Ballerina – read it now on Kindle

The first thing I did after finishing “Ballerina” was to page to the very end of the e-book to read the short bio of its author, Edward Stewart. I assumed the writer had to have been a former dancer or that he was raised in the dance world, or at the very least, that he wrote more books that took place in the arts. None of the above were true and it was more surprising than anything I’d read in his novel.

Stewart, who passed away in 1996, was actually a musician and composer who attended private school as a boy and Harvard as a young man. He edited the famous Lampoon humor magazine for Harvard and then went on to write thrillers.

“Ballerina” is neither a comedy nor a thriller. It’s a drama set in New York City in the late 70s, in the world of ballet when Misha was a household name and Balanchine ruled.  However, other than a lack of cell phones and text messaging, there is really nothing dated about the novel. As most dancers know, ballet is about the body, about personal relationships, about politics and music and emotions. It is not about technology and because of that, the story remains timeless over thirty years later.

The ballerina of the title could be any one of three women, our main characters. There is Anna Lang, who left ballet to have a family years ago but believes she could have been a major star. There is her daughter Stephanie Lang, who has a solid head on her shoulders and is much more kind-hearted than her mother. And finally, there is Christine Avery, Steph’s best friend, a fragile girl who, although a beautiful dancer, is chronically ill and also unsupported emotionally by her rich parents.

The story begins with Steph and Chris competing for scholarships to the prestigious NBT school. The two girls are both blonde and slender and even Anna has trouble telling them apart. They become fast friends, which is unusual in this world of highly competitive young women, and neither seems to envy the other. Somehow Steph manages to stay sane while Anna pushes her harder and harder toward their shared goal of Steph getting into NBT’s company. The girls are roommates, first living with Anna and later on their own, and hard-working. When it’s time for company contracts, however, the girls must separate, although they continue to live together. Steph is chosen for Empire and Chris for NBT. You could think of these companies as ABT and NYCB: both are exceptional companies but only one has Balanchine as its artistic director.

Ballerina 1.0

And this is where things start to get dramatic. Anna is convinced Steph was overlooked by NBT’s Marius Volmar who was the director when she was a young dancer and who kicked her and her husband Marty out of the company years ago just on the cusp of them becoming principals. Anna is a tough chick, what they probably would have called a “broad” back in the mid-50s, who is no-nonsense and rough-edged. She might not have a formal education or a lot of money but she has a lot of guts. She does have her soft spots, though, as is evidenced when she takes in Chris, whose parents practically disown her when she joins the company.

Both girls rise through the ranks of each company and there is, naturally, lots of overlap and competition but they support each other throughout it all in an unusually generous spirit. There are the obligatory crushes on gay men, the cruel looks from jealous company members, the anguish of losing roles, the men who love them from afar. But fortunately this book avoids many clichés we’ve come to expect: the girls never truly become backstabbing enemies; there are no drug or alcohol addictions; no eating disorders to maintain an impossibly thin line; no pregnancies or horrible injuries that ruin careers.

Love is the one thing the girls do fight over – love in the form of Sasha Bunin, a defector from Russia who is a stand-in for Baryshnikov. But unlike the other famous Russian dancer, Sasha is not a known quantity; he is no more than a soloist when he comes to the US and he is not embraced as an immediate savior of the dance world. After all, there is already Baryshnikov in this fictional world. So Sasha must prove himself to be exceptional, as well as exceptionally handsome.

Falling in love with Sasha is what propels Chris toward her downward spiral. She is naïve and virginal and doesn’t see that Sasha is a ladies’ man and that he loves himself more than any woman. Steph sees through that but still finds herself falling for him. As Chris gets sicker and sicker, and thinner and thinner, Steph tries very hard to keep her healthy and sane but eventually loses her temper. Their friendship is definitely threatened by Sasha and severely tested to its breaking point.

Is all well in the end? Does everything end happily? No, thank goodness. The culmination of the novel is a premiere of “Sleeping Beauty” by NBT. It is the restored version of Petipa’s original choreography, with a dance for Aurora that had been cut decades earlier and never seen again on stage. The stars of the show were to be Steph and Wally but, as circumstances and drama dictate, they are not the ones to dance the leads that night. In one case, a career is made while in another a career ends.

The book sprawls across 500+ pages and includes lots and lots of very detailed dance terminology, discussion of ballet company politics, and description of dance history. Names like Gelsey Kirkland and Maria Tallchief and Rudy and Misha are dropped all over the place. Readers who grew up in the 70s or who studied dance history will be delighted to recognize some of their favorite stars (and will wonder if Edward Stewart embellished the anecdotes he tells). Personally, I was tickled to see Colleen Neary’s name in print; she is currently the artistic director of Los Angeles Ballet with her husband and had been a dancer with Balanchine back in the 70s. Also, as an instructor and dancer, I was thrilled to read accurate terminology being used instead of general descriptions being tossed about. True, for the non-dancer, the French phrases might be confusing but Stewart does an excellent job of placing them all in context or defining them as necessary, and a modified glossary is included in the back of the book.

“Ballerina” was fast-paced and an easy weekend read – and far better written than I expected. And once I picked it up, I didn’t want to put it back down.

Leigh Purtill is a ballet instructor, choreographer and coach in Los Angeles where she lives with her husband and dog. She received her master’s degree in Film Production from Boston University and her bachelor’s in Anthropology and Dance from Mount Holyoke College. She has published two novels with Penguin’s Razorbill imprint. She currently teaches all levels of ballet to teens and adults in LA and Pasadena. Zombie ballet is her passion. She can be reached through her blog: www.fitballet.blogspot.com.

Tomorrow afternoon, Bolshoi Ballet will kick off a season of special events in movie theaters all over the U.S.

They are leading with the ballet The Legend of Love, which, I admit, I knew very little about. How about you?

I figured we might all need a little primer before heading out to the Sunday matinée. So, here’s what I found out:

A Hint of History

The Legend of Love premiered for the first time in 1961 in St Petersburg at the Kirov Theatre (now Mariinsky) and then in Moscow for the first time in 1965. The cast in this premiere in Moscow featured international superstar Maya Plisetskaya as Mekhmene Banu; prima ballerina, Natalia Bessmertnova as Shyrin; and celebrated male dancer, Maris Liepa as Ferkhad.

The Legend of Love is choreographed by Russian master, Yuri Grigorovich. It is one of his earliest ballets (preceded by The Stone Flower) and secured his promise and status as a famous choreographer, helping to launch a 30-year career as artistic director of Bolshoi Ballet.

What’s the Story?

The royal apartments of Queen Mekhmene Banu are plunged into mourning – her younger sister, Princess Shyrin, is dying. The Princess will only be saved if the Queen gives Shyrin her beauty. The Queen decides to sacrifice herself, but later regrets her action when she is disfigured and Shyrin falls in love with the Queen’s own lover, the painter Ferkhad.

The overriding theme of The Legend of Love is self-sacrifice. In the story each character sacrifices something. Mekhmene sacrifices her beauty for her dying sister Shyrin. Ferkhad sacrifices his love for Shyrin in order to save the people of his land from thirst. Shyrin gives up her love for Ferkhad, realizing that his mission is more important.

One-day Only Broadcast

The performance of The Legend of Love you’ll see in theaters is captured earlier the same day from Moscow. This live broadcast stars prima ballerina, Svetlana Zakharova as Queen Mekhmene Banu, and soloists Anna Nikulina as Shyrin, and Denis Rodkin as Ferkhad.

Zakharova was born in Ukraine and grew up studying at the Vaganova School in St. Petersburg where she graduated. She quickly was given leading roles at Kirov Theatre before joining the Bolshoi as Principal Dancer several years later. This is the first time she is dancing in this role.

The sets, which open up almost like a book on the stage, were designed by Simon Virsaladze, one of Yuri Grigorovich’s frequent and most favorite collaborators.

The Legends of Love showing is on Sunday, Oct. 26, 2014 at 12:55 p.m. ET / 11:55 a.m. CT / 10:55 a.m. MT and tape-delayed to 12:55 p.m. PT/AK/HI

Find out where to see the ballet at a theater near you.

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater performs “LIFT,” a piece choreographed by Aszure Barton. It premiered at New York City Center in December 2013. Photo by Paul Kolnik.

Dance fads come and go as quickly as you can change costumes backstage or as often as your daughter needs new dance shoes. From the Charleston to Gangnam style and every dance floor craze in between, the spotlighted choreography or dancer of the moment can change as fast as you can say, “a-5, 6, 7, 8!”

It takes true strength, technique and boundless creativity for a dance form to withstand the test of time – in other words, all the qualities that have driven Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT) from the 1950’s into the 21st century without missing so much as a beat.

I recently had the pleasure of seeing this world-renowned modern dance company in person. My jaw dropped when one dancer did the highest, most beautiful developpé – then proceeded to hold her leg there as she continued into a promenade. After every section, the crowd erupted with whistling and cheering that was louder than any applause I’d ever heard at that theater.

It is difficult to fathom this company doing anything besides gracing stages around the world and moving audiences of thousands on a regular basis.

Believe it or not, that was not always the case.

The company’s first performance in 1958 took place at the 92nd street Y, which was an established dance venue in New York City. Ailey referred to their early tours as “station wagon tours.” Mickey Bord, a friend of the company, transported the dancers.

AAADT’s success truly took off in 1960 with the debut of Ailey’s timeless piece, “Revelations.” Its mix of spiritual and gospel music was one of the first majorly successful tries a dance company had ever made to perform to sacred African American music.

AAADT has faced its own share of difficulties throughout the years, including financial hardships in 1970 that threatened to fold the company, as well as the untimely death of its creator in 1989. However, with the creation of The Dance Theater Foundation, Inc. to assist with financial needs and the appointment of Judith Jamison as Artistic Director following Ailey’s death, the company continued to push on to modern day.

Loretta Abbott and Alvin Ailey perform in “Revelations.” The timeless piece is included in the Ailey repertoire to this day. Photo by Nicola Cernovitch.

Today, the company resides at its very own theater, The Ailey Citigroup Theater, which broke ground in Manhattan in 2001. The Ailey Foundation now includes Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Ailey II, The Ailey School, and The Ailey Extension, which offers dance and fitness classes to the general public. Judith Jamison appointed current Artistic Director Robert Battle in 2011.

“Revelations” and other original Ailey works continue to be danced at their performances, as well as pieces by established choreographers of the past and present. In 2008, AAADT was even declared as “a vital American cultural ambassador to the world” in a US Congressional resolution.

Do you think of yourself as an Ailey aficionado?

Scan this list of unique facts and test your Ailey knowledge from past to present.

• Born in rural Texas, Alvin Ailey’s desire to dance didn’t truly come to life until after his relocation to Los Angeles, California, where he saw Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and the Katherine Dunham Dance Company for the first time. He was 12 years old when he moved.

• The company began with seven dancers. That number has since quadrupled. My program from this year’s show listed 31 dancers, without counting rehearsal director Matthew Rushing, who was serving as a guest artist.

• The only time “Revelations” has been performed by anyone other than AAADT or Ailey II was in Mexico City, when Ballet Folklorico performed the piece in the opening ceremonies at the 1968 summer Olympics.

• AAADT became New York City Center’s first resident modern dance company in 1972. It continues to be the Center’s principal dance company.

• In addition to the company’s countless stage performances around the world, AAADT has performed in a wide variety of television programs, including Sesame Street, the Ellen Degeneres Show, the Oprah Winfrey show, Dancing with the Stars, and So You Think You Can Dance.

