Day such and such
Sorry about not posting yesterday. I simply could not force myself to write.
Today I’m skipping dance for the first time in over a year because my psychology group has to get together to work on our project. Since I have dance every day after school I really didn’t have much of a choice in the matter though. Tuesday worked best for everyone else and since the day really didn’t make a difference to me I consented to whatever they came up with.
We’re all carpooling to Ethan’s to work on our project. We’re mostly silent on the way there. There’s no real way for Melissa to communicate when we can’t all read what she’s writing so we save our discussion for when we get there.
When we all pile into his house his Mom welcomes us and asks if she can get us anything to eat or drink. Ethan seems really embarrassed and tells her that we’ll just be working at the kitchen table and that we’ll order a pizza or something if we’re at it for a really long time. I’m hoping it won’t be that long. I’d still like to get some time in the studio even if I can’t work with my instructor.
We all sit at the table and kind of stare at each other blankly. This is our first time meeting outside of class and honestly, with a group this volatile I’m surprised it happened at all.
Christopher decides to take charge, “so, about the memory experiment, Justin, do you want to reexplain your idea?”
He nods and leans forward, “so when we were looking at the magazines I came across this memory experiment. People tend to remember things at the beginning and the end of the list. I forget what that’s called exactly but it’s been seen in a lot of studies. So my idea is that we interview people first, make a list of things that are important to them and things that aren’t to see if that effect still exists.”
“But wouldn’t the interview process get kinda tricky and time consuming?” Ethan butts in. “I think it would be better if we just create lists of different sizes with different themes and then have people try to memorize them.”
“What do you mean; different themes?” I ask.
“Well, instead of doing just a list of words, make them all relate to each other. So one list can be all singers, one list could have a list of groceries, or something like that.”
Melissa raises her arm and we all fall silent to read what she’s writing. So then do we show everyone all of the lists or do we give people just one list and see who remembers what?
“Well we could do either really,” Christopher answers.
“Guys, I hate to be a buzz kill here but this sounds almost as boring as our last experiment,” Alex says.
Everyone either rolls their eyes or shoots her a dirty look. I choose the later of the two.
“Alex, you haven’t made any useful contributions to this group so just shut the fuck up,” Christopher immediately rebuttals.
“Christopher, shut up,” Ethan immediately hisses in reply, “my mom is here!”
“Sorry man,” Christopher replies sheepishly.
We all turn back to what we’re doing. “Alright,” I ask, “so I think the lists with all different themes is a good idea.”
Everyone but Alex nods, agreeing.
So let’s start with singers then Melissa writes.
“Well they can’t all be from the same genre or anything. We should have old artists and new,” Ethan suggests.
“Let’s just start suggesting them okay?” I interrupt anxious to get out of here. I have to practice for my secondary audition that’s taking place in less than a week. I really don’t care about this stupid project. Not that any of us actually care, other than Alex. Which I’m not sure if she actually cares or if she just loves to argue. Probably the later.
Alex and I could not be more opposite. She spends all of her time playing with paint and clay whereas I’m actually dedicated to my art. I’ve seen her work and it looks like shit. She’s major into abstract art. She looks at a flower and draws something that doesn’t even resemble it. It’s kind of weird actually.
And while she doesn’t dress it, her art is really kinda goth. The stuff that isn’t totally abstract is all black and full of lonely or bleeding people. She had a piece hanging up in the library back in November that was a girl tying a noose. It was kind of sick and I know I wasn’t the only one that complained. The school finally pulled it down. I don’t know why they were stupid enough to put it up in the first place. But one of the kids in my English class said that they were afraid that if they didn’t represent her work she might go home and hurt herself. The girl in the picture did look strikingly like herself.
Even after we start making the list of singers we still can’t agree on the exact experiment. Ethan decides that food might help us focus and so he orders a pizza. When it arrives Ethan’s mom offers to put a slice in the blender so that Melissa can eat too. We all laugh. Melissa asks if there’s any juice instead and ends up sipping apple juice while everyone else but me eats pizza.
Pizza is awful for anyone’s figure. There are so many calories in a single slice of pepperoni pizza it’s fucking ridiculous. Plus, who actually knows what’s in that pepperoni? A five dollar pizza cannot be made of high quality ingredients.
Alex makes some remark about me not eating but I shoot back that she wouldn’t be a size seven if she ate better and she (for once) falls quiet. I must have guessed her size correctly. I’m a two though I’d much prefer being a zero. In my head I tell myself that I’m a size two because of all of the muscle but while I don’t admit it out loud to anyone I’m sure if I worked a little harder I could reach a size zero. That’s actually my goal, to be a size zero before I start at Juliard.
