My infatuation with New York is there with all of my earliest memories. I don't know if Scorsese, the Beastie Boys, or New York City Ballet came first. I grew up going there, during the crack-ridden 80s. It was the time of Dinkins and window-washers. A time where, “What're you lookin ah??” was shouted a lot more, even to curious little kids. Taxi drivers gave the up-yours air-fisting, more than they made left turns.
My aunty and uncle lived in North Jersey. A few turns from their house easily lead to the end of the yellow brick road. Via the Lincoln or Holland Tunnel. Despite the cautionary tales of robbery-turned-murder that my uncle told the family, he persevered in taking me to the city, pretty often. I lived just outside of Baltimore in a Podunk town. So these visits were crucial to my sanity. I’d just count the days to the end of the time, that I was doing in Podunk. Time seemed to go painfully slow at times, but I was eight years old and much more capable of making the best of it.
Somewhere in this mix, I began to take ballet. In a year I was en pointe, taking classes six days a week and performing in recitals. I was obsessed. One night, in the second floor studio, Ms. Bailey, put the pianist to a halt. This was pretty common. Ms. Bailey was the director of the ballet school. She taught a few classes as well.
“Let's sit. Ms. Bailey's feet are hurting girls.” Complaints about her bunions were always the preface to a long talk which usually meandered to her old days at the Washington Ballet. She was a wacky lady, her hair was always poofy and she’d talk to us as if we were all her age and her gossiping companions.
“Alright, girls. Come on. Come on. Sit down. Yes, I know, we’ll get up and do some pirouettes in a minute. I have a quick announcement. We are very, very excited to add a new instructor to our roster. His name is David Sanders, and he’s just left the New York City Ballet! Yes, I think he may have been there before Balanchine died. Oh, this is a very exciting addition, girls.” Of course, we never ended up doing those pirouettes she’d promised. It was because she got started on the Balanchine and Susan Ferrell affair. I didn’t understand what muse was, even after someone inquired and she explained it again.
“It means she was his inspiration. What they had went beyond sex,” she said theatrically. After class, during the car ride home, before bed, all I could think of was NYC Ballet, School of American Ballet, Juilliard. One day I might be standing in the wings of Lincoln Center waiting to do the Snow Fairy solo.
The next night was our first class with, David Sanders. When he walked in the room, I thought someone’s weird dad got lost. Most men in ballet were very clean-cut, no facial hair, and had no shame in wearing tights. David Sanders walked in with a five o’clock shadow, round wire-rimmed glasses, loafers and baggy cargo pants.
“Hello,” he said, and then avoided the stares of twelve gawking kids and walked awkwardly toward the pianist.
“Hey how ya doin? I’m David,” he introduced himself to her and began whispering about concertos and if she knew such and such adagio.
The whispering stopped.
“Okay,” he said, loud and booming now, “First position!” he very quickly demonstrated a combination. He didn’t go over it twice, which we were accustomed to, and clapped for us to begin. The pianist played. No introductions, he shouted over the music to us, like we’d been his students for years. He didn't want any chit-chat between the combinations and only spoke directly to anyone, namely me, to be quiet. Sanders intro was abrasive and provoked much talk during the car ride home. As time went on, I really grew to like him. He’d taught us new moves, his choreography was bolder and much more fun to dance. One night he stopped the pianist, and said,
“Sarah, show us a grand-plié.” This kind of demonstration is commonplace in a ballet class, still I was instantly nervous. I loved to dance but was mortified of attention like this. I shook through it.
“Do it again!” he commanded. I immediately began to beat myself up. Surely, I’d have to work on this and it is such a simple standard nothing ballet step. “See girls, the simplest moves are not to be overlooked. Sure this may have been the first thing you learned to do when you took your first class, but it’s mandatory that you get it right. That right there was a grand-plié, perfectly executed.” He made me do one more.