• A variety of products have been inspired by Alvin Ailey and his dance company, including stamps, greeting cards, and an Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Barbie doll.

This information and much more can be found on Alvinailey.org and PBS.org.

We think we know ballerina Jenifer Ringer, don’t we?

Recently retired, she spent nearly 25 years dancing with New York City Ballet. In 2010, New York Times dance critic Alastair Macauley famously insulted her in a review of NYCB’s “The Nutcracker” by claiming her Sugar Plum fairy looked as if she’d eaten “one too many sugar plums.” (New York Times, Nov 28, 2010) The world soon learned of her struggles with her weight when she appeared on “The Today Show” a few days later.

We think we know what dance memoirs are, don’t we?

Tales of backstabbing ballerinas, drunken artistic directors, scandalous love affairs with dancing partners, maybe some drugs and alcohol, accusations tossed like thorny bouquets. And that’s just Gelsey Kirkland’s 1986 memoir, Dancing on My Grave! Fans give loud and long ovations of approval to memoirs like these: we love to see the great become humbled, the behind-the-scenes peeks at dance and dancers because, let’s face it, the professional ballet world is a mystery to most people.

This memoir is not that memoir.

Jenifer Ringer’s Dancing Through It: My Journey in the Ballet (Viking 2014) avoids scandal and secrets, instead focusing on Ringer’s weight issues and her Christian faith. As she did when faced with Macauley’s scathing comments, Ringer puts a positive spin on some of the most negative times in her life. In her prologue, she acknowledges being “forced” out of the dance world because of her unhealthy relationship with food (periods of overeating followed by anorexia and extreme exercise) but after a year away she returned “a new person” (p.4).

Like many young dancers, Ringer found joy in the intoxicating music, the stunning costumes and beautiful movement of ballet when she was a child with the Washington School of Ballet.

Also like many dancers, she is a self-described perfectionist. She blossomed under ballet’s discipline and embraced its rigorous demands.

But with a desire for perfection comes easy disappointment. Whether it’s a role we think we should have gotten or a lift we should have nailed, it’s too easy for young dancers to become angry and frustrated with themselves and many take it out on their bodies.

“If only I were thinner…”

“If only my legs were longer…”

“If only my chest was smaller…”

Ringer – as lovely and talented as she is – felt this too. In her book she writes that she “took a weird pleasure in my bones showing through my skin” (p.3). As horrific as that sounds, many readers of her book will understand this sentiment.

Through much of her early career with City Ballet, she struggled with her weight: she overate and then loathed herself for doing so. She worried that others would discover she had no self-control; if she were fired for being overweight, “the whole world would know that I was worthless” (p. 109). It’s shocking to read these words from a woman who was at the top of her profession.

Ballet Pointe Shoes in a Shop Window, NYC by Alexander C. Kakfa is licensed under CC by 2.0

Ringer describes her darkest fears in candid and unassuming ways and never places blame on anyone else, which makes it all the more heartbreaking. She never reached out to anyone – she admits lying to nutritionists, to City Ballet artistic director Peter Martins, to her family and friends inside and outside of the dance world, to her church – and suffered a complete breakdown when she was fired in 1997.

Although Ringer had always been a churchgoer, she didn’t turn to her faith for guidance until after she’d been let go from City Ballet. She realized life as she’d known it for years was over. In her very darkest hour, she considered suicide. “I realized that there was really no point to a life like this one,” she writes (p.114).

With the help of an old friend, as well as attendance at church meetings and a firmer resolution to use her faith as a guide, Ringer saw a ray of hope. She lost weight but more importantly gained insight into herself. The following year, she was rehired by City Ballet.

Although Ringer attributes the turnaround to God and her Christian faith, readers who are not of her faith will still find her story inspiring. Regardless of how she tamed the demons in her mind, she developed an inner strength that kept those negative thoughts at bay for the rest of her career, one that lasted nearly a quarter of a century.

Ringer’s next phase in her life is a relocation to Los Angeles to direct the dance department at The Colburn School, a performing arts school. Along with LA Dance Project’s Benjamin Millepied and recently retired NYCB principal dancer, Wendy Whelan, Ringer will be shaping the next generation of dancers and preparing them for life as professionals.

Want to Read Along With Us?

Dance Advantage and Leigh Purtill would like to invite you to join our Book Troupe. Throughout the coming year, we will announce a dance-related book and invite you to read it with us, share your thoughts, and read Leigh’s review.

Our first selection is Misty Copeland’s memoir, Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina.

Get it. Read it. (Or, if you’ve already read it…)

Join us for a LIVE discussion with Leigh on Friday, December 19 right here on Dance Advantage.

This week, whether you are celebrating Thanksgiving or appreciating what’s left of Autumn, we’d like to share this fantastic fall recipe with all you foodies out there.

Ingredients:
-8 oz pumpkin
-8 oz ricota
-flour
-allspice
-salt to taste
-1/2lb butter
-sage
-brown sugar

Start with a cut pumpkin and bring to a boil until tender to the touch.
In a mixer or by hand, mix in ricotta, flour, brown sugar, and allspice.
Keep mixing while gradually adding flour until manageable by hand.

Migrate the ball of dough onto a floured surface and kneed until medium firm.

Roll into strips of about half inch diameter (like rolling play-dough “snakes”).

Cut into small half inch pieces or size desired. For additional fanciness you can roll each piece on a whisk or fork for perfect lines.

Boil in salted water, and when they float they are done.

Check the link to the video to see the sauce I use on these delicious pumpkin spice gnocchi.

And if you’re of age, finish off your day with a Fantastic Fall Bourbon Spice Cocktail.

Chef and Dancer

Chef Matt and Dancer Kait, a couple loving what they do. Texas born and raised and relocated to Seattle, Washington with our cat named Ladybird. Matt is an amazing Chef and Graduate of Le Cordon Bleu trained mainly in french cuisine. His days are spent cooking in the restaurant. Kait loves to dance ballet en pointe and has also trained in lyrical contemporary, jazz, tap and hip hop. Her days are spent working at a well known dancewear store while continuing to train and attend dance classes in the afternoon and evening. Matt and Kait sincerely love what they do and morphed their passions into ChefandDancer.com.

Ballet was born out of the royal court pageants of the Renaissance. In those days, it was primarily entertainment performed by nobility for nobility. Kings and queens even took roles in the lavish productions.

Ballet eventually shifted to the realm of professional theater and the aristocracy took on the role of patrons and audience members.

But, that doesn’t mean that nobles lost their passion for the art. Here are some famous ballet fans with royal titles…

Queen Victoria (1819-1901)

The Young Queen Victoria by Franz Xaver Winterhalter. Wikimedia Commons Public Domain Image.

Victoria loved watching ballet as a girl. She attended the theater up to three times a week and saw the Romantic Era rivals Marie Taglioni and Fanny Essler dance in London. Marie Taglioni was Victoria’s favorite dancer. After watching her perform in La Sylphide, the young royal wrote, “She danced quite beautifully, quite as if she flew in the air, so gracefully and lightly”. Victoria also saw Marie’s brother, Paul Taglioni, dance onstage. She declared that he was “the most splendid man-dancer I ever saw”. [1]

Victoria herself made ballet costumes for her collection of miniature dolls. She also drew and painted pictures of ballet dancers. She was a lifelong amateur artist and her ballet pictures have been preserved.

Grace Kelly, Princess Grace of Monaco (1929–1982)

Grace Kelly. Wikimedia Commons Public Domain Image.

The movie-star-turned-princess took ballet lessons as a child and dreamed of becoming a ballerina, but ultimately dedicated her herself to acting. Yet, as dance critic Laura Jacobs points out, “She never, however, lost her ballet posture or a dancer’s awareness of her limbs in space.”

As Princess of Monaco, Grace narrated the Academy Award-nominated film “The Children of Theater Street” a documentary about the ballet students of the Kirov Academy in Russia. Monaco’s Monte Carlo Ballet School was renamed the Princess Grace Academy of Classical Dance in her honor. She said her hope was, “to develop a small dance company from the school that would tour Europe and the United States.”

Three years after Princess Grace’s death, her daughter, Princess Caroline (who also took ballet lessons as a child), established Monaco’s national ballet company, Les Ballets de Monte Carlo.

Princess Diana (1961– 1997)

John Travolta and Princess Diana. Wikimedia Commons Public Domain Image.

“My love of my life is dancing, things like tap, modern, ballet and jazz,” wrote 17-year-old Lady Diana Spencer. But she went on to add, “watching me dance is like watching an elephant, so no-one does!” Diana studied ballet in her youth and dreamed of joining the Royal Ballet. But, at that time, her height of 5’10 would have prevented a ballet career regardless of her ability.

Still, she never lost her interest in ballet or dancing in general. As Princess of Wales, she did get to dance on the stage of the Royal Opera House, the home of the Royal Ballet. In a private performance, she danced a contemporary piece to Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl” with former Royal Ballet dancer, Wayne Sleep.

Princess Diana was also a patron of the London City Ballet and English National Ballet. She enjoyed attending performances, observing company rehearsals, and conversing with dancers.

On the tenth anniversary of Diana’s death, The English National Ballet performed an excerpt of Swan Lake at her memorial concert.

Queen Margrethe II (born 1940)

Queen Margrethe II of Denmark at the wedding of Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden, and Daniel Westling by Prolineserver. Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under CC Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported.

The reigning queen of Denmark (and great-great granddaughter of England’s Queen Victoria) is in her 70s and has been taking weekly ballet classes for over 30 years.

The queen also designs costumes and sets for ballet productions in her country. “I’d always loved the theater, especially ballet,” she said in 2012 interview. She went on to explain:

“I had been doing a little bit [of designing] in a completely amateur way, for amateur performance […] And then I was asked, more than twenty years ago, whether I would consider doing the scenery and the costumes for a ballet at the Royal Ballet here in Copenhagen, which I agreed to do. And that was…well…that certainly was quite mad. But it was very, very exciting.”

Within the last two years, Queen Margrethe’s designs have been featured in productions of The Nutcracker and The Steadfast Tin Soldier at Tivoli Gardens in Denmark.

—————————————————————————————————————————

[1]

“Princess Victoria was stagestuck. She is perhaps the first little girl on record, and certainly the most august, to have languished for the heroines of the boards with the intense identification described in such classics as Ballet Shoes. For London in the late 1820s and 1830s saw a flowering of romantic ballet […] Victoria was there [at the theater] sometimes as often as three times a week, sitting in her box after dinner […]

By the time she was fourteen, Victoria was in thrall to ballet. Over half her collection of dolls consists of dancers in different roles […] she and [her governess] Lehzen together made a troupe from tiny five-inch Dutch figurines, dressed them in miniature replicas of the costumes they had worn on stage, and arranged them in pairs according to their favourite ballet stories.”

From: Queen Victoria’s Sketchbook, Marina Warner, Chapter 2, pg. 47-48, Crown Publishers Inc. New York 1979

Every year we like to share a few items for your holiday wish- or gift-list.

This year’s clothing items come straight from my own closet and have been time-tested.  Plus, we’ve got a great selection of books for you to choose from.

I hope you (or the dancer in your life) will love these gifts as much as I do!

GypsyWears Zip Wrap

GypsyWears Zip Wrap

Last year, our friend Lorry of Bead109 introduced GypsyWears to me and to Dance Advantage readers with a giveaway of the Barre Buddy®. At that time, GypsyWears owner, Rebecca Ruschell, was incredibly gracious and offered me samples of her Bun Buddy® and the Slate/Cranberry Zip Wrap.

I can’t tell you how in love I am with the Zip Wrap.