After over two hours sitting at that table, we finally come up with the idea to have a list of 30 items, ten names of celebrities, ten food items and ten other random words. The words will be placed in a random order each time so that order of the words will hopefully not compromise the actually question we’re asking. We will hand out the list of items have them read it over, twice and then ask them ten minutes later to write down all of the words they can remember. Our actual hypothesis is that people will remember the names best followed by the food items and they will be least likely to remember the random items. It seems like a pretty solid experiment to me.
Melissa has already called in a favor with her cheerleading coach. I guess she must have felt bad for her since she can’t be on the squad anymore, so on Saturday she’s called all the girls together and we’re going to perform our experiment on them. I guess the guys have a basketball game later that day so they’ll be available to us too.
When all of that has finally been discussed Ethan drives us all back to school so we can go home. I don’t go home though. I decide to head to the dance studio and at least get in a couple hours. My dance studio has two private rooms so that senior dancers can use them for practice whenever we have free time.
In the studio I do my standard ten minute on the bar warm up, starting with simple pliés and relevés. I fly through all of the positions and move into arabesques and leaps. Ballet offers an escape that nothing else has ever been able to offer. I concentrate so much on seeming effortless that the entire world just melts away. When I dance I feel nothing but my body and the music and the movement of the two together. Nothing in the world can compare.
March 3rd, -0- total days till graduation, -0- days left of school
On Thursdays, to help pay for my ballet lessons I teach a class at the studio without being paid. In exchange for a two hour class once a week I’m allowed to use the empty studios for practice whenever I want. My group of girls is nine to ten year olds. Most of them aren’t really anything special. They dance because they think its fun, which is fine, but I know for a fact that more than half of these girls will stop dancing within a few years. While they enjoy it now, once it starts getting hard they won’t enjoy it anymore once it starts getting hard.
Me personally, the pain made it even better to a certain extent. I was able to show my love for the art by putting my whole self into it. The more that I hurt, the more I bled, the more I proved to myself that I deserved to be here.
I don’t have many friends outside of dance because I’m not able to explain to them just what it is about dance that makes me want to give my entire self to it. But I don’t have many friends in dance either, since we’re always competing with each other and so we don’t really go out of our way to get close.
My rules for the girls in my class are that they all must be in their leotards, and pony tails standing at the bar at the start of class. If they’re late they’re not eligible to win “dancer of the week”. Dancer of the week is something I came up with two years ago. Whoever tries their hardest and puts in the most effort, without talking to their neighbors when they’re supposed to be practicing receives a ballerina stamp on their hand. It works ridiculously well at keeping the girls focused.
I’ve already taught all of the girls the steps to the dance. It’s all a matter of teaching them to hit their musical cues now instead of having to count to eight over 100 times. I’ve chosen Kelly Clarkson’s “Breakaway” as their performance number. That way they all know the song already and they can sing along on stage to help them with their counts. I don’t personally like the idea of them all singing along but the woman in charge of the dance studio prefers that the younger kids do sing.
“Hey guys!” I call as I set up the CD player.
“Hello Miss Bethany,” they all respond in unison.
I have to smile at that. If I weren’t accepted to Juliard I probably would have simply applied for a permanent position at Back Stage Door instead. I’m pretty sure that a position would be waiting for me if I wanted it. These girls have turned into a sort of family too. I’m really good with kids since I have six little sisters. Teaching ballet came pretty naturally to me. When I found out that I got into Juliard my class was second to hear about it, only after my family. I doubt that any of them actually know what Juliard is but they were excited for me all the same.
I press play on the CD player and lead the girls through a series of stretches and warm up moves before they actually dance. But today I have a surprise for them. “Do you guys want to see me do the full dance before you start practicing again?”
Cheers resonate against the mirrored walls and I start to laugh. “Okay, okay. Go sit up against that wall. Marjorie, can you hit play for me?”
Marjorie, the only Asian girl in the class nods enthusiastically and runs over to the CD player. Marjorie is one of the few that I feel have enough drive to really stick it out in ballet. She tries harder than anyone else in the class. The thing that might finally make her quit is her size. She’s tiny, far smaller than all the other girls in the class. Directors of ballets typically like their dancers to be uniform in size so that all the kicks are aligned. The Rockettes only differ from each other by a few inches absolute tops I’m sure.
I take first position at the center of the room and nod for Marjorie to start the music. Performing for my girls is very different from performing for anyone else. In here it’s all about having fun. I’ve taught the girls to listen and move with the music and not to spend so much time concentrating on perfect form. I count through the dance as I perform it hoping that this will help some of them pick up on the timing.
When I finish the dance the girls jump to their feet and applaud. I smile and mock curtsy since I’m just in a leotard not in a skirt. “Alright, now who’s ready to dance?”
“Me!” 18 little girls call out as they skip to their places and wait for the music to begin.
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