The Cranes Dance by Meg Howrey Page B

Always the left hand on the barre first, then turn around and repeat with the right hand on the barre. Hand on the barre lightly, please. It’s not a crutch. Along with basic warm-up of the muscles it’s also about finding your center, your balance. You’ll need that later on.
    That’s the other thing Andrew said. “How do you guys know what to do? The teacher was like, just mumbling stuff and not even dancing and then you’d all spring into action and it looked nothing like what he was doing.”
    Pliés, tendus, dégagés, fondus, rondes de jambe, rondes de jambe en l’air, frappés, développés, grande battements. You do all this from your first ballet class and it’s part of you. Gareth might say, “Okay, tendus.” And we’ll watch him for a moment as he half demonstrates in his big white sneakers. “IN, IN, IN, and IN, IN, IN, and IN, IN, IN, and OUT PLIÉ. Front, side,back. Yes? And then port de bras. SIDE, to the front. SIDE, to the back. Plié, sous-sous, soutenu, OTHER SIDE.” This makes sense to us. We know what to do.
    And IN, IN, IN.
    When you are a student, class is as serious as everything else, which is to say that it is very, very serious. Even the most basic, most beginner-level thing, first position, is loaded with rules. Heels OUT. Legs STRAIGHT. Knees pulled UP. Stomach IN and FLAT. Rib cage IN and UP. Shoulders DOWN. Arms OUT. Elbows LEVEL. Thumb curved slightly IN, first finger slightly EXTENDED, the next two following in a gentle descent, the pinkie finger RELAXED and slightly RAISED. Neck LONG. Chin LEVEL. The teacher circles the room, watching, correcting. Technique. There’s one right way to do everything. Every other way is wrong. But it can never be stiff, or robotic. The amount of technique you need to master before you can be decently said to be dancing classical ballet is enormous. But there does come a time when a great deal of this is automatic.
    For most of us professionals, class is self-assessment, like I said. Namely, what hurts? And, how do I feel? Do I feel okay? Do I need to worry about that twinge or will it go away once I’m warmed up? There’s also a kind of zone. Some days you feel great right away. From the first couple of pliés you feel centered, you feel in control. It’s going to be a good class, a good day. All is right in the world. And IN, IN, IN.
    Other days the zone eludes you. Nothing feels good. You look in the mirror and it does its funhouse thing and you feel sour and heavy. And there are days when it is possible to be fully engaged in what you are doing and be completely, mind-numbingly,tooth-achingly
bored
. But you still have to do it. And IN, IN, IN.
    As a professional, class is a safe place presumably. No audience. If you look like hell, it’s okay because who cares, it’s just class. Theoretically. In practice, a terrible class can have you feeling almost as wretched as a terrible performance. If a ballerina falls in a forest and there’s no one around to see her, does she make a noise? Yes, she does. It is the sound of the ballerina saying, “Oh fuck me.”
    After barre comes center. Depending on the number of students, groups are formed, usually two, so everyone has room. Maybe if you pick up combinations quickly (a mini-art in itself) you’ll step up for group one. Maybe if it looks like there is an abundance of eager beavers going in group one you’ll hang back for more floor space in group two.
    In the center, we arrange ourselves in slightly staggered lines, facing the mirrors. There is etiquette for a mixed class like this one. A student should never stand in front of a professional. A man should never stand in front of a woman. If you sense that you’re crowding someone in the middle of a combination, you should gracefully step back or forward. Failure to do this will result in hostile stares or a drubbing from the teacher. Occasionally an etiquette-oblivious freak or whackjob will get tossed out of class. Gareth did it once to some