Reverie

This evening, as I walked out of the ballet studio, I felt as if I was coming out of a reverie. Tonight's class was especially entrancing. Because it was a basic beginner class, I allowed my mind to wander at times and lose myself in details. A hand, darkened by the corner lamp's gold light, rose slightly and then fell out of silhouette, then back into silhouette; out of silhouette, into silhouette. Rise! and fall. Inhale! and exhale. Hands can breathe in ballet, I realize. My eyes intently followed the motion of my own hand as it rose and curved down, then up and out during the warm-up plies, and I felt myself becoming hypnotized by its motion. It is a form of meditation, having the same effect of quieting and focusing my mind. These days, I start every morning with this plie-warm up and then more, and then my day begins happily, no matter what happens as it runs its course.

In the studio upstairs from Congressman Joe Sestak's campaign office, we learned the details of the chasse and practiced this new move across the floor with steadily shortening count for each chasse. As we chassed faster and faster, I felt like a musketeer parrying in a duel and felt the urge to shout "en garde!" as my feet chased each other across the floor. The movements of ballet had originated from the martial art of fencing in the days of King Louis XIV, and the connection was obvious in movements such as this ridiculous musketeer shuffle. In general, I've found that the job of the ballerina is to make ridiculous moves look sublimely graceful. Like how to plie in the wide second position stance without looking like one is squatting over an extra-wide toilet.

In ballet, we even learn to trip gracefully.

Half of what I learn is through observation of our amazing instructor. During Tuesday's class, there was a moment when I suddenly felt extremely lucky. How extraordinary was it that ordinary Angie gets the chance to study with a man who traveled all the way to Moscow and Latvia at the age of 16 to inadvertently train at the Bolshoi, then advertently with the Riga Choreography School, and then brought all that he learned-- not in books and paper but in his very being-- to Philadelphia of all places. I suddenly found all this very extraordinary and improbable. I listened with the utmost care as he lectured us yet again on the importance of hand placement.

"In ballet, this never happens," he informed us as his hand dipped down and paused at crotch-level. Giggles abounded. "Ballet takes the best parts of being human-- not that it denies human sexuality...it just doesn't advertise it. So I don't want to see any of this 'Mother Earth' business." The giggles exploded into outright laughter. It's not every day the word "sex" or any of its euphemisms and variations enters a ballet studio. Of course, ours was no ordinary prim and proper ballet studio. Rarely do I see my classmates dressed in the proper dress code of black leotard and pink tights, I myself wear leggings, and there is even a boy that has sported striped rainbow socks every time I've seen him in class. We were a good match on the week of Halloween, when I came in wearing purple and black striped tights with a horribly clashing t-shirt exploding with bright colors.

Anyway, what he said about ballet's humanity made sense until I thought about it later. What were the best parts of being human? It wasn't immediately clear to me, for some reason, that he was referring to the physical human body. However, it is precisely our body that distinguishes us from the angels. It is our body that rose up and learned to walk upright eons ago. I found myself wondering about the origins of ballet's now classical poses and movements: Who decided that these were ideally beautiful? And how were they created in the first place? Out of curiosity, I began to read online about the origins of ballet, and made the curious discovery that the creation of the attitude position-- with one leg extended behind you and bent at the knee-- was inspired by a 15th century Giambologna sculpture of the god Mercury/Hermes. This discovery reaffirms the dance photographer's notion that dancers are like animated statues. Truly, watching a performance gives me the sense of watching statues come alive.

Moreover, I found it curious that ballet, which takes the best parts of being human, was in this case inspired by the figure of a god...which in turn was inspired by human models. To me, this seemed to reaffirm the essential humanness of the concept of gods...or God. There seems to be very few things in this world that don't reek of the scent of us. Not that I mind. In fact, I celebrate it...with plies and attitudes and arabesques.

There is magic happening in this room every single day.

This is what I thought tonight as I closed the silver door behind me and awoke from my reverie.