It doesn’t get super cold here in Houston, but on colder days this wrap works as outerwear and keeps me warm in a chilly studio.

It is cozy, even after a year’s worth of washings. The fabrics are quality.

The cut is classic and flattering, making the zip wrap extremely versatile. It works as well with jeans and heels as it does over comfort clothes. I can’t say that about my hoodies.

The sleeves, which reach to my palm, are perfect.

And the two-way zipper is genius. It’s all about options. You can zip up and then “unzip” the bottom fora little more wiggle-room at the hips. You can also zip the slouch collar all the way up for the snuggly burrito look, or let it fold down for a peek at the (in my case) attractive, red inner lining.

As I said, I received the zip wrap primarily for review but I’ve been wearing it happily for a year. Dancers will be forever grateful for a lasting, useful, and fashionable gift like GypsyWears’ Zip Wrap.

designer4dance Etsy

Another item form my own closet I’d like to share is one from Etsy shop owner, J.D. Karam. He sent me a review sample of the pictured Dolman-style (wide-sleeved) top back in May.

Dolman short-sleeve from designer4dance

I’ve been actively wearing it for teaching dance classes ever since. The fabric is very soft and has stayed soft through many washings. The printed design has also proved very durable. I’m a fan of J.D.’s more sophisticated dance designs, but even his more youthful designs have a certain elegance.

Maybe that’s because J.D. had a career as a fine artist before taking up dance.

“I enjoyed pretty good success with my abstract prints, but I felt that my figurative work looked too masculine. So one day, I worked up the courage to walk into a dance studio near my home and it changed my life,” says J.D.

J.D. stayed in dance for 20 years and says he looked forward to every single day, every single class, and every single performance. He has studied under Cindy Saillant, T. J. Maheras at the Phoenix School of Ballet, and Nadia Zubkov and Sergei Perkovskii at The School of Ballet Arizona, and considers himself not a professional, but a “trained dancer with a trained eye”.

He’s been designing for dancers since 1998 and grew his business attending dance conventions. Eventually, J.D. had eight employees and several sales reps around the country but the recession of 2008 and a need to care for his aging parents changed things. Etsy has helped J.D. remain in business at a much smaller scale.

J.D. has more ideas for his Etsy shop, including dance-related printables, gift cards, and jewelry. Dance Advantage encourages support of small business owners. Consider a purchase from J.D.’s designer4dance shop.

Biographies of Three Black Ballerinas

Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina by Misty Copeland

Taking Flight: From War Orphan to Star Ballerina by Michaela DePrince

Night’s Dancer: The Life of Janet Collins by Yaël Tamar Lewin and Janet Collins

Any or all of these titles should be on a dancer’s to-read list.

In Life in Motion, ballet prodigy and well-known ballet star, Misty Copeland tells of her unstable childhood which was thrust into the spotlight when she sought emancipation from her mother. The late-starter is only the third-ever African-American soloist for American Ballet Theatre and she’s the first after a 20-year gap.

We will review and live chat about Misty’s memoir December 19 on Dance Advantage, with the aim of discussing many of the books’ themes including:

• Racial diversity in ballet
• Economic discrimination in ballet
• Teachers: external challenges we face with students
• Students: dealing with and overcoming family obstacles
• Parents: How far should parents go to encourage their children?
• Curves and growth; how do we handle body changes in young dancers?

…. Don’t miss it!

Michaela DePrince wrote Taking Flight with the help of her adoptive mother. She first came to our collective attention in the documentary First Position, went on to become a principle dancer at Dance Theater of Harlem, and currently performs with Dutch National Ballet. Not yet 20 years old, she tells the devastating story of her beginnings as a shunned and abused war orphan in Sierra Leone with elegance and courage beyond her years.

Janet Collins began it all. She was the first black ballerina to be hired by a major American ballet company and is a role model beyond the ballet world for her work with deaf students. The author of Night’s Dancer incorporates, Ms. Collins’ own writings an intimate details of her life. A fascinating read about a fascinating life.

If you have younger dancers in mind for gift-giving this season. Check out Firebird, a picture book beautifully written by Misty Copeland (illustrated by Christopher Myers), or Ballerina Dreams, a Step into Reading version of Michaela DePrince’s Taking Flight.

These titles aren’t doing it for you? No problem. Check out these dance book reviews.

Journal Your Way to Dance Success

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that our 4 for 40 e-mail course is still on sale through December 31st.

4-for-40 is a 40-week motivational, dance journaling guide that includes an inspirational quote, must-know dance terminology, an action challenge, and a writing or list prompt in every colorful, easy-to-read email. It is sent to you personally or makes a great digital gift for the dancer in your life.

Don’t miss your chance to get all 40 weeks for less than one 30-minute private lesson!

Life in Motion, a memoir by Misty Copeland

In Misty Copeland’s new memoir, “Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina,” she writes about “white ballets” such as La Bayadere and Giselle, and in particular, the “white act” of Swan Lake. Professional dancers understand the importance of synchronicity of movement in ballet; they know that very tall ballerinas are hard to partner, that dancers with short legs do not have the same arabesque as dancers with long legs. But skin color? Must that be the same as well?

Not only did Copeland paint her skin a different color in order to play roles in Giselle and Sylvia, but it was also a joke among her fellow dancers:”You’re the only black girl, Misty, but you’re always playing an animal that has to be white.” She laughed along – simply happy to be a member of the world famous American Ballet Theater – until it was too much: “I began to think that it wasn’t so funny.”

1957? 1977? No, this was 2007.

Misty Copeland’s journey in ballet began when she was thirteen, a very late start for a dancer, especially one destined to become a star. Many fans know her first dance class was at a Boys and Girls Club in San Pedro, California. Her body was perfectly designed for ballet but she didn’t know it until she met Cindy Bradley, a ballet instructor who recognized her potential. Copeland and her family moved a great deal, and there wasn’t much money for luxuries like ballet lessons and expensive pointe shoes, so when Bradley offered to take young Misty into her home in order to help pave the way for a successful dance career, Copeland’s mother felt she had no choice. Copeland writes, simply and heartbreakingly, of the moment her mother agreed to Bradley’s request to let Misty live with her:

“And she let me go.”

Two years later, after Copeland had begun drawing attention in the dance world by winning the prestigious Los Angeles Music Center’s Spotlight Award and performing in ballets like Debbie Allen’s “The Chocolate Nutcracker,” Copeland’s mother and Cindy Bradley would be in a custody battle over Misty as she tried to emancipate herself. That battle would be waged very publicly, including an awkward appearance on the talk show Leeza. Shy, intense Misty was mortified by the negative attention of the media. All she wanted to do was dance.

A dream comes true.

Since she’d initially fallen in love with ballet, American Ballet Theater had been Copeland’s dream company. Although she’d been accepted into the summer programs of every major company in the country (except New York City Ballet, a rejection she says was based on her skin color) and had attended San Francisco Ballet’s program, it was ABT’s program she wanted most. When ABT offered her a full scholarship to their summer intensive, off she flew to New York.

But leaving the relative cocoon of San Pedro meant exposing herself to the harsh judgments of the professional ballet world, a world that has long been very homogeneous, some would say, very white. While Copeland had experienced racism back home, she was primarily surrounded by a supportive family, but in New York, she found subtle and not-so-subtle hints that she was not welcome. That judgment became more pronounced when she suddenly developed from an adolescent into a young woman, complete with curves in all the wrong places for ballet. Hers was the body of an African-American woman and at first, she abhorred it. She was embarrassed and disapproving of her own body; thankfully she did not develop an eating disorder, but despite her efforts, the shape of her body did not change. And ABT – from the costumers to management – asked her to lose weight, to get her “line” back, the one for which she’d been hired.

“…my curves are part of who I am as a dancer, not something I need to lose to become one.”

Eventually, she came to accept her body: “I had breasts, and muscles, but yes, I was still a ballerina.” And her acceptance of herself led to ABT’s acceptance of her as well. They stopped asking her to change who she was and began to celebrate her difference, promoting her to soloist in 2007.

June/July 2014 Pointe Magazine

Misty Copeland is only the third African-American female soloist with American Ballet Theater and the first in nearly twenty years.

Discuss “Life in Motion” live on Dance Advantage today, December 19 at 3:30 EST. It is a perfect opportunity to talk about some of the adverse situations Misty Copeland has experienced as well as racism and diversity in general in the world of ballet and dance.

Some topics for our discussion:

• Racial diversity in professional ballet as well as local studios
• Economic discrimination in ballet: pointe shoes v. groceries
• Teachers: external challenges we face with students
• Students: dealing with and overcoming family obstacles
• Shy Misty and the need to perform
• Misty leaves home – how far should parents go to encourage their children?
• Curves and growth; how do we handle body changes in young dancers?

Tell us what you think of Life in Motion.

As a dancer, you know it’s essential to care for your feet – but what about your dance shoes?

As one of dancers’ main essentials, dance shoes require proper care to provide maximum support, protection and performance. Just as every dancer is unique, however, dance shoes and their needs are equally unique from the average street shoe.

Learn how to store, repair, wear and clean your dance shoes the right – and wrong – way.

 Storage

“On her toes – and ours!” by Maria Brea is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

• Do store dance shoes in a cool and dry location. Fibers in damp shoes often deteriorate more quickly.
• Don’t keep dance shoes in a plastic bag, such as the one they might come in when purchased. Shoes that are unable to breathe = shoes that sweat and ultimately decay and smell.

 Repair

• Do search out the correct materials if you’re planning on fixing them yourself. While the precaution may not necessarily be convenient, it does pay off in the long run. For instance, use wood glue when repairing stripped tap shoe screws. Superglue and other adhesives, while possibly already available in your supplies closet, will eventually crack.

Wearing

• Do be gentle when putting your footwear on and taking it off. The life span of toe paws, for example, is considerably affected by how carefully you put them on and remove them.
• Do wear the proper clothing with your shoes. Pointe shoes, for example, should be worn with tights and the type of toe pads, if any, that your teacher instructs you to wear (there should not be room in your shoe to wear other kinds of foot coverage, like toe paws or socks). Socks worn with tap shoes can help prevent the growth of bacteria.
• Don’t ever dance in broken shoes, as it can cause serious consequences. Dancing in broken pointe shoes, for instance, can lead to hairline fractures in the foot.

“At Rest” by tibbygirl is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Cleaning

• Do wash canvas shoes, like ballet shoes, in the washer if they need to be cleaned.
• Do use a shoe brush on suede-bottom shoes – it will keep them clean and help them maintain their texture.
• Do use polish or silicon oil on patent shoes, such as ballroom shoes, to prevent cracking and sticking.
• Do clean dirt off leather shoes, like jazz or tap shoes, using melamine foam.
• Don’t put canvas shoes in the dryer after washing, as this could cause them to shrink.
• Don’t ever wear your dance shoes outside the studio. Not only will they get dirty, but it can damage the soles. Most dance shoes don’t provide proper support for wearing as a street shoe, either. Plus, your teacher surely doesn’t want dirt from outside tracked into the studio.

What tips and tricks do you have for keeping your dance shoes in tip-top shape? Share them in the comments below!

More Information on Dance Shoe Care: 

• Dancepaws.com
• Pointeshoefitting.co.uk
• Revolutiondance.com

When the new year comes around, it’s time to crack open those fresh, new calendars and date books.

If you are super organized like me (sarcasm intended), you get around to this… in late January. But, it’s never too late to mark the days of the year you’ll spend dancing!

Unfortunately, (again, if you’re like me) those annual dates that offer a chance to celebrate your favorite pastime have a way of sneaking up on you. No more, friends!

