, or set up my next performance.
So I would wake up and make breakfast for myself and Wolfie. Then I’d get him dressed, grab Misha by the leash, and together we’d walk Wolfie to his day-care center around the corner. I’d come back home, do my history or English homework, then pick up Wolfie, make him lunch, and wait for Cindy to come home to take me to the dance center in the early afternoon.
I was used to helping care for my younger siblings, so at the time my grown-up tasks didn’t strike me as particularly odd, but looking back, it seems crazy that Cindy entrusted such responsibilities to me. Still, I don’t think she was trying to take advantage. That was just Cindy—driven by passion, not rules. And Patrick, calm, quiet, and madly in love with his wife, let her run the show.
The perfectionist who would have me practice pirouettes for hours in a parking lot before a show would have to turn the house upside down searching for her misplaced keys before finally finding them still lodged in the car’s ignition. Cindy would dash off to an aerobics or Pilates class, while thirteen-year-old me was left at home to take care of Wolf. Many evenings, the family would sit down to the dinner Patrick had prepared while Cindy splashed on her bangles and boots and headed to the club with her band of friends. We wouldn’t see her again until morning.
CINDY WAS ALSO OBSESSED with her looks, constantly dyeing her brown locks russet red and shopping at a pace that I’d never seen. Wolfie and I spent hours outside department store dressing rooms, reading a book or playing I Spy, as Cindy tried on outfit after outfit.
“Does this make me look fat?” she’d ask again and again.
“Ummm, no,” I’d dutifully respond, knowing that it would take her donning several outfits at once to add bulk to her needle-thin frame.
I actually thought it was a lot of fun, spending so much time together, sifting through the racks of beautiful things. It was especially nice that Cindy’s shopping obsession included me. She loved to dress me up in pastel skirts, trendy flared jeans, and all the latest styles being worn by a fourteen-year-old girl.
I felt like Cinderella. But Mommy saw the hair, the outfits, the way I’d changed. And she didn’t like it.
MOMMY CALLED ME AT Cindy’s weekly to ask how things were going and tell me what was happening with my brothers and sisters. Then on weekends, I would go home to her at the motel.
We kids were pretty scattered by then. During the week, Cameron lived with his father, Robert; Lindsey often stayed with her father, Harold; and Erica continued to spend many nights at the homes of friends. Even Doug and Chris often bunked with their buddies from school. But on weekends, we would all reunite, so happy to see one another. Doug would talk about the latest outrage being done to the black man, Lindsey would crack jokes, and I would twist Cameron into some of the poses I’d learned in ballet. Our teasing and laughter drowned out the sounds of traffic on the busy streets outside.
And I now had so much to teach everyone.
Cindy wanted to make up for the years of cultural deprivation she felt I’d undergone when I’d lived with Mommy, who had so many children to take care of.
“You’re going to be socializing with very important people,” Cindy told me. “You need to know how to comport yourself.”
So she taught me that forks went on the left and knives on the right, that there was a certain spoon for soup and another for dessert.
Cindy was also concerned about my diet and health. Before I went to live with her, I’d subsist on whatever Mommy had the budget to buy, and I’d often stuff myself with junk food that I bought in school or from motel vending machines. I loved spicy Cheetos, corn chips that
were heated in the microwave and slathered with cheese squeezed out of a bottle and hot sauce.
But Cindy said that I needed to be better nourished to gain weight and strength for dancing. We had fresh vegetables every night for dinner. And with her, I tasted shrimp for the first time. After my first bite, I craved it constantly. When we went out to restaurants, I’d order shrimp scampi and a Shirley Temple every time.
So now when I went to visit Mommy, I would ask for certain things for dinner, my newly refined taste buds melding with my recently developed opinionated streak.
“Ewww,” I’d say as Mommy poured canned string beans into a pot and heated them on the stove. “Why do you need to put so much salt on my mac and cheese? And none of that pepper, please!”
I’d drink water instead of the orange soda Mommy had bought. And I’d set the table before we Copelands sat down to dinner, folding the paper napkins in half and filling the mismatched glasses. I didn’t want to make her feel bad, but I knew my healthy diet was contributing to a higher purpose. I needed strength to dance, and it was my responsibility to be aware of what I put in my body.
Mommy didn’t appreciate my comments about food, or any of the other changes she was seeing in me. In fact, my attitude made her furious. She felt I was turning my nose up at how she’d raised me, at how she was caring for my brothers and sisters. She felt that now I thought I was better than them.
“Why didn’t you comb your hair?” she asked me one Friday night after Cindy had dropped me off and I walked into the motel room.
“It is combed,” I said defiantly. “I just didn’t straighten it. I like it like this.”
Mommy, frowning, sucked her teeth.
She also noticed all the new clothes.
“You’re not a doll for her to dress up,” she said when I pulled out a flowery jumper that I was planning to wear the day I went back to Cindy’s. “And you’re not her daughter. I can take you shopping.”
Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina Page 7