After class that night I approached him to inform him that my uncle took me to see New York City Ballet perform The Nutcracker, at Lincoln Center.
“Hm, sounds cool," he said, “Who was the principal dancer?” I didn't know what that meant, which frustrated him,
“Who was the Sugar Plum Fairy??” he asked.
“Oh. Kyra Nichols! She was amazing! Did you know her?” I asked.
“Really? You thought so?” that was the great thing about David Sanders, he was tough and angry, but he'd really listen to me, no baby-talk.
“Mmm yea I knew her. She's alright,” he said, with a touch of bitterness.
“Well she was better than our lame recital,” I said, matching his bitterness, “It was cool to see the real deal.”
“Oh come on,” he said, “Do you really think it’s any different than our production?”
“Yeah! They had way better sets,” I said. He sighed and rolled his eyes,
“Just because someone has a title or fancy name, it doesn't mean shit,” he said and I laughed.
“No seriously,” he said, “If you peeled away all of those fancy decorations and costumes, you’d be left with the dancers in their plain tights and slippers. The dancers you think are incredible are just people who’ve trained for longer than you.” He pointed to a flyer on the wall which advertised a master-class given by a principal dancer,
“Even that class is sort of ridiculous. What makes a master??”
Incidentally, I’d been signed up to take that very master-class he complained of. Ms. Bailey had really pushed it on us.
The next Tuesday, after I’d taken the master-class, I had a lot to talk about with Sanders. He couldn’t have been more right. But he wasn’t there when class began. Ms. Bailey was filling in. Sanders had to return to New York. In the same fashion that he entered our lives, he’d left. No goodbyes.
I didn't blame him and missed him terribly when he left. I would stand at the window along the ballet barre. The windows were very New York, they were so huge I could sit in them. The view was Main St. There was usually enough traffic and activity for me to pretend I was dancing in the window of a classroom at the School of American Ballet. After Sanders, we had another teacher come from New York. Also a man, his name was Duraveau, he was much like Ms. Bailey, he’d always want to sit and talk. He was out of shape and always sweating profusely. He’d ramble on and on about himself. Most times he sat and yammered, I imagined Sanders might come walking through the door to our studio for a visit. And pull me especially aside and say something perfectly cool, like, “New York needs you, Sarah.”
I got impatient with the low-keyness and flare and found another more proper—on your way to becoming a professional—ballet school. It was just outside of Baltimore in a colonial district. Instead of pretending it was New York, I pretended it was downtown Sleepy Hollow.
The new school was, true to it's reputation, much more legit. The director was a woman straight out of Pasadena, by way of New York. She had a scary witch quality, much like all the colonial buildings that lined the block. Her hair was always done up very proper and her make-up, just right. Aesthetics were everything to, Caryl Maxwell. But this was not unique or notorious, just a by-product of that world. I thought for sure, I’d love Caryl, after all she’d come out of New York City Ballet, just like David Sanders, and she'd actually trained with Balanchine. But I missed the old school, it was as if I’d transferred from the Cuban Ballet to the Royal Academy. There were three principal dancers the year I came to, “Caryl Maxwell Ballet Guild.” Their red lipsticked lips still haunt me. Two of the three, were named, Libby. All of three were 5’11”, 100 pounds. They had unhealthy pallors and ribs poking through their leotards. The three girls were Caryl’s fulfillment of prodigies, all moving on to acclaimed ballet universities.
I arrived to the new school when the spring recital was approaching, that year it was, Sleeping Beauty. I was so excited to perform in a “real” ballet company’s production. During rehearsals one day, Caryl pulled me aside, with the revelation that I was bold-legged. To get a correction from a director is kind of an honor. You’re lucky to get any attention and most times it won’t be to tell you, you’re excellent.
“Oh my, Sarah, look at that,” she had a sing-songy voice and annunciated everything like she was auditioning for a Palmolive commercial.