Here’s a list of important annual dance events and celebrations worldwide.

(You’re welcome.)

Days to Recognize Dance and the Arts

World Tutu Day

World Tutu Day is as an annual world wide fundraising event in support of ballet education.

World Tutu Day began in 2014 as an initiative of  The Australian Ballet School and has leapt to New Zealand this year. The idea is that funds raised in other countries will support top ballet schools all over the world and enable them to offer their programs to students who have talent but not the means to follow their dreams.

February 2 (2/2) annually

National Arts Advocacy Day (U.S.)

Arts Advocacy Day is an advocacy training opportunity hosted by Americans for the Arts and cosponsored by 85+ national arts organizations, National Arts Advocacy Day is the largest gathering of its kind, bringing together grassroots advocates from across the country in Washington DC to meet with members of Congress in support of issues like arts education policy, the charitable tax deduction, and funding for the National Endowment for the Arts.

March 23-24, 2015 (dates for this event vary annually)

dance anywhere®

dance anywhere® is a simultaneous worldwide public art performance. Beth Fein created this event in 2005, making 2015 the 10th anniversary of dance anywhere®. People of all ages and artistic capacities have made dances in parks, museums, street corners, schools, work places, community centers, offices, and just about anywhere you can imagine. Participants have been professional dancers and artists, plumbers, doctors, soccer players, teachers and politicians. Some dances are choreographed, some are improvised, and some stretch the definition of what dance is.

March 27, 2015 (Last Friday in March) at Noon (Pacific U.S.); 3pm (Eastern U.S.) click here for your time

Why Dance Matters

Why Dance Matters is a Dance Advantage initiative that started in 2010.  Leveraging short-form social media messages and the hashtag #whydancematters we rally dancers online to affirm the impact dance has on the lives of individuals and communities. It’s really a task we take on year-round via Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest, though organized “virtual” events have been fun and effective over the last few years.

This year, two event days have been selected to stir up a flurry of testimony about why dance matters. The first date coincides with the anniversary of Dance Advantage – the 1st of April. We think it will be a fun way to commemorate a day of the year that is already special for us. Then, we’ll do it again on the 1st of August as dance schools and companies begin to gear up for their respective seasons. It’s a one-two punch of #whydancematters!

April 1 and August 1

International (World) Dance Day

Dance Day has been celebrated by dancers all over the world every year since 1982. It is an initiative of the International Dance Council CID, UNESCO. The main purpose of Dance Day events is to attract the attention of the wider public to the art of dance. Emphasis is given to addressing people who do not follow dance events during the course of the year. These events may be special performances, open-door classes, lectures, articles in newspapers and magazines, parades, and more.

April 29 annually

National Dance Week (U.S.)

National Dance Week was formed in 1981 when a group of dance-related organizations began a strong “grass roots” movement to bring greater recognition to dance. National Dance Week Foundation was established as a non-profit institution in 2011. Its purpose is to expose and introduce as many people as possible to the enjoyment and benefits of dance through promoting dance in schools, expanding community awareness, and increasing professional development.

April 24-May 3, 2015 (dates for this event vary – usually in late April or early May)

National Teacher Day (U.S.)

In the United States Teacher Appreciation Week is held during the first week in May. Around the country thousands thank their educators. Last year the National Education Association encouraged the use of the #ThankaTeacher hashtag with thousands showing their support for the nation’s teachers on Facebook, Twitter, and elsewhere.

Many dance students and parents also choose to show dance teacher appreciation on this day.

May 5, 2015 (Tuesday of Teacher Appreciation Week — first week in May annually)

Tap Dance Day

It has no official website but you can learn about the history and purpose of National Tap Dance Day right here on Dance Advantage. The idea of National Tap Dance Day was first presented to U.S. Congress on February 7, 1989 and was signed into American law by President George H.W. Bush on November 8, 1989. Its only official observance was that year but Tap Dance Day continues to be celebrated in the U.S. and other countries, and is significant also as the birthdate of Bill Bojangles Robinson.

May 25 annually

World Lindy Hop Day

World Lindy Hop Day encourages people from all different backgrounds to enjoy and share the many benefits of this joyous and enduring dance. The 2014 celebration marked Lindy Hop legend, Frankie Manning’s 100th birthday and was the formal inauguration of May 26th as World Lindy Hop Day. Record of the momentus centennial celebration can be found at Frankie100.com.

May 26 annually

National Dance Day (U.S.)

Launched in 2010 by “So You Think You Can Dance” co-creator and Dizzy Feet Foundation co-president Nigel Lythgoe, National Dance Day is an annual celebration that encourages Americans to embrace dance as a fun and positive way to maintain good health and fight obesity. NDD achieved national recognition when a congressional resolution was introduced declaring the last Saturday in July to be the country’s official National Dance Day.

July 25, 2015 (Last Saturday in July annually)

World Ballet Day

Last year on October 1, 2014 five of the the world’s leading ballet companies: The Royal Ballet, The Australian Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet, The National Ballet of Canada and San Francisco Ballet, joined together to stream exclusive rehearsal footage for a worldwide audience over a period of 20 hours. It was a chance to see how the different companies warm up for the day and interviews with choreographers and leading figures in the dance world.

Is anything in the works for this year? We don’t know, but we’ll keep you posted!

TBA?  

Ballet Day in February?

February 7 has been cited in a few locations as “Ballet Day”. One source noted this date as important to ballet because February 7 was the date Dutch Prince William III danced in the premiere of “Ballet of Peace” in 1668, and as the day that french dancer, Mme Francisque Hutin “introduced ballet to the US” [quotes are my addition] with a scandalous 1827 performance of The Deserter, staged at the Bowery Theater in NYC. A bit of that story can be found in this book on burlesque and american culture. I can’t find any sources offering validity of Feb. 7 as an officially recognized Ballet Day, however.

World Teacher’s Day

In 1994, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) proclaimed October 5 World Teacher’s Day. It is a day devoted to appreciating, assessing, and improving the educators of the world, and provide a time to look at and address issues pertaining to teachers. WTD is a natural extension of UNESCO’s all year round work of promoting teachers, ensuring that this profession, so vital to the healthy functioning of society, is itself “healthy”.

October 5 annually

The birthdates of legendary dancers and choreographers are often a chance to recognize not only their contributions to the dance world but to celebrate dance itself.

The list of 40 dance luminaries below is by no means complete but a sampling of individuals from ballet, modern dance, and jazz dance who made significant contributions to the art form before passing from this life.

Birthdays of Dance Icons

January 5 (1931) – Alvin Ailey
January 12 (1908) – Jose Limon
January 15 (1862) – Loie Fuller
January 22 (1904) – George Balanchine
January 23 (1906) – Lester Horton
January 24 (1925) – Maria Tallchief
January 27 (1879) – Ruth St. Denis
February 12 (1881) – Anna Pavlova
February 14 (1946) – Gregory Hines
March 12 (1889) – Vaslav Nijinsky
March 31 (1872) – Sergei Diaghilev
April 4 (1908) – Antony Tudor
April 16 (1919) – Merce Cunningham
April 23 (1804) – Marie Taglioni
April 27 (1911) – Jack Cole
May 7 (1840) – Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (ballet composer)
May 10 (1899) – Fred Astaire
May 11 (1894) – Martha Graham’s Birthday
May 25 (1878) – Bill “Bojangles” Robinson
May 26 (1914) – Frankie Manning
May 27 (1877) – Isadora Duncan
June 14 (1937) – David Howard
June 21 (1850) – Enrico Cecchetti
June 22 (1909) – Katherine Dunham
June 23 (1927) – Bob Fosse
July 6 (1879) – Agrippina Vaganova
July 10 (1923) – Gus Giordano
July 22 (1901) – Charles Weidman
August 23 (1912) – Gene Kelly
August 28 (1925) – Donald O’Connor
August 29 (1958) – Michael Jackson
September 18 (1905) – Agnes DeMille
October 2 (1927) – Jimmy Slyde
October 11 (1918) Jerome Robbins
October 17 (1895) – Doris Humphrey
October 21 (1891) – Ted Shawn
November 13 (1886) – Mary Wigman
November 21 (1912) – Eleanor Powell
December 15 (1879) – Rudolf Laban
December 24 (1930) – Robert Joffrey

We hope you’ll find this list useful.

Now go celebrate dance… every day!

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Nichelle (admin)

Founder/Editor at Dance Advantage

Nichelle Suzanne began Dance Advantage in 2008, equipped with a passion for movement education and an intuitive sense that a blog could bring dancers together. Nichelle holds a BA in dance and is an instructor with more than 17 years experience. She covers dance performance in the Houston area as a freelance writer and balances daily life as a mom to two young children. In June 2012, Nichelle presented the whats, hows, and whys of blogging on a panel at the annual conference for Dance/USA, the national service organization for professional dance, to better equip artists and companies for engaging their audience and new readers through online communications and content.

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Pointe shoes: A Love Affair

Ballet: Giselle || Dancer(s): Yuriko Kajiya || Photo: Amitava Sarkar || Image provided courtesy of Houston Ballet

The relationship a ballerina has with her pointe shoes is fascinating. Considering the beauty and magic of a ballet performance, one might imagine it a tender, benevolent affair. But we know better, don’t we?

Pointe shoes are pressed, mutilated, drawn and three-quartered before they can ever adorn the feet of a dancer in class or performance. And once pointe shoes are broken and useless, they’re tossed aside. Woe to the next pristine pair!

Yet, pointe shoes are the object of every young ballerina’s desire and, though she may go through a period of love/hate, most dancers who move on to professional stages show great respect for the tool of their trade. A ballerina takes care in choosing her pointe shoe and when she finds a “partner” she really likes, she’s loyal. A dancer prepares her pointe shoes with devotion, even if her methods lack a certain… elegance.

In fair Verona, where we lay our scene…

Our love affair with pointe shoes gets me thinking about other examples of torrid entanglements in the ballet world. There are plenty of specimen, but during the month of February, Romeo and Juliet glide to the forefront.

Here in Houston, we await the world premiere of an entirely new production of Shakespeare’s famous love story. Presented by Houston Ballet February 26 – March 8 2015, Romeo and Juliet is choreographed by artistic director, Stanton Welch with sets and costumes by acclaimed Italian designer Roberta Guidi di Bagno. [Get tickets here.]

In celebration of this event and of pointe shoes (and the ballerinas who wear them), I decided to ask four of Houston Ballet’s female dancers to tell us about her pointe shoes and the tough love she shows them.

Let me introduce you to the dancers…

Originally from Japan, Houston Ballet Principal, Yuriko Kajiya studied ballet in China and Canada and is a past Prix de Lausanne Scholarship winner. After joining American Ballet Theatre’s Studio Company in 2001, she later apprenticed and rose to the rank of soloist with ABT’s main company. In July 2010, she appeared on an episode of So You Think You Can Dance, along with fellow ABT soloist Jared Matthews. Ms. Kajiya is well known in Japan, having starred in the high profile documentaries, Passion Across a Continent in Japan (2007) and Yuriko: Ballerina (2011) which appeared on national television across Japan. In September 2013, she met with the Prime Minster of Japan, Shinzo Abe, while he visited the U.N., to discuss women’s rights within Japan. She joined Houston Ballet as a first soloist in 2014 and was promoted to principal dancer in November of that same year.

