Bad Ballet

Photo by Jess Zoerb

I was the worst nine-year-old dancer at the Maidie Du Fresne School of Ballet.

Every week, I went to Miss Maidie’s in downtown Bakersfield with Mom after school. Sometimes she’d sit in the waiting room watching me through the large glass window with the other mothers, or she’d sit in our VW across the street, working a crossword puzzle.

I wanted to be a prima ballerina even more than I wanted to be an animal doctor when I grew up. Or an artist.

The older girls at the dance school were beautiful, tall, elegant, and graceful. Each wore their hair pulled back into a tight bun that accentuated their high cheekbones. Some wore low-cut, pink leotards with thin straps and short, shimmery, wraparound skirts. At the end of their long, milky-white legs, pink toe-shoes wrapped around their ankles with thick satin ribbons.

I enjoyed watching the older girls practice in the dance studio before my class. They were the prima ballerinas who danced the leading roles in all of Miss Maidie’s productions, executing arabesques and pirouettes to perfection. Posters and black-and-white photographs of Miss Maidie as a young, famous ballerina adorned the walls of the waiting room. She posed in beautiful costumes, from her roles in productions like Swan Lake and Romeo and Juliet. However, the Miss Maidie I knew was old, shriveled and skinny, probably in her sixties. She had short, curly hair, wore a long-sleeved black leotard with a wrap-around skirt, and carried a hefty stick she used to keep time.

Despite her age, Miss Maidie could still pirouette without falling.

All the girls in my ballet class were beginners, like me, but I was the youngest.

We were a flat-chested bunch dressed in matching black leotards, white tights, and pink ballet slippers. It didn’t help me that I had stringy hair, cat-eye glasses, and zero talent.

Each week, we lined up at the wooden bar along the wall of mirrors. We warmed up with ballet positions one through five while Miss Maidie counted and whacked the floor with her timing stick.

As she moved among us, she adjusted our arms and legs, reminding us to keep our chins up and look straight ahead. We imagined strings pulling tight through the centers of our bodies.

In the background, Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake played from a scratchy record player.

I was supposed to practice ballet every day at home for at least half an ho after school. Miss Maidie said I’d progress faster and graduate to toe shoes if I did.

And I really wanted to wear toe shoes.

Before I could play outside, Mom set the kitchen timer for thirty minutes and made me practice ballet in my bedroom. I had to turn sideways to move my arms up and down to plié in my tiny bedroom. There wasn’t enough space to practice more complicated moves like jumping and leaping. After about two minutes, I lost interest and sat on my bed, flipping through the pages of a picture book.

Sometimes, Mom walked down the hall to her bedroom during my practice time. Fortunately, I could feel her coming because the trailer shook. When I felt those vibrations, I jumped up and started dancing, inventing ballet moves until she walked past my door.

Then I’d sit back on my bed again, checking the time on my hot-pink alarm clock.

When Mom returned, I jumped up again and put my arms over my head, squatting up and down. If she happened to glance into my room, she saw me practicing ballet like I was supposed to.

I was the ace of spades in Miss Maidie’s spring 1969 production of Alice in Wonderland. I wore a beautiful white tutu with thin straps. An enormous, black, satin ace of spades was sewn onto my chest.

Mom curled my hair with pink sponge rollers and did my stage makeup. She outlined my eyes using liquid eyeliner and added mascara, which made my eyes look enormous.

I blinked a lot, especially when the mascara wand was coming at me. 

Mom colored my face with white powder, my eyelids sky blue, my cheeks bright pink, and my lips cherry red. She insisted it wasn’t too much makeup, but it sure itched a lot. 

I was filled with excitement on the night of my Alice in Wonderland performance at the Harvey Auditorium. Although I was out of sync during our dance, it didn’t bother me. I loved wearing my beautiful white tutu and makeup, and the thrill of performing in front of such a large audience made me feel like a star. I truly believed I could do no wrong that night.

At the end of the dance, we formed a line facing the audience so that everyone could see us arranged like a deck of cards from the ace to the king of spades. As we moved into position, standing shoulder to shoulder, it quickly became clear that the stage wasn't wide enough for all of us.

I was the ace at the end of the line. When three spades cut off two spades, I got pushed and tumbled off the stage onto a large potted plant..

Everyone in the audience laughed. The other girls kept dancing as if nothing had happened. I quickly crawled back onto the stage and returned to my position, trying to hide my limp. We finished our dance and bowed to an enthusiastic audience as the curtain fell.

Afterwards, I went back to the dressing room. Mothers with bouquets were helping their daughters get out of their costumes, but I couldn't find Mom anywhere.

At first, I hadn't thought much about my tumble. However, one of the mothers pointed at me and laughed, saying there was that poor little girl who fell off the stage. Only then did I feel humiliated.

A few months later, I danced in the harem scene of Miss Maidie’s annual Nutcracker production. I wore red, billowy harem pants with my navel showing, a gold glitter pillbox hat with a veil, and gold lamé ballet slippers. I adored my costume. I even wore it to Rollerama and nearly won their Halloween costume contest. Unfortunately, a girl from my ballet class showed up in the same costume and won, only because I took off my hat to use the bathroom.

My ballet dancing never improved as Miss Maidie had promised it would. When she pulled me aside, she apologized for the disappointing news, explaining that I wasn't ready for toe shoes yet. She suggested that with more practice, I might be ready next year. All the other girls in my class were excited to move on, so I quit.