Re: [Can you please]
I would like you to write a story about a ballerina that begins ballet and finds their one true love. -- Tupper
There's a time of life where every small girl wants to wear a tutu professionally. To be entirely fair, tutus are fun and ballet looks so beautiful, and along with being a princess, ballerina is high up there on early girlhood aspirations.
It's the ones who are dedicated who learn about breaking in Pointe shoes, blood in the slippers, and atrociously ugly feet hidden by stockings and bindings[1].
Talent always comes with sacrifices, and the blood spilled on the altars of grace and poise goes back for centuries. Claire was one of the few who knew this. The rest of her classmates had the fairytale dream of being beautiful and loved on a stage, of being pretty and lovely without effort. They would learn.
In the middle of a throng of identical pink leotards, Claire did her best to keep her focus on her goals. Be dedicated. Posture. Balance. Grace would come with practice. Poise would come with time.
So many of the others were giggling and standing on tip-toes while the tutor busied herself with some paperwork. They didn't know that standing en pointe involved a multitude of microfractures and a lot more strength than their five-year-old bodies were capable of.
Aunty kept telling her, Everyone begins with Dolly Dawdle. It's the dedicated ones who make it up out of there. Aunty could stand en pointe in her socks, and used to be famous. She could stand on her toes on someone's arm while he carried her around, and make it look like she was floating. Aunty had told her the truth.
The first lessons were always the same. How to stand. How to hold their arms. A few very basic steps. How to walk. All stuff Aunty had taught her. Claire tolerated it, for all that it was boring.
Position one. Position two. Arms. Position one... over and over.
Madame pulled her aside at the end of the lesson. "You're bored on your first day. Do you know something more than what I am trying to teach?"
"Aunty taught me a lot of this stuff. She showed me. I didn't mean to insult you... I just... I know about some of all this."
"Then show me what you can do."
The same tinkly music of the lessons played again. It was there to give rhythm to their movements and make dreamy little girls think they were really dancing like a ballerina. Claire used everything she knew already to make it a performance. Not precisely a story to tell, that usually required other dancers to interact. It was... a demonstration. An audition.
Claire kept her mind on her movements. Precise. Graceful. Well. As graceful as a five-year-old could be, given that she had not practiced a great deal prior. She loved it with a passion and she knew that her dancing at home was limited by furniture in the way.
This was everything she wanted. This was her passion. If her progress demanded she break her toes over and over, she would do so. If her development demanded she bleed, she would bleed. She may not ever be a Prima like Aunty, but she would be doing what she loved.
Madame had raised eyebrows and a speculative look on her face when Claire was done.
"You," said Madame, "I will teach on weekdays. Every afternoon. You are not worthy of Dolly Dawdle, my dear. You will work, and I will help you."
[1] In the worse old days, there was also the insistence on malnutrition in order to maintain an archaic beauty ideal.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / master1305]
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