Houston Ballet soloist, Nao Kusuzaki, grew up and trained in Japan until the age of 10, when she moved to America to study at the Washington School of Ballet. Ms. Kusuzaki danced professionally with Boston Ballet for five seasons. She later joined Houston Ballet in 2004 and was promoted to the rank of soloist in 2008. She has danced featured roles in Stanton Welch’s TuTu, Falling, and Brigade, premiered in Nosotros and Punctillius, and has danced the roles of the Sugar Plum Fairy, Snow Queen, and Arabian in The Nutcracker; Cio-Cio San and Suzuki in Stanton Welch’s Madame Butterfly and Nikiya in La Bayadère.

Born in Sacramento, California, Houston Ballet demi soloist, Elise Elliott trained at the Deane Dance Center. In 2007, she became a member of Houston Ballet II, where she performed in many ballets, including a world premiere by Stanton Welch, choreographed to Brahms’ Liebeslieder Waltzes Op. 52 for Da Camera of Houston. Later that year, she joined the main company and has been featured in many ballets, including Stanton Welch’s Falling; Antony Tudor’s The Leaves are Fading; Jiri Kylian’s Falling Angels, Stanton Welch’s Of Blessed Memory; and William Forsythe’s The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude. Elise was featured as the “On The Rise” dancer in Dance Magazine’s April 2014 issue and is married to fellow Houston Ballet dancer, Rhodes Elliott. I first spoke with Elise in 2009, when her last name was still Judson and she was a corps dancer taking on the role of Sugar Plum Fairy.

Alyssa Springer, originally from Orange County, California, is a member of Houston Ballet’s corps de ballet. She began her study at Ballet Pacifica and continued her training with John Gardner and Amanda McKerrow of ABT, California Conservatory of Dance, Anaheim Ballet, and attended the prestigious Stiefel and Stars program for two summers. Ms. Springer performed as a Snowflake with the company in Ben Stevenson’s The Nutcracker during her first year as a Houston Ballet Academy student, later joining Houston Ballet II midyear. She was offered an apprenticeship with the company shortly after and has appeared in a number of world premieres by Stanton Welch, James Kudelka’s world premiere of Passion as a demi-soloist, and William Forsythe’s In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated, performing the lead role originated by Paris Opera’s Sylvie Guillem.

From brand to preparation, each Houston ballerina has her own pointe shoe preferences.
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Which is your pointe shoe of choice? And what do you love about it?

Yuriko: I wear custom shoes from Capezio. Capezio is based in the U.S. and has a shoe factory in New Jersey. If there’s any problem with my shoes, I can talk to my shoe fitter, who I LOVE, Yolaine, and she can fix it for me right away.

Nao: I wear Gaynor Minden brand pointe shoes. The quietness of the shoes is my favorite feature. Also, the staff at Gaynor Minden are always helpful in customizing the shoes to fit according a dancer’s every need.

Elise: I am a Freed Classic girl. One of the best things about wearing Freed Classics is that you can customize every part of the shoe. You can change the length of the vamp, how high the sides and back of the shoe are, how many shanks are inside the shoe, if it is three-quartered or not, you name it. I have very archy feet – the fact that I can have two and a half shanks inside my shoe has saved me from going through many more pairs.

Alyssa: I currently wear customized Suffolk Spotlights. I have a wide foot and a narrow heel, so it used to be that no matter what shoe I wore, the satin would bag at my heel when I was on pointe. What I love about my shoes is that Mark and Keri Suffolk were able to fix this problem by shortening the outside shank the slightest bit. Now there is a clean line at my heel and no extra material. I also like that these shoes last me a while – something that is really important during a rigorous rehearsal and performance schedule.

Ballet: A Dance in the Garden of Mirth || Choreographer: Stanton Welch || Dancer(s): Alyssa Springer || Photo: Amitava Sarkar || Image provided courtesy of Houston Ballet

What is your favorite method for preparing your pointe shoes for dancing?

Yuriko: I always wet the box with water first. That way the the glue inside box gets soft and it will mold to the shape of my foot.

Nao: Bending them using all force, then wearing them around until they become as if part of the feet.

Elise: I do quite a bit to my shoes before I wear them. After sewing on the ribbons and elastics, I also darn the tip of my pointe shoes. I find that darning helps the box not die as fast. Next, I take the top heel pin nail out of the shank, and cut half of the top shank out of the shoe. I don’t like having a fully three quartered shoe, so I just do half myself. I then step on the box to widen it, put on the shoe, and start breaking them in.

Alyssa: After I sew the ribbons and elastic onto my pointe shoes, I always put jet glue in the box of the shoe. Then I slightly soften the place where my bunions will be to take some of the pressure off. As I wear a pair and the shank starts to die, I’ll glue the outside of the shank to make them last even longer.

Ballet: Coppelia || Dancer(s): Nao Kusuzaki || Photo: Jim Caldwell || Image provided courtesy of Houston Ballet

What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever tried to break-in a shoe?

Yuriko: It’s something I still do, so I don’t find it strange but all the other dancers find it different. I cut the inside shank really really low. Lots of dancers like three-quarter cuts, but mine is quarter cut.

Nao: Taking the entire shoe apart, then putting them back together in a way I thought would be the most comfortable.

Elise: When I was trying different brands of shoes, before I found Freed Classics, I would try pretty much anything to get my shoes to be the right shape. For a really hard shoe that was hard to bend, I would stick the box in a door jam and open and close the door to try to break the shoe down. The fact that we all hit our pointe shoes on pretty much any hard surface to break them down and make them quieter is pretty funny, too. I hit my shoes in the stairwell we share with the musicians at the theater, and seeing me hitting the wall with my shoe always makes the musicians laugh.

Alyssa: I don’t do this very often, but I have worn a brand new un-sewn pair of shoes around my apartment so they could begin to mold to my feet.

Do you have your own pointe shoe love story to tell?

We’d love to hear about it in the comments.

How about a gift for prose and poetry?

I invite you to write an original poem with the title “Ode to the Pointe Shoe”.

Send it to me by February 20, along with a short bio and a pointe shoe selfie.

Your poem could be published on Dance Advantage!

Author information

Nichelle (admin)

Founder/Editor at Dance Advantage

Nichelle Suzanne began Dance Advantage in 2008, equipped with a passion for movement education and an intuitive sense that a blog could bring dancers together. Nichelle holds a BA in dance and is an instructor with more than 17 years experience. She covers dance performance in the Houston area as a freelance writer and balances daily life as a mom to two young children. In June 2012, Nichelle presented the whats, hows, and whys of blogging on a panel at the annual conference for Dance/USA, the national service organization for professional dance, to better equip artists and companies for engaging their audience and new readers through online communications and content.

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YA novels about young dance hopefuls are pretty easy to come by. Thrillers about young dance hopefuls… not so much.

That’s what makes dancergirl by Carol M. Tanzman a unique find for dancers who love to read, or readers who like to dance, or just readers!

What’s it about? Check out this teaser…

Available on Amazon

“Ever feel like someone’s watching you? Me, too. But lately it’s been happening in my room. When I’m alone.

A friend posted a video of me dancing online, and now I’m no longer Alicia Ruffino. I’m dancergirl. And suddenly it’s like me against the world.— everyone’s got opinions.

My admirers want more, the haters hate, my best friend Jacy,— even he’s acting weird. And some stalker isn’t content to just watch anymore.

Ali. Dancergirl. Whatever you know me as, however you’ve seen me online, I’ve trained my whole life to be the best dancer I can be. But if someone watching has their way, I could lose way more than just my love of dancing. I could lose my life.”

Our friend, Leigh Purtill wrote a review of dancergirl on her own blog. This is what she had to say:

“Our culture’s current fascination with YouTube, with getting our 15 minutes of fame, with quick sound bites that we use to define people, are dealt with head-on in “dancergirl.” We see how Ali wants to have things both ways: popularity and fame as a dancer on the web, yet respectful privacy in her daily life. As she soon finds, it’s nearly impossible to keep secrets once you are in the public eye, for whatever reason.”

Read Leigh’s entire review here.

I think this book will be a fun and perhaps insightful read for teens, their parents, and teachers. Don’t hesitate to grab a copy right now.

Right now? …Why? 

Read on…

Book Troupe Chat

We’re pleased to announce that dancergirl will be the topic of our second Book Troupe LIVE chat moderated by Leigh Purtill.

(Last time we had an excellent discussion on Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina.)

This chat will be extra special, however, because the author of dancergirl, Carol Tanzman, will be joining us to talk about her book! We are so excited that she’s agreed. So, get your questions ready!

We will list an overview of the topics we’re hoping to cover on the dancergirl chat Facebook event page and keep you up to date with how to access the discussion. The date and time is listed below.

Friday, March 13 12:30 PM PDT/3:30 PM EDT

We can’t wait to chat with you about this book! But hold on, we’ve got MORE good news…

“dancergirl” Giveaway

Carol is generously giving away a copy of dancergirl to TWO lucky Dance Advantage readers (and hopefully Book Troupe chat participants)!

Here’s how to enter:

Comment on this post, sharing your favorite YouTube dance video (your own or someone else’s).

You have until NOON (EST) Wednesday, February 18 to leave your comment. At that time TWO winners will be randomly selected to receive one paperback copy of dancergirl.

The nitty gritty: You must live in the U.S. and be at least 18 years old to participate in this giveaway. Read our giveaway policy.

Best of luck!

“Reading a book at the beach” by Simon Cocks is licensed CC BY 2.0

Author information

Nichelle (admin)

Founder/Editor at Dance Advantage

Nichelle Suzanne began Dance Advantage in 2008, equipped with a passion for movement education and an intuitive sense that a blog could bring dancers together. Nichelle holds a BA in dance and is an instructor with more than 17 years experience. She covers dance performance in the Houston area as a freelance writer and balances daily life as a mom to two young children. In June 2012, Nichelle presented the whats, hows, and whys of blogging on a panel at the annual conference for Dance/USA, the national service organization for professional dance, to better equip artists and companies for engaging their audience and new readers through online communications and content.

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“decorated pointe shoes” is licensed CC BY 2.0

We asked you to submit a poem of love for your pointe shoes and we weren’t disappointed! Thank you for your submissions. Our featured poet is Corina Chan.

Corina performs with Kathy Mata Ballet, a volunteer-based dance company. Their mission is to provide free shows at senior citizen facilities in San Francisco for seniors who may not otherwise have opportunities to enjoy dance performances. The motto of our company is “Dance is for Everyone.” This idea is true for both audiences and dancers, as Corina did not start her dance training until her mid 30s. In dance, as in all important matters in life, better late than never.

Without further ado, Corina’s Ode to the Pointe Shoe:

Ode to the Pointe Shoe

How do I love you?

Let me count the ways.

I love you out of the box, so shiny, pink, and new

I love you with every pique, pirouette, tendu

Second skin of my feet, keeper of my sole

Every step I take, your virtues I extol

The lines you draw, the patterns you trace

At the barre and in the center, you fill a sacred space

Adorned with ribbon like a satin-wrapped prize

Hiding within elegance the pain you disguise

I love you in class, in rehearsal, and on stage

Treasure beyond measure, my spirits you raise

My road to ballet is paved with blood, sweat and tears

You are my companion persistent through the years

Vertical suspension, the summit of my desire

You beneath me, the wings beneath my fire

From toil and struggle, the suffering for your sake

Comes dance so joyous, ever-worthy to create

Do you have dance poetry you’d like to share?

Leave a link or submit it to us. Your poem may be published, too!

What is it like to play Romeo?

Bolshoi Ballet principal, Alexander Volchkov tells us of the preparation and experience of giving an emotional performance as Romeo.

Photo by Damir Yusupov courtesy Fathom Entertainment

Dance Advantage: What is the most challenging aspect of dancing the role of Romeo?

