Waltzing in the Shoes of a Ballerina

When I was a little girl, like many little girls, I fantasized about being a ballerina.  For me, it wasn’t so much the dancing that attracted me, but rather the thought of being able to wear pretty ballet shoes and a sparkly, spangle covered tutu. 

There weren’t many ballet teachers around in those days, at least not in Midland where I grew up.   Midland is a typical end of the train line outer suburb, famous for being one of Perth’s low socio-economic areas and a little rough around the edges.  I could tell you a bunch of stories about growing up there, but that would be a Blog theme on its own. 

When I was 10, my mum finally found a ballet class for my sister and I to attend.    My recollections are vague, but I think once a week for maybe a year I would go to classes in the old wooden assembly hall attached to the St Bridgits Catholic School.   My teacher was a beautiful, slender, Italian woman named Mrs Valenti.  Her and her husband also owned an Italian restaurant in down town Midland.  Aside from being famous as an end of the train line suburb, Midland was also historically significant as one of the first places of settlement along the Swan River, and an area where agricultural lands (especially vineyards) were first cultivated.   A majority of the kids I grew up with had Italian and 'Yugoslavian' backgrounds.

After learning some ballet basics, a lot of the classes were geared towards preparing for a show at the end of the year.  In one dance, I was a fawn along with all the other girls, but in another one, I was a fairy with a magic wand, and had to do a solo performance.  For my solo dance I was allowed to borrow a beautiful blue tutu from Mrs Valenti’s collection.   I’ll never forget it, it was detailed with lace and spangles - my dream had come true!

It was up to our parents to provide the deer costume.  I’m not sure where mum got mine tailored, but  it was noticeably different to everyone else's.  All the other girls had cute little bonnets that buttoned in the front with perky little deer ears. Mine looked more like a balaclava that hugged a little too tightly around my face and my ears were big and droopy.  To make matters worse my leotard was ridiculously high cut, when everybody else had a reasonable, more modest fit.  The teacher looked a little shocked when she saw me dressed, but it was too late to make a change... the show had to go on!

I barely remember dancing my fairy solo.  Considering I was a painfully shy child, I’m surprised I had the courage to get through it at all. I do have recollections of looking side of stage for the teachers approval.   I was later told by my family that I was looking side of stage the whole time and didn’t look at the audience once!  Sadly my family didn’t have a camera, so I don’t have any pictures of that once in a life time experience. Mrs Valenti stopped teaching ballet after that year, so that was my first and last performance as a dancer.  My aspirations towards a ballet career came to an abrupt end.  

Anyway all of this, was just to tell you that in my search for something ‘nouveau’ this week, it occurred to me that maybe I could find a drop in ballet class for adults. I was surprised to find that there are a lot of dance schools around Toronto that offer this.  I signed up for one in the west end called City Dance Corporation.  It was in a beautiful old building with arch windows, high ceilings and wooden floor boards. 

As I stepped up to the barre, and followed the teachers warm up exercises, I started to feel my inner child coming back to life again.  I was having flashbacks to my first lessons all those years ago.  It was so fun to be revisiting a childhood passion, but I did find myself feeling way out of my depth and very uncoordinated.  I discovered my body has become rigid and stiff with age and I wasn’t imagining it - the floor to ceiling mirrors told no lies!

At one point in the class, we had to waltz diagonally across the room several times.  We were asked to form groups of 3 or 2, and somehow I ended up in the last group of 2 alongside the best dancer in the class.  Being in the last group also meant the whole class was watching.  I felt ridiculous!  All my childhood shyness came rushing back to me and I found myself in a state of panic.  For a moment I even had the thought to quietly exit the class and leave early, but I faced the fear and did it anyway.   I had to remind myself that these weekly adventures are all about forcing myself out of my comfort zone, facing my fears, and attempting to learn and grow and to become the best version of myself. 

  

Later in the week, I took the adventure to the next level and decided to honour my inner child by investing in a pair of ballet shoes.  I went on a little excursion to the National Ballet School, and splashed out on a few items in their store.  

Let’s face it there’s nothing more graceful and elegant looking than ballet attire.  I’m not sure if I’ll ever make it back to another class, but I’ll be happy to waltz around my house in my new costume when nobody is looking. 

A la prochaine! 

xNNx