Twinkletoes at Thirty-One Years of Age

Yesterday T. and I went to our first ballet lesson, at a much riper age than customary, by at least two and a half decades. She had graceful black canvas ballet slippers affixed in front by criss-crossed elastic bands, and I had beige leather slippers with an elastic drawstring around the edge; I wore grey legging-like yoga pants and a long-sleeved shirt, and she had black leggings and a pale grey t-shirt. Both of us had our hair neatly tied back. Despite our pleasure with our new clothes, it was strange for me to walk into the studio room, with the sea of mirrors surrounding it entirely, and no way of escaping one's own presence there.

We were at the studio, in Kreuzberg (or Berlin's hipster Mecca) early. Closer to 8 p.m. a mother and a child (steeped in ballet) arrived and already warmed up quite professionally in the studio room. Then, as the class had begun, we were joined by two more women about our own age or older, one of whom had done dance already while the other also proclaimed herself a novice. We entered by a small office in front, with changing rooms to the right, washrooms further in to the right, and in front of us the studio room with the vast mirrors, a piano with a computer and other paraphernalia on top of it but a puzzling cushion with the British flag all over it beneath it, a mobile barré, and a well-loved lacquered wooden chairs lined up at the far mirrors. The neighbouring house façades, visible through the classic windows, were also atmospheric.

We were enthusiastically greeted by the instructor, who was a replacement and also usually teaches children. She started us at the barré. We lined up, left hand in front of us reposing on the bar, and began a series of pliés to the accompaniment of music. We repeated these facing in the other direction. I was careful not to do anything that I couldn't do with reasonably safety and with sound technique. For example, my pliés — since grim experience in front of the narrow hall mirror in the home studio had taught me that after sinking into a plié at a certain point, I end up imperceptibly sticking out my bottom in an ungraceful fashion — were the merest bendings of the knees. I can't turn out my toes much without fudging a lot, and endangering the wellbeing of my knees, so I didn't cheat. After that came dégagements, perhaps glissés too, followed by grands battements. The instructor declared herself reasonably pleased by these. After that things went downhill.

We left the barré. We did series of steps, and we also rehearsed the Five Positions. Looking at myself in the mirror, I did see glimpses of grace and uprightness of bearing. But I had been trying to make the 'ballet' painless to watch, after all, and to relax so that the movements could be more natural and fluid. The 'three step run' was a graceless; and yet the jumps in first, second, and third position were less bad. It was too absorbing to notice how good we were generally. But at some point here the instructor — having long ago left off the remarks of 'I think we have achieved that' — said that 'the important thing is to have fun.'

Then, after an hour, we went home again. (Determined to practice.)