Alexander Volchkov: The most difficult part of Romeo is the period of emotional preparation. To get yourself in that mindset. And of course in rehearsal as obviously, it is physically challenging. But the most challenging is to emotionally become Romeo.

DA: What do you enjoy most about portraying Romeo, and how is it different than other lead roles?

AV: I think what sets this role apart from others is that Romeo and what happens to him is what I could imagine happening to me, and the difficulty I have definitely experienced. It is easy to imagine. My Romeo is someone who truly loves, he is not a Prince or Count, those are roles that you really have to imagine and create for yourself, but with Romeo it is all very straightforward and clear – he is in love and has to love.

DA: As Romeo you share intense and emotional moments on stage with Juliet. What must happen off-stage or in rehearsals with your partner to convincingly create these moments for an audience?

AV: You have to morally and truly fall in love with Juliet and believe that you love her and that she is the only one. And only then, when you believe it, then the audience will believe it. Otherwise they will know that the feeling is false.

DA: The Pokofiev score is much beloved among audiences and musicians. As a dancer, how do you feel about the music of Romeo and Juliet?

AV: Audiences and of course dancers love the music of Prokofiev. It is genius music and it helps you get into the role and the more you dance it, starting with the first act and leading into second act, then you really succumb to it. In terms of emotions, it gives you a minimum of 50% to lead you through, and the audience loves it and of course the artists do as well.

DA: You spend plenty of time on stage with Juliet in your arms but which section of this ballet, that is not a love scene, is your favorite to dance?

AV: I love the emotional scenes, for instance the murder of Tybalt and the final death scene in the crypt. The emotional scenes are the most interesting  to dance and perform. There are of course happy moments which are easier to portray but these more tragic and emotional scenes are very difficult because they get inside of you, start to make your blood run, your body trembles at what you are experiencing on stage and the emotional result which is what I love most.

What is it like to play Juliet?

Visit 4dancers where Bolshoi Ballet’s Anna Nikulina gives her perspective.

Hear more from these dancers:

Watch this video on YouTube.

See Alexander Vochokov at the cinema

Viewers across the US have the opportunity to see Alexander Volchkov perform the role of Romeo when the Bolshoi Ballet hits the big screen for one performance only on MARCH 8th. Search here for a theater near you.

What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d

Alexander Volchkov was born in Moscow. In 1997, having trained at the Moscow Choreographic College (today the Moscow Choreographic Academy), in Leonid Zhdanov’s class, he joined the BolshoiBallet Company. His constant coach is Vladimir Nikonov.

In 2001, Mr. Volchkov won the 2nd prize at the International Competition of Young Ballet Dancers, in Kazan. The following year, he danced the title role in Yuri Grigorovich’s Romeo and Juliet for the Kremlin Ballet Company — in a performance to mark the choreographer’s jubilee.

He originated principal roles in Mr. Ratmansky’s The Flames of Paris (Philippe), Mr. Burlaka’s La Esmeralda (Phoebus), Francesco Ventriglia’s Zakharova Super Game (Lambda), and Declan Donnellan – Radu Poklitaru’s Romeo and Juliet (Paris).

Mr. Volchkov’s has appeared as a guest artist with the Paris Opera Ballet (Jeanne de Brienne in Nureyev’s Raymonda), The Kremlin Ballet Theatre (Romeo in Grigorovich’s Romeo and Juliet), Tbilisi Opera and Ballet Theatre (Swan Lake, The Nutcracker), and Bashkiria’s State Opera and Ballet Theatre (The Sleeping Beauty, Romeo and Juliet).

In 2008, after a performance in Alexei Ratmansky’s The Flames of Paris, he was promoted to the rank of Principal dancer. He is an Honored Artist of Russia (2010).

Disclosure: Dance Advantage accepts compensation for promoting the Bolshoi Ballet Cinema Season.

Thirty years ago, author Cherie Magnus and her son performed as supernumeraries (the “extras” of the ballet world) in American Ballet Theatre’s Romeo and Juliet. In the following essay, originally written as a chapter in her unpublished, “Coffee Shop Dreams,” she recounts the experience for an engaging behind-the-scenes look at ballet and its legendary stars.

“Bodies, Monks and Mourners, On Stage!”

(Backstage call for Act III “Romeo and   Juliet”)

I’m in an elaborate costume on stage in front of 6,000 people, there is a full orchestra playing Prokovief in the pit, my teenaged son, dressed as a Renaissance servant, is standing next to Natalia Makarova, and Mikhail Baryshnikov is watching from the wings. Am I dreaming? No, I’m a ballet mother and a Supernumerary for American Ballet Theatre’s “Romeo and Juliet,” choreographed by Kenneth MacMillan.

The Shrine Auditorium, cavernous, ornate, rarely used except for the Academy Awards, was ABT’s usual home when in L.A. While the company proper was off at a gala fete and fundraiser at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, a motley crew of thirty men and women hoping to make the Super cut lined up for appraisal in the Shrine’s freezing rehearsal hall on a cold Sunday in March, 1985.

We were all types, sizes and ages, not just the “tall, ballet type” advertised for on the bullet board at my son Jason’s ballet school. We took off our jackets and sweaters and lined up according to height in front of a seated panel of three, just like years ago when I auditioned as a dancer.

I had dressed for warmth and comfort not beauty, and I felt strangely vulnerable, fat and naked in the lineup. I’m too old for this, I thought. Immediately I was asked to step forward along with two other middle-aged women. They’re eliminating me at once because I’m not right, not what they want, I thought. The old insecurity and fear of rejection was lurking close to the surface.

But it was just that we three had been pre-selected to be “Market Ladies” because of our height. At first I was disappointed that I was not to be an “Elegant Lady” (due to my bust size–the first time 36A was ever too large!) Our roles were determined by what costumes we fit, nothing more.

Market Ladies wore different multi-layered costumes weighing perhaps twenty pounds each. Underneath was a full-length heavy petticoat with a ruffle. Then, in my case, a dress of heavy beige upholstery-like fabric with slit sleeves and lacing up the front and back, plus a long tunic of another beige fabric laced up the front and sides. My headdress, of faded-looking beige and violet muslin, had an Arabic flair and a wimple fastening under the chin. Each of us wore similar but differently detailed costumes. Jason was cast as a Green Litter Bearer for the ball in Act I, and a monk in the Capulet tomb in Act III.

Since there was only one professional union dresser, it was necessary for us Supers to help each other in and out of the difficult hooks and laces–no zippers! We formed a costume daisy-chain before and after each act with the dresser at the end. In this way we got our laborious changes down quickly, and I got an amusing snapshot of eight people concentrating hard on lacing each other up.

When the Supers arrived for our first rehearsal, the company class was just winding up. Dancers familiar to us from photographs and the stage looked like typical ballet students in their colorful and eccentric rehearsal clothes. But a sight unfamiliar in a ballet studio was the several animals stationed around the outside of the practice floor, tethered to the barres with leashes.

At that time, there were about twelve dogs and eight cats that traveled with the dancers, and the dogs usually attend class and rehearsals with their owners. There’s even a dog walk-on in “Giselle” and “Swan Lake, so often the larger animals get a chance to be on stage. In the meantime, the pets add love, comfort, and companionship to the dancers’ life on the road. There were so many animals backstage (they were always polite and well-behaved) that a dog and a large bag came to mean “dancer” to the fans at the stage door.

Opening night there was a black-tie reception after the performance in the rehearsal hall for the Friends of ABT–those who contributed substantially. All during dress rehearsal and the performance afterwards, the caterers were setting up. Topiary trees with fairy lights surrounded white tables topped with Cinzano umbrellas around a small dance floor. Festive tents covered the bar areas and the disc jockey’s equipment, which included Italian popular songs for the Romeo & Juliet theme.

There were white flower carts filled with fruits and cheeses, an Italian ice pushcart dispensing zabaglione, chocolate-hazelnut, and wild-blueberry ices in little paper cups, and a long buffet of hot and cold pasta dishes. The preparations went on for hours before and during the performance, and as we hurried back and forth between dressing rooms and the stage, we Supers eyed the food and drink being set out. After the second act the lighted Italian fountain was turned on and we were ready to run over and stick a paper cup under it, hoping it was champagne.

The word went around that the cast was invited to the party and that the Supers were considered part of the cast! This was an unexpected perk to our $10 per performance with free parking, and one we enthusiastically appreciated; by that time we had been in the Shrine for ten hours.

Jason dashed over and grabbed a glass of champagne, and began a conversation with the late principal dancer Patrick Bissell. (“Loved your double cabrioles last night in “Raymonda!”)

But I didn’t know what to do: on the one hand, I love gala parties like this under normal conditions; on the other, I was dressed in a red corduroy jumpsuit and sneakers, not the latest word among the sequin-and-fur set now streaming through the doors from the auditorium.

On the one hand, many of the company dancers were wearing warm-up clothes; On the other, obviously I was not a skinny young company ballet dancer. But I was hungry, thirsty and excited, and so I sidled over and got some champagne (Italian, too, I supposed) and tried to look natural.

I got a plate of pasta and retreated from the glittering garden back over to a circle of metal folding chairs near the Supers’ makeshift dressing rooms, where several Supers were sitting like happy outcasts. Occasionally some of the regal people seated at the white tables inside the circle of lighted ficus trees would turn their heads and glance in our direction, not actually seeing us at all.

Most of the guests were looking for celebrities, of course, and Baryshnikov was there at one of the umbrella tables, as were most of the company dancers.

One of the little boys playing pages ran around asking the dancers to sign his program. Even Jason felt too much a part of the adult world, of the dance world, to ask, though he too would like the souvenirs. Asking for autographs definitely divides the pros from the amateurs. There’s them and then there’s us, and for the duration of “Romeo and Juliet” the illusion of being part of American Ballet Theatre was worth more than autographs of the stars.

People were raving about the Italian ices, and so Jason grabbed me and pulled me over to join the short line in front of the cart. Behind us stood two tall, black-tied men, who assumed we were ABT members and politely asked us questions as if we knew the inside stuff. We ate our ices and faded into the background, and eventually out the stage door into the cold night, trailing stardust and fatigue.

After a few performances we felt like true professional company members as we hurried to sign in, put on our makeup, and prepared to wear our heavy, uncomfortable costumes. It was difficult even to walk in those outfits, and we Market Ladies didn’t mind at all when we were ordered to remove them immediately upon exiting the stage and to put them on again right before Act II. We were not allowed to sit down in them or eat, drink or smoke in them. I wondered about going to the bathroom, but knew it would be impossible to lift those heavy skirts anyway. Luckily the subject never came up for me.

By this time we had learned to quickly dress into our street clothes after coming offstage and sneak into the box right next to the wings. You could only see half of the stage from there, but it was better than standing in the wings where we were in the way. The large orchestra rendering Prokofiev’s powerful score sounded fuller and more immediate from the audience, too.

While onstage, the Supers were to react to the events taking place and join in with the company at certain times, acting and interacting. We Market Ladies had fun mixing with the company on stage, walking around acting naturally, participating in the action first hand. Some of us treated the dancers by sprinkling candy in our market baskets among the plastic products. I put M&M’s in with my grapes.

We didn’t have to feign fear in Act I when the Capulets and the Montagues whipped out their swords and set about killing each other. The stage was crowded with people and the large set, and each performance of the fight got more wild. Twenty men thrusted and parried with real swords (with tiny rubber tips), jumping from landings, leaping through doorways. It was different every time, but always skilled and exciting, and the supers didn’t always know where to stand to get out of their way. As the bodies piled up, the “dead” Capulets and Montagues made jokes and funny faces to those onstage who could see them. They seemed to have a wonderful time.

