Light Relief

I was the first coryphée to pirouette offstage when the cue was Exeunt Stage Left. I almost always, but not quite, avoided getting dizzy and / or smashing into the backdrop, thereby making things difficult for the rest of the nymphs and dryads sprites and naiads. 

I had joined the troupe with a view to going places during my gap year – not because I liked dancing. My sister’s boyfriend had high hopes for me; he said my height and carrot-top would make me famous. You don't often see tall ballerinas, do you? In fact, they X-Ray the wrists of children when they are about five, to see if they will grow too tall for the genre. But I would be the exception - or so he hoped.

He hadn’t counted on how clumsy I was. That was why I was not ever given lead roles, but positioned into as inconspicuous (I should be so lucky!) a spot as possible.

The only alternative was for me to play the part of a man; but not if lifting the prima ballerina would be a requisite, because I would surely drop her.

People who see ballet performances marvel at how smooth the moves are, and how everyone seems to float, and how graceful arms are, and how legs seem to be double-jointed.

In reality, ballet dancers must be strong – the strenuous exercises make you ache in muscles you didn’t even know you have.

I’m lazy. I would have quit – but I needed the money, and, frankly, I loved the bohemian atmosphere of the whole kit and caboodle. I knew that “dancer” would look good on my resume, especially since I wanted to pursue a career in the visual arts, when I want back to University. So, I stayed.

One day, during the warming up for rehearsals, I felt hostility you could cut with a knife, between my sister and her two rivals. There was a big production coming up, and the sponsors (as if they understood anything about ballet) were attending, because they insisted that they were the ones who had to choose the soloists.

I decided to break the tension as I knew best. I just flitted - slalomed – between dancers, for light relief.

I was thinking of the ballerina in the Vienna State Opera Ballet who danced to the beat of her own drum…

Mind you I hadn’t liked the fact that she was the only one wearing glasses, to dingle her out from the rest of the ensemble, but I suppose that it didn’t occur to the choreographer that making her wear a different-coloured tutu would have made her stand out more.

There’s this cliché of fat people, short people, bespectacled people… anyone who is not a clone of the whole group, being singled out for comic relief.

Frankly, I surprised myself. I didn’t even falter once; and I was amused when almost everyone clapped. I had found my calling. So my sister's boyfriend was right, after all, albeit not in the way he had hoped he would be. These days, I get parts written especially for me – but that is another story for another day.

The cold front was swiftly moving in. At our next rehearsal we were met with the news that we had won Historical Dance Contest, the prize for which was a contract to tour mainland Europe with our production; a Son et Lumière  extravaganza. So much for my plans for a peaceful and quiet Christmastide.

Of course, not all of us could take vacation leave from our day jobs; I didn’t have one, so I was one of the lucky ones to be able to go on the trip. My sister roped in a couple of teacher friends to manage her Library, because she wouldn’t have missed this for the world.

Our first stop was in France.

It was Curtain Up on Opening Night, and the sombre voice of the M.C. intoned:

Mnajdra, Malta

… and the performance began.

Lights! Sound! Action!

And she shrieks.

The Spring Equinox begins; sunlight shafts through the main doorway

As she begins her dance of 3600 years ago.

The tethered bull quakes. It has smelled death.

Had I not seen her doing it myself, I would never have believed that the bellow of a bull came from one of the backstage girls, who could also do ‘The Good, The Bad and The Ugly’ sounds, perfectly.

Her steps are light and her long, dark, Mediterranean hair flows

Rhythmically to the music

Sinuously and sensuously, she moves with the grace of a lifetime of service

In homage to the Fat Lady goddess.

Of Malta, Omphalos of the World.

The atmosphere in the concert hall was electric.

She weaves in and out of the coralline limestone post-and-lintel constructions,

Oblivious to everything but the rhythm

Of her own movements,

To the beat of the lambskin drums

And jarring rattle of hog-bone shakers.

The stage was empty, save for one dancer with her back to the audience.

The wind howls and the priest raises the knife;

The animal’s life blood spurts

And the dancer sinks to the ground, exhausted.

And the orgy begins. And she shrieks.

This was our cue to let rip with blood-curdling screams and cries, as we rushed onstage.

The vestal virgin assembles words about words and murmurs them in a stage whisper.

We cup our hands around our mouths and face the audience, mumbling unintelligible syllables.

Confirmatio| confutatio| dispositio| divisio| elocutio| exordium| narratio| partitio|

The High Priestess sashays onstage, followed bny her retinue, as the chorus leaves and the lights change to red.

She chants the Alphabetical Zeitgeist of the Romans in rhetoric jargon,

A Litany to disremember, as she sways

Gracefully and eloquently

In time to the cornu, buccina and lyre.

The list of words means nothing to her; it keeps her sane.

The lights go out, leaving the stage in darkness. We form a circle, arms-on-shoulders, and begin an anticlockwise turn. The lights come on again – a brilliant white, this time.

She wants no part of what is to follow.

The mantra-chain blocks the series of memories

Of Rites of Spring… past the evil, debauched, bizarre, grotesque,

Toga Party, dateline 700 BC.

We stand stock still.

And she shrieks. As Pagan Russia is transposed to Malta,

She dances to Vaslav Nijinsky’s arousing choreography

And hums to the music by Igor Stravinsky.

She knows the score; Lejl Imdawwal | Son et Lumière | Notte Bianca…

There is the sound of beating drums and the distant rumble of thunder. We curtsey, and leave my sister Centre Stage, doing what she does best – arabesques in summersaults in quick succession – more a gymnast than a ballerina, as was written by the Arts Critic of Le Monde.  

The audience stirs like a snake, scenting movement in the air.

Her steps are perfectly violent and violently perfect.

She echoes the steps of the Neolithic dancer

And the movements of the Roman performer

In time to the discordant notes of the opening bassoon solo

Weaving them into one integral, intergalactic whole.

The theatre erupts in furore. A full circle.

My sister does her best Dying Swan imitation, and she gets a standing ovation. She stands up, and beckons offstage for us to join her. It is an exhilarating feeling.

They’re going for sundowners now. I won’t be joining them. I want some peace and quiet – and time to write this while the memories are fresh.