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Blogs by Ian Thal
First Ballet Lesson 10/26/2003 11:18:57 PM
Tuesday, October 21, 2003:
I'm walking up Western Avenue from my new home in Allston towards Central Square in Cambridge, anxious about my first ballet class. For the last few days I have been taking note of the way my body has changed form. The last two and a half years of yoga and mime combined with the fact that I now seem to walk just about everywhere has completely eliminated my love handles and the paunch that was still. Once I lived primarily in my head and now I find myself constantly cataloging every aspect of my corporeal existence. Usually I am proud of how I have reshaped my form into a more effective instrument for my art, but as I start to think about how hard my buttocks have become, I am reminded of how awareness can transform into hyperawareness and insecurity. More than ever I am attempting to visualize how others see my body. Of course, the self objectification is a necessary attitude for a performing artist, but there are risks that come with such objectification. I am running late and hope no one will stop to talk to me as I enter the square and turn right onto Mass Ave on my way to the Dance Complex. No one does. I bound up the steps, find out which studio the class is in and quickly change in the locker room.
In Studio 3, class has already begun, dozens of dancers, male and female, are doing exercises along the barres. I try to grab a spot. The teacher is barking out directions while keeping time using castanets. She is exactly as described. She darts up to me.
"Hi, what's your name?"
"Ian."
"Ian, have you taken ballet class before?"
"No, I'm a mime..."
"Take hold of the barre, watch her" she says gesturing to the woman in front of me, dressed in maroon tights and white leggings, "do everything she does."
I start to follow the lead of the other student, some of the concepts are the same as those in mime, but I am feeling overwhelmed by the tempo of the castanets as the teacher continues to ease me into the routine by telling me to adjust my posture. "Tuck your tail, belly button towards the spine, chest up!
I do so. "Good," she says and wanders off. I hear shouts of "Fifth position!" but I only know first and second. I copy the woman in front of me. I don't know half of the terminology being thrown about, but I follow and soon I am drenched in sweat. I can barely even remember what little ballet terminology that I already know and just try to follow the visual cues and hope that my brain begins to associate the words barked with the moves seen. I can do much of what is being asked of me, but I am unused to the speed and intensity. I can do the turnout and I can keep the spine in the proper alignment though I become wobbly on the relever.
"Hold your hands slightly in front of you, it'll provide you with more balance. Carry the weight on the balls of your feet."
All of my work on extension helps me form a nice arc when we are asked to stretch backwards. The isolation work that comes from mime helps when we do some barre work and I have to keep my shoulders square to the barre as we lean forward with one leg in the air.
Still, I am forced to put my leg up on the lower barre owing to a body shape where my legs are short and most of what little height I have is in my torso.