Nor did I have to pretend sorrow and horror in Act II at the death of Tybalt. I was moved to tears every time Lady Capulet (Georgina Parkinson) rushed down the stairs to Tybalt’s body and seized the sword in a frenzy to attack the remorseful Romeo. Then, convulsed with grief, she sank agonizingly to the floor and rocked the dead Tybalt in her arms to the wailing of French horns, trombones, trumpets and the pounding of the tympani. It was incredibly powerful, indelible. (She always gave him a friendly pat after the curtain fell.)

The last performance was danced by Natalia Makarova and the house was packed, 6,000 people. I couldn’t believe she could be better than the other Juliets I saw, but she was. When she died in the tomb to that poignant minor theme, the audience was on their third Kleenex. Even Martin Bernheimer, the Los Angeles Times’ Critic Terrible at the time, praised her performance, saying that “Makarova IS Juliet!”

Fourteen-year-old Autumn, Jason’s ballet classmate who was playing an Elegant Lady super, pressed a beaded bracelet she had made into Makarova’s hands in the wings after the many curtain calls. Overcome by emotion from the performance, Autumn couldn’t stop her tears. We were all aware that Makarova, at 44, was nearing retirement by her own admission and that we may not see this Juliet again.

In seven performances with seven different casts, including six Romeos and six Juliets, we saw seven different ballets. The choreography was the same and was always danced at a high technical level. But this proved to us the importance of acting, personality, drama, interpretation beyond technique. When Danilo Radojivic’s Mercutio felt his wound in his death scene, I actually “saw” blood on his hand, and I was six feet away from him!

It was “our” last performance, the next ABT “Romeo and Juliet” would be danced in Detroit. Supers were frantically snapping instamatics on the “Cinderella” set which was being assembled near our dressing rooms, as that was the next full-length ballet planned for Los Angeles. We all wanted to see how we looked (no full-length mirrors in the ladies’ dressing room, no mirror at all in the men’s) and to record our moment of glory for scrapbook posterity.

As each costume came off after a scene, it was packed away, and by the end of the ballet, nothing remained of “Romeo and Juliet” in the dressing rooms but huge labeled and sealed cardboard boxes ready for loading onto the trucks.

Most of the supers were anxious to see Superstar Himself, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and since he wasn’t dancing at all during this Los Angeles season, we at first wondered if we would. But we did see him, several times in fact, the first week. (What a shock to see my fifteen-year-old son Jason tower a good three inches over this bigger-than-life man!) Misha was there opening night, the next night for the party, and the night Makarova danced.

That night, during Act III, Jason and the other Supers playing monks were waiting in the wings for their cue, many still transfixed from watching Makarova. The monks were to enter the Capulet Tomb carrying huge lighted candlesticks. Seven monks on the right, eight on the left (the last one being the disguised Romeo sneaking into the tomb), circle the biers and exit up long flights of stairs on each side.

From my seat in the box, I saw the eight left-hand monks enter, but only three right-hand monks–Jason’s side. It looked strange and off-balance, and Romeo’s significance as an extra monk was lost. Jason and three other monks were waiting in the wings for their cue as they had the previous nights, but somehow missed it tonight. Suddenly they saw the lighted candles of the rest of the monks moving across the stage, too late for them to catch up.

“Great, that’s just great!” uttered sarcastically in a Russian accent caused Jason to look to his left and see the great Baryshnikov himself watching this blunder from the wings. Pulling his cowl down over his head, Jason slunk away in shame to take off his robe and to remain anonymous!

Afterwards, Baryshnikov was hounded for autographs inside the stage door by audience members who had found their way backstage. Jason and I made our way through the crowd with our shoulder bags as people stared at us, hoping we were somebody. By the time we got into our cars and were slowly inching by the stage door on Exposition Blvd., we were just in time to see Baryshnikov gleefully carrying a cello case quickly through the crowd that was not on the lookout for a musician. He nearly made a successful escape until the crowd as one body recognized him and took off after him into the parking lot like a swarm of bees. That was the last we, too, saw of the legendary artist during our ABT season. And for this whole two-week wonderful adventure, we had to say a most enthusiastic, Great, just super!

With degrees in English, Dance, and Library Science from UCLA, Cherie Magnus has published many articles in professional journals and magazines. She was the dance critic for the Cerritos News in Orange County, California before moving to Buenos Aires where she taught tango for ten years. Now back at home in Los Angeles, she has published two memoirs: The Church of Tango, and Arabesque: Dancing on the Edge in Los Angeles.

Read more on Facebook: facebook.com/thechurchoftango, facebook.com/arabesquememoir, and on her blog: www.mirasolpress.com

Perhaps there is a psychic link between dancers and writers, a common thread in their DNA that makes them more similar than other groups of individuals.

Available for Kindle

So many dancers have become writers, whether it’s a memoirist like Misty Copeland or Jenifer Ringer or a novelist like Grier Cooper, that it shouldn’t surprise us when we read the biography of an author and discover a dance connection.

Cooper is a former professional dancer and Wish is her first young adult novel. While it is not set in the professional dance world, Wish revolves around a main character who wants to pursue a career in ballet. She brings much of her own personal experience – her studies as a young ballet dancer and her desire to train in New York City – to this story.

What’s refreshing about Cooper’s book is that much of the drama of the story is focused on family. We don’t see petty hair-pulling rivalries among ballerina wannabes or eating disorders that destroy bodies and souls. Neither do we have the common tropes of children’s and young adult fiction: parents are absentee guardians or dead; children are orphaned or sent to boarding school; the settings are otherwise so fanciful as not to resemble real life.

The protagonist in Wish, Indigo Stevens, is a high school student whose greatest dream is to study dance in New York and become a ballerina. She has a great group of supportive friends, some of whom dance but are not as serious or talented as she, and a sort-of boyfriend who would like to be a bit more. Like most good dancers, Indy is also a good actress and she can perform the role of a normal girl with an average home life – and no one is the wiser.

“I crash to the floor…No one stops or looks at me. Class goes on…Even when dancers fall, the show must go on.”

But Indy’s mom has a problem. She drinks. A lot. And the more she drinks, the more abusive she becomes. Much of her vitriol and physical punishment is centered on Charlie, the younger of Indy’s two brothers. Charlie is a handful and Indy’s mom takes a lot of her frustrations out on the poor kid. Sadly, Dad is in denial. He has his own wish: he’d like his family to be perfect and pretends like it is.  When Indy’s mom goes too far, it’s up to Indy to get help for her mother and herself.

While dramatic, the story also has some nice light touches. Indigo’s observations about dance and dancers are spot on and often amusing:

“As everyone knows, ballet dancers always go commando.” (Never thought about that but it’s true!)

On working with a handsome partner:

“I am doing the breath of panic. I will never survive this.”

Grier Cooper

Indigo has all the insecurities and self-doubt of an average teen, one who wants to be loved and accepted but to also soar beyond her average life. This quality makes her very relatable, whether you are a young adult reader or one who is merely young at heart.  When Indigo asks her mentor and teacher, Miss Roberta, if she misses dancing in New York, the older woman replies with a sigh, “All the time.” Miss Roberta advises her young student to pursue dance with a passion and to never look back. The teen reader hears her own wish fulfilled in this directive while the adult relives the wish she once had.

The ending is heartfelt and sweet and we wish Indigo all the best life has to offer.

Here in the still-tropical city of Houston, summer plans to hang around for a while. For those of you in cooler regions who may not be graced with warm weather much longer, we have a delightful dancer-friendly recipe for you today. Created by Chef Matt, Watermelon Waltz is a refreshing and satisfying salad to end your summer.

Ingredients

Two watermelon coins cut with 2″ ring mold

Spring medley salad mix 1.5 OZ

Mushroom Duxelle ( later explained)

Slice of purple onion

Slice of bell pepper

Balsamic reduction

Salt to taste

---

 

Mushroom Duxelle Explained…

Ingredients:

2 qts Finely Minced Mushrooms

1 qts red wine

16 OZ Goat Cheese Chevre

Salt to taste

Saute mushrooms until falling apart

Add wine and let reduce all the way

Transfer to mixing bowl and fold in goat cheese

Salt to taste and let cool

Store extra in the refrigerator (it’s great on toasted baguette)

How To

Start a wood fire grill and wait to ember, or use a skillet inside.

Butter your watermelon coins generously (I like using the spray)

Place on medium heated part of grill and let carmelize

Start building your salad with one watermelon coin , then your spring mix , and sandwich-ing it with the other watermelon coin

Top with onion, bell pepper, and a dollop of Mushroom Duxelle

Drizzle with Balsamic reduction

Chef and Dancer

Chef Matt and Dancer Kait, a couple loving what they do. Texas born and raised and relocated to Seattle, Washington with our cat named Ladybird. Matt is an amazing Chef and Graduate of Le Cordon Bleu trained mainly in french cuisine. His days are spent cooking in the restaurant. Kait loves to dance ballet en pointe and has also trained in lyrical contemporary, jazz, tap and hip hop. Her days are spent working at a well known dancewear store while continuing to train and attend dance classes in the afternoon and evening. Matt and Kait sincerely love what they do and morphed their passions into ChefandDancer.com.

Available on Amazon

“‘Ori’s dead because of what happened out behind the theater, in the tunnel made out of trees. She’s dead because she got sent to that place upstate, locked up with those monsters. And she got sent there because of me.’

The Walls Around Us is a ghostly story of suspense told in two voices—one still living and one long dead. On the outside, there’s Violet, an eighteen-year-old dancer days away from the life of her dreams when something threatens to expose the shocking truth of her achievement. On the inside, within the walls of a girls’ juvenile detention center, there’s Amber, locked up for so long she can’t imagine freedom. Tying these two worlds together is Orianna, who holds the key to unlocking all the girls’ darkest mysteries.

We hear Amber’s story and Violet’s, and through them Orianna’s, first from one angle, then from another, until gradually we begin to get the whole picture—which is not necessarily the one that either Amber or Violet wants us to see.

Nova Ren Suma tells a supernatural tale of guilt and innocence, and what happens when one is mistaken for the other.”

(From the Goodreads description of “The Walls Around Us” by Nova Ren Suma)

It is a rare author who can write authentically about ballet and prison. Fortunately, the only one of the two that Nova Ren Suma has personally experienced is ballet. According to the notes in my copy of the book, she studied ballet as a teenager so she knows that world quite well. The juvenile detention center, although not an environment she knew intimately, is portrayed equally beautifully.

One of the strengths of this wild and intense thriller is the lyrical prose. Suma may be writing in the English language like many of us do but she uses words like an artist wields paints. Her palette is far more colorful and expansive than many writers’. And it is this way of drawing her story that pulls us in and never lets us go.

“There’s this thumping, and it’s not my pristine pair of pointe shoe shoes touching floor for the first night in their short lives. It’s what’s going on in my head. It’s a stampede.” (Violet)

The two points of view are Amber, a girl in Aurora Hills Detention Center because she murdered her abusive stepfather, and Violet, a self-centered ballerina who is about to graduate from high school and attend Julliard. Connecting them is Orianna, a girl who was/is falsely imprisoned for the murder of two dancers in “the tunnel” outside the theater where she and Violet perform.

“Was/is” is an important distinction because the two narratives are separated by time. How exactly this works (there is an element of magical realism in the initial contact between Amber and Violet) is left until the very end when both points of view come together. Kind of. There is also a lot of “kind of” and events that are up to individual interpretation. I don’t want to spoil the ending and how it all evolves but rest assured your interpretation of the resolution may not be the same as mine – and that’s okay. Suma leaves it to us to figure out.