“Sarah, I’ve never noticed you can’t do a proper fifth position.” A proper fifth position is a feasible human feat, but too much of it and you’ll have no cartilage left in your knees and hips. Caryl then took me to the barre to demonstrate an exercise to correct this problem. I was twelve years old at this point, and already knew that fixing this, was as effective as dabbing witch hazel on a gun shot wound.
Sleeping Beauty turned out to be pretty boring. The most exciting part was only fifteen minutes, and it was a three-hour production. My role involved posing frozen on one knee for two hours. This was quite contrary to Ms. Bailey’s spring recitals, which were just a mish-mosh of the best parts of famous ballets. Basically she’d cut out the boring parlor scenes that every opera and ballet have, and skip to the exciting dazzling parts with the best choreography.
I’d learned by this point that all “real-deal productions” were mostly a bunch of fancy sets with prancing and miming. All of this fairy tale tutu stuff was juxtaposed with my real life in Laurel during the late 80s and early 90s. I was going home every day, hearing hardcore punk rock blast from my brother's record player. I became obsessed with hip-hop and raided his immense collection of tapes. KRS One’s rendition of “Ebony and Ivory,” in "101 Guns," really got to me. Anything this angry was speaking to me at the time. It had everything to do with keeping it real and ballet had everything to do with keeping it pretend. I was starting to feel like lots of things were stupid and pretend. School, people, teachers, the kids at school. Everything was so phony.
My uncle, I think sensed my disharmony. The next time he took me to Lincoln Center, it was to see Alvin Ailey. It turned out to be a very important day for me. We took the bus in and right off the bat there was action at Port Authority. There was a woman who looked about three hundred pounds. She had a raspy voice and would not stop howling and preaching. Her white skin was stretched, chapped and spotted with red bumps. Her hair had inadvertently morphed into three grey dreadlocks.
“Don’t you know? Don’t you know??” she was shouting. My uncle had instructed me many times not to hold eye contact too long with anyone. But I was enraptured and she caught my staring and locked eyes, got really close,
“Don’t you know?! Don’t ya knowah?? They killed my babies. Took their souls one by one. All of them maniacs in that White House, they killed my babies. They’re gonna try and take your babies too!” She was even closer, I could smell her. She stopped and didn’t move while the crowded stationers impatiently shoved past. I felt a firm push from my uncle.
“Hey!” my uncle shouted at her. He was from Mumbai and this was the custom for shooing away bums. Now we were bolting, and she continued shouting,
“Don’t let them get you, honey, don’t believe any of that stuff on the TV. Don’t give in!!!!” she howled one last time. By then we were up the stairs and my uncle was chuckling.
On the way to the East side of the terminal, we saw a group of five b-boys. The youngest one looked only seven years old, shouted,
“Okay! Ready for the show!” They turned on a boombox playing freestyle and starting clapping in unison. My uncle was amused and took one glance at my excitement and stopped. A guy with a deep voice boomed,
“Lil’ T.” Then all of them starting chanting,
“L.T, L.T, L.T.,” in unison again. L.T. was the seven-year-old. He stepped forward and did a solo. He had some of the best moves because he weighed so little and he was much more limber. He did sicker moves than anyone in ballet. I was mesmerized and my uncle tickled.
“This kid is something else,” he said. The whole walk over to Lincoln Center I talked to my uncle, excited about the b-boy show. I told him no one in ballet would ever qualify to break. But breakers could easily make it through some lame ballet class.
I hadn’t even gotten to the Alvin Ailey show and I was determined to quit ballet. Then, Alvin Ailey blew me away. It was one of the most powerful soulful things I’ve ever seen. It seemed to embody my entire day, everything I’d seen in the streets. They were not all paling sallow toothpicks, their bodies were all different shapes and sizes. One of the segments had no music and the dancers shouted poetic phrases, but it wasn’t like ole English poetry, it had a different kind of rhythm. It was incredible and it meant something. It wasn’t a fantasy.
