THE BALLERINA'S TRADITION

Told through the eyes of the Ballerina

Every performance begins with a ritual.

I arrive two hours early always.The theater is empty, the stage still asleep. I unlock the dressing room with the key I've kept since my first solo-its brass teeth worn smooth by years of nervous fingers. I light the candle. One wick, unscented, white. It burns beside the mirror, not for luck, not for ghosts, but for the silence it brings. I need that silence before the music begins.

I lay out the shoes. Three pairs each with a ribbon stitched by hand. I choose the middle pair, the one's that feel like they remember me. I press my thumb into the box, testing the resistance. Not too soft. Not too new. I sew a single red thread into the left ribbon-always the left. That's the tradition. Not for symmetry, not for superstition. For her.

She danced before me. Not in this company, not in this city. But she taught me the ritual. She said, "The red thread is not for remembrance. It's for continuing me." I didn't understand then. I do now.

I stretch in silence. No music. Ni chatter. I trace the choreograph in my mind, not as steps but as shapes. The arc of the arm, the spiral of the turn, the pause that isn't stillness but breath. I rehearse the moment I fall-not the literal fall, but the collapse in Act 2, when the character gives in. That moment must be earned. It must feel inevitable.

I dress slowly. The costume is simple: pale blue, long sleeves, no embellishment. It's meant to make me look like a memory, but I refuse that reading. I am not a memory. I am the present tense of every dancer who has ever performed this role. I am the breath between their final bow and my first step.

I step on to the stage before the house opens. I walk to center. I bow-not to the audience, not to the director, but to the floor. The floor that has held every mistake, every triumph, every version of this ballet. I press my palm to it. That's the final part of the tradition. The touch.

When the lights rise and the music begins, I am not transformed. I am not healed. I am not broken. I am simply continuing.

And, tonight the red thread holds.

The curtain falls on Act 1 and I retreat-not to the wings, but to the narrow corridor behind the stage where the walls are painted black and the air smells faintly of dust and rosin. I lean against the cool plaster and listen to the applause. It's not for me. Not yet. That's part of the tradition: knowing when the silence belongs to you and when it doesn't.

I feel the thread tug slightly as I adjust the ribbon. It's not loose. It's reminding me. Continuity. Not remembrance. Not reverence. Just the quiet insistence that I am not alone in this role.

Act 2 is the collapse. Not dramatic. Not tragic. Just the slow erosion of form. The character loses something-not a person not a memory, but a rhythm. She dances as if trying to recall a pattern she once knew by heart. That's the challenge: to move like someone who is not broken, but misaligned. I've practiced that tilt, that hesitation, that breath held too long.

When I step back into the light, I do not become her. I do not disappear. I remain. That's the discipline. That's the horror, too. To perform a loss you do not feel, but must embody. To let the audience believe you are unraveling, while your core remains intact.

There's a moment near the end-just before the final solo-where I stand still for eight counts. Nothing moves. Not my fingers.Not my breath. Not even my gaze. It's the pause she taught me to hold. "Let them wonder," she said. "Let them think you've forgotten what comes next."

I never forget. I never transform. I continue.

And when the final note fades and the lights dim, I bow-not to the audience, not to the director, but to the floor. Again. Always. I press my palm to it. The touch.

Back in the dressing room, I snuff the candle. I unpick the red thread. I place the shoes in the center of the room, soles up. That's the closing gesture. Not for closure. For readiness.

Tomorrow, another dancer will light the candle, or maybe I will. The tradition doesn't care who continues it. Only that someone does.

And I will. Until the thread frays. Until the silence shifts. Until the floor forgets me.

But not tonight. Tonight, the red thread holds.

The candle is cold now. The dressing room hums with the quiet aftermath of performance-fabric settling, floorboards creaking, the faint echo of applause still clinging to the wall like dust. I sit with My feet bare, toes raw, the red thread coiled beside me like a question I've already answered.

There's no triumph here. No catharsis. Only the stillness that follows continuity. I don't crave transformation. I crave repetition. The kind that deepens not dulls. The kind that reveals what was always there, waiting.

Outside, the company celebrates. Laughter, champagne, the clatter of heels on tile. I do not join them. Not out of disdain. Out of necessity. The tradition is not social. It is solitary. It asks for quiet. For attention. For the kind of presence that does not perform itself.

I open the drawer beneath the mirror. Inside: a folded scrap of paper, yellowed at the edges. Her handwriting slanted, deliberate. "The role is not yours. It is the floors. You borrow it. You return it." I read it every night. Not to remember. To continue.

I think of the girl who will dance this role next season. She's young. Precise. Hungry. She asked me once why I never smile during curtain call. I told her, "Because the role doesn't end there." She didn't understand. She will.

I rise. I gather the shoes . I place the red thread in the box with the others. I do not keep it. I do not archive it. I leave it for the next dancer. If she chooses to use it, she will. If not the tradition will wait. It always does.

As I leave the theater, the city unfolds around me. Noise, motion, light. But I carry the stillness. The pause. The eight counts of silence. The breath before the collapse.

I am not the first. I am not the last.

I am the red thread held taut between them.