I'd like to comment...on returning to the studio

First, there’s been a little chaos in my neck of the woods, as my computer motherboard went kaput. Luckily, I have a laptop to keep up with things. The laptop was a purchase a few years ago when my former employer would not spring for a MacBook, making it nearly impossible to transfer my files from a pervious MacBook. Long story short, I decided it was worth my sanity to have a MacBook, and it turns out that now I’m not technology stranded.

But tech problems are not what I want to write about today. (Sight of relief? Me, too.)

A couple of weeks ago, two of my former ballet students contacted me. They would both be in a town, and wanted to know if I could teach them a ballet class. I’d worked with both students many years, and now both were out of college and doing wonderful things—one dancing and teaching dance, the other in a doctoral program for physical therapy. Both had brought me much joy in the studio the many years I worked with them.

But I had not really taught a regular ballet class since before the pandemic. I hadn’t even taught a single class since sporadically teaching online during the early days of COVID. Quickly I realized that I could not keep up with extra ballet classes and a rapidly changing day job. I actually watched more ballet during the pandemic, with so many companies opening their archives, or creating works for the screen. And right before the lockdown, I had seen American Ballet Theatre’s Giselle, with Stella Abrera in the leading role. This was their Kennedy Center residency, which I try to catch every year. I don’t know if it was her last performance or not, but Abrera would retire from performing during the pandemic, so it would have been one of her last. This is to say that ballet has still been around in my life, and that I’m still deeply moved by performers like Abrera, who is now teaching the next generation of ABT dancers.

Being in the studio is different, though, than spectating, even spectating as a former dancer. Teaching is active. Preparing is active, especially preparing a ballet class. I could have pulled an old class off the shelf. I have years and years of classes documented by day, year, and level, combinations from plié to reverence. But I felt like I needed to create a class from scratch to help brush the dust off.

I was surprised, though, how much my old teaching materials helped me, especially my binder from my ABT National Training Curriculum training. Boy, I took a TON of notes! So I set about creating a class, and once in the flow of it, I did feel a bit like my former self. Yet, I still felt a little nervous walking back into the studio after a layoff, concerned about being rusty, or having lost my touch.

But soon I was back to my old self, giving corrections and counting out combinations. It was lovely, the way that ballet technique elegantly arranges the body, slowly builds over the course of class. I was having fun, and my former students, come back for this one class, had retained so much of their good technique. Somehow, they made it look more graceful, and to their old teacher’s eyes, maybe more beautiful. So much of it stayed with them.

We get students for a certain number of years, and then they go on in the world. Some will be on trajectories that relate directly to dance, and some will keep that connection in other ways. I suppose I’ve done both. But I believe that ballet training is useful beyond the training itself. It makes one aware of one’s self in a particular way. It can help with poise and expression. It can make one attuned to the needs and ways of the body. And it can give purely aesthetic pleasure, which maybe is the least talked about and maybe one of the most important ways that ballet shapes a life.

I remember at my training classes at ABT when Raymond Lukens told us that one of the important aspects of our job as a ballet teacher was to instill a love of the art in our students. That came rushing back to me as I returned to the studio with my former students. It was such a joy to give them class, and share our love of dance together. It was also a joy to see how much they still cherished dancing itself.

However, I could also feel how much my own body has aged in these years, how menopause and rheumatoid arthritis have taken a toll. I’m nowhere close to where I was physically even five years ago, despite my good diet, healthy lifestyle, and continued exercise. I wish I could tell you I handled this with grace, but mostly what I felt was disappointment in my physical body. Letting go of old selves and accepting the new ones has never been a skill I’ve been particularly good at. And still, time goes on. We are constantly becoming a different self.

But what stays with me is the memory of these two women, girls when I trained them and now going about shaping their lives. They are both different and each beautiful in their own ways, and knowing we share this bond through ballet fills me with a quiet and contemplative joy, and maybe that in and of itself is a kind of grace.

Now, if I can figure out how to fix my desktop.

News and Notes

Coming soon are some narrative medicine updates and another book I’ve read and want to comment on. Hurrah!

Mark your calendars for Friday, October 4, 2024 from 6:00-9:00 PM, when visual artist Sally Jane Brown and I have a book party at the Art Bar in Morgantown to celebrate What We Do In The Hollows. It’s all about West Virginia monsters, and it’s happening during Morgantown’s annual Zombie Walk. Come out for some frightful fun!

Postscripts continues to make its way in the world. I’ve appreciated all the notes and nexts and pictures. The best part about putting a book in the world are all the ways it helps me connect with others in such meaningful ways. Don’t have your copy? You can find Postscripts at most online and a few brick and mortar bookstores.

As many of you know, I’ve been working on perfecting fried chicken this summer. It’s bumping along. Today, however, I gave fried chicken a french accent—I added herbes de provence to the shake, and it was quite tasty.