“…how did this intruder know who Ori was? And how did I, if Ori hadn’t come up our hill and stepped off the blue-painted bus to join us yet?” (Amber)

Both girls have secrets, both girls know the truth, but we are never certain who is telling the truth and who is lying and when. That unreliable narration and contradiction between accounts always keeps the reader on her toes. From the beginning with Amber’s account, we know there was an attempted escape at the prison. From Violet’s opening account, we know that Ori is gone, in prison for murder and that the reason is Violet’s fault.

“Sometimes I think I still have the blood on my face.” (Violet)

From there the stories diverge and intertwine and we learn more (we think) about the girls.

I welcomed the complex characterizations of not only Violet, Ori and Amber but also the secondary characters. Suma gives us teenagers who are not black-and-white, good-or-bad, mean girls or Mary Sues. In other words, realistic teens in hyperrealistic situations. Most girls are not going to be in prison, most are not classical ballerinas – but all of them get jealous and defensive and protective and heartbroken.

photo by Erik Ryerson

Nova Ren Suma is the author of several young adult novels, including “Imaginary Girls” and “17 & Gone” as well as the middle grade novel, “Dani Noir.” She attended Antioch College and Columbia University and lives in New York City. She can be reached through her website, novaren.com. Her latest novel, “The Walls Around Us,” can be purchased at bookstores or from Amazon.

Perhaps there is a psychic link between dancers and writers, a common thread in their DNA that makes them more similar than other groups of individuals.

Available for Kindle

So many dancers have become writers, whether it’s a memoirist like Misty Copeland or Jenifer Ringer or a novelist like Grier Cooper, that it shouldn’t surprise us when we read the biography of an author and discover a dance connection.

Cooper is a former professional dancer and Wish is her first young adult novel. While it is not set in the professional dance world, Wish revolves around a main character who wants to pursue a career in ballet. She brings much of her own personal experience – her studies as a young ballet dancer and her desire to train in New York City – to this story.

What’s refreshing about Cooper’s book is that much of the drama of the story is focused on family. We don’t see petty hair-pulling rivalries among ballerina wannabes or eating disorders that destroy bodies and souls. Neither do we have the common tropes of children’s and young adult fiction: parents are absentee guardians or dead; children are orphaned or sent to boarding school; the settings are otherwise so fanciful as not to resemble real life.

The protagonist in Wish, Indigo Stevens, is a high school student whose greatest dream is to study dance in New York and become a ballerina. She has a great group of supportive friends, some of whom dance but are not as serious or talented as she, and a sort-of boyfriend who would like to be a bit more. Like most good dancers, Indy is also a good actress and she can perform the role of a normal girl with an average home life – and no one is the wiser.

“I crash to the floor…No one stops or looks at me. Class goes on…Even when dancers fall, the show must go on.”

But Indy’s mom has a problem. She drinks. A lot. And the more she drinks, the more abusive she becomes. Much of her vitriol and physical punishment is centered on Charlie, the younger of Indy’s two brothers. Charlie is a handful and Indy’s mom takes a lot of her frustrations out on the poor kid. Sadly, Dad is in denial. He has his own wish: he’d like his family to be perfect and pretends like it is.  When Indy’s mom goes too far, it’s up to Indy to get help for her mother and herself.

While dramatic, the story also has some nice light touches. Indigo’s observations about dance and dancers are spot on and often amusing:

“As everyone knows, ballet dancers always go commando.” (Never thought about that but it’s true!)

On working with a handsome partner:

“I am doing the breath of panic. I will never survive this.”

Grier Cooper

Indigo has all the insecurities and self-doubt of an average teen, one who wants to be loved and accepted but to also soar beyond her average life. This quality makes her very relatable, whether you are a young adult reader or one who is merely young at heart.  When Indigo asks her mentor and teacher, Miss Roberta, if she misses dancing in New York, the older woman replies with a sigh, “All the time.” Miss Roberta advises her young student to pursue dance with a passion and to never look back. The teen reader hears her own wish fulfilled in this directive while the adult relives the wish she once had.

The ending is heartfelt and sweet and we wish Indigo all the best life has to offer.

“I will dance forever if possible. Dance has always been there for me throughout my life’s difficulties. It has sustained and saved me.” – Cherie Magnus

Cherie Magnus’ memoir, Arabesque: Dancing on the Edge in Los Angeles, begins with the author’s sixteenth birthday when her father gives her a 1957 Mercury Montclair convertible. It’s a great ride, shiny and black with a ragtop, but it’s also a gift of freedom. Her parents’ constant moving and their rocky personal relationship made the ground under Cherie’s feet as unstable as Los Angeles in an earthquake. Having wheels means she can get to her dance classes consistently, continue to attend the same high school, and eventually drive from the Valley to Westwood to attend UCLA.

Magnus previously wrote about her life as a tango dancer in her first memoir, The Church of Tango, but this is a prequel, covering her young adult years, mostly her life in college.  She always knew she wanted to dance, from the very first group classes she took in ballet, tap and acrobatics at small local studios. Her passion was for ballet, for the forms and lines and beauty of the idiom. It took her far away from her reality: a father who could be drunk, a mother who was unreliable, and grandparents who could be exceptionally generous but only when things were done on their terms.

College should have been Cherie’s escape. She wanted to attend Texas Christian University which was the only college in the country that had a dance degree in ballet but her parents were adamant that she attend UCLA, which was local, well-respected and affordable, but its dance degree was in modern, an idiom that challenged and bored Magnus. It was during her freshman year that she met Paul, a grad student in engineering who was handsome and smart. She fell head over heels in love.

The beginning of the new decade – 1960 – heralded some profound social changes but for a young woman, much remained the same. Women were not at all “liberated” and Magnus found herself caught in the middle. She wanted desperately to be independent but Paul assumed she would do as he wanted. He dictated how their love life progressed; he insisted she stop performing and pursue teaching instead. She wanted very much to please him, as women of her generation were expected to, but she’d spent years dancing and choreographing and training for a life of performance.

And this begins the “edge” of Cherie Magnus’ life: not only does the title of her memoir refer to her life in the Valley (which is geographically on LA’s “edge”) but also the time she spent hospitalized for depression. While the breakdown might have been triggered by a fellow student’s death, it had been building for a while. Her parents’ separation, Paul’s lack of commitment, a realization that she wasn’t pursuing her passion – all contributed to a profound feeling of despair and hopelessness. Magnus became incredibly lonely and worried constantly. Eventually she was hospitalized but like any dancer, she found her center again. Although ballet would not be her professional future, she would find her dance passion in tango.

After reading her memoir, there was so much more I wanted to know. Cherie Magnus very graciously agreed to an interview.

Star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame

Leigh Purtill: In the opening chapters of your memoir, you describe the frequent moves your family made from rented house to rented house, town to town, but the one constant was dance. Can you expand a bit on how you were first exposed to dance?

Cherie Magnus: I remember clearly my first ballet class. It was in Pacific Palisades, a few blocks from where we were living at the time. I was three years old and I recall how enchanted I was with the French terms. It was an epiphany for me and I knew then I wanted ballet for the rest of my life.

LP: You note that before Balanchine women in ballet had real women’s bodies but he changed all that and you subsequently didn’t have the “typical” ballet dancer’s body. Did you have a healthy attitude toward food and your body growing up?

CM: I grew up in the 50s and the Balanchine Body concept hadn’t yet been written in stone. There was still some wiggle room. The photos of great ballerinas of the past in books and magazines showed “normally built” women, although very petite. I am tall, and pas de deux class was always fraught with anxiety—would there be a tall boy to dance with me? I was aware of my body type and while I would have liked to lose weight, I knew I could never be “delicate” looking. And that’s when I imagined a career in jazz and Broadway-style dance and as a choreographer.

“…the difficult choices we make as teenagers can send us on unexpected and surprising paths, but can still lead to happiness and fulfillment.” – Cherie Magnus

LP: I love that you started your own small dance school at the trailer park where you lived before college. Later you say you know you needed to dance first before you could settle into a career as a choreographer. Did your college boyfriend Paul and his mother (who wanted you to teach) eventually influence you?

CM: The Royale School of Ballet in the trailer park was a wonderful experience for me. But as always during my childhood, my parents were irresponsible and flaky and we soon moved to another town in the Valley so that was that. But I never wanted to be “just a teacher,” even of ballet. Besides I was under the impression that you had to make a name for yourself first as a dancer before anyone would hire you to teach or choreograph. Teaching ballet was what professional dancers did when they retired from performing.

LP: And speaking of Paul, you say he wanted you to give up dance yet that was an essential part of who you were. Do you think you grew stronger out of that relationship? Did it give you the courage to do what you really wanted?

Cherie dressed to dance the Charleston in high school

CM: It’s hard to know looking back what I really wanted. It was a very confusing time. I do know that I would have given up everything, all my dreams, anything to marry Paul. That was the culture then. A girl’s goal in life was to find love and marriage, have children, and make a happy home. If she could also have a career, good on her—as long as her husband was happy. I don’t regret the relationship, even though it was tragic. And perhaps it did make me stronger, as all the clichés assure us difficult times will. But because it ended badly, I really needed my family or some place of emotional support, and I had none. Not my parents or my grandparents, not my best friend Carla, the girl I considered my sister, and certainly not my boyfriend. I think my life would have been different if at that moment I hadn’t felt totally alone and tossed to the winds.

The thing was, by the time Paul demanded I quit dance, I was already hooked on UCLA and a good university education. At that point I couldn’t have thrown that away to run to New York to dance. Getting my degree became my focus and my source of stability.

LP: You candidly discuss being hospitalized for depression as well as your desire to be a liberated woman yet feeling restrained by the “rules” women were meant to follow for their love lives and careers. Do you think the two were related?

CM: I think I was caught in a wrinkle in history, just when awareness was rising and changes were about to happen. It was a crucial time as a woman to be making important life decisions. Ten years later I would have been more confident at age eighteen, but in 1961 the future of women in our society wasn’t clear, just confusing. I felt caught in between the norms for women of the 50s and the women of the 60s that were diametrically opposed. But still, life-changing decisions had to be made. So along with the chaos in my own life, it was just too much. Those teenage years often include depression anyway, but most kids weather the storm—as I did in time.

LP: At the end of the memoir, you hint at what is to come in your life: tango. Without spoiling anything for readers who might want to check out your earlier memoir, The Church of Tango, can you briefly mention the shift from ballet to tango? Were you eager to step away from the rigors of ballet?

CM: I was never eager to leave ballet. I loved the rigors! It was the opposite of chaos and took me away from my problems, all but the fear that my physical makeup would preclude a ballet career….But I didn’t find the tango until many years later. When my husband died, the only thing that saved me at first was dancing every night at a country and western club in Santa Monica. Every night for a year…and then I found the tango and made my first trip to Buenos Aires and my life took on a new direction. I taught tango with my Argentine partner for nine years in Buenos Aires. I wrote about it in The Church of Tango—how dance was my salvation, carrying me through tragedy, loss, cancer, pain.

(All photos courtesy Cherie Magnus.)

Cherie Magnus

Cherie Magnus writes and teaches tango in Buenos Aires. She was formerly a dance research librarian in Los Angeles and a dance critic for local newspapers. A finalist in the Buenos Aires Tango Campeonata 2006, she has appeared in two video documentaries with her Argentine partner, Ruben Aybar. For more information about Cherie or to order her books, go to MirasolPress.