The Long Trip Home: At The Ballet

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At The Ballet
by John Champagne

After a twenty-year hiatus, I am returning to ballet class. I was never a particularly gifted dancer. I toed in so badly as I child that I had to wear a corrective brace on my feet while I slept. And besides, I only made it through a semester of ballet class before my money ran out.

To make matters even worse for myself, I have decided to begin dancing again in Paris, where I am on a year-long sabbatical from my job in the States as an English professor. Given that I am extremely fond of French pastry, I join a gym within weeks of arriving in France. Ballet classes are offered at my gym as part of the membership. In fact, the gym holds classes in ballet, jazz, hip-hop, tap, and even "danse orientale." Twice a week, fifteen French ladies of various shapes, ages, and sizes join me-- a forty-two year old man-- for our cours de danse classique.

The French method of teaching involves correcting the three or four best students and ignoring the rest of us. Eventually, if you come often enough, are not overweight, and are not past the age of fifty, you might occasionally warrant some of the teacher's attention. The ballet instructors want to make sure that you are serious, and so they don't waste any effort on anyone until he or she has been attending class for a solid month. (Unless of course the new arrival is more talented than the regulars.) In France, there is no such thing as a hobby. Even an avocation demands strenuous devotion and fortitude.

The class itself is pitched at a level of difficulty just beyond the best students, and so you rarely feel as if you are actually dancing. But there is a particularly French pleasure in enduring the torture of ballet, a form of dance that requires you to contort your body into poses no one in his or her right mind would ever mistake for "natural." As is often the case in France, it is considered highly worthwhile to extend an enormous effort in order to produce something ephemeral but lovely.

From my previous semester of ballet I have a pretty good sense of what a typical ballet class entails. As a result, I am far luckier than the true beginners. This is an intermediate-level class, and so the teacher never bothers to explain the more basic elements of ballet. Sometimes, if you insist, he or she will break down a particular step, but most often you are expected just to try and keep up with the others. Of course, the teacher always says, "Feel free to ask questions," but you know he or she is only being polite and would prefer that you not interrupt the routine.

After several weeks of class, our first ballet mistress, a dark-haired woman younger than I am who has been teaching at the gym for the past two years, finally asks me my first name. "John," I answer. The teacher laughs. Not only do I apparently pronounce my name with a distinctive American accent, but I say it in such a way that is difficult for a French person to replicate. The teacher tries to repeat my name and jokes about the force of my accent, and the whole class joins in the laugh. I am now officially a part of the group. From this day forward, the other students actually say "bonjour" to me as we wait for the abdo-fessiers (abdominal and buttocks) class before us to finish.

As is often the case in France, it is considered highly worthwhile to extend an enormous effort in order to produce something ephemeral but lovely.

I nonetheless continue to make the occasional faux pas. The multiple rules that guide everyday behavior in France are particularly strict in ballet class. The very first day, when I take a place at the barre, I am asked by one of the star students, Claudine, to move elsewhere, as I have made the mistake of standing too close to her. A dark, vaguely glamorous woman older than I am who dresses in black velour leotards and pulls her hair back in a bun, Claudine is the only student who wears toe shoes; one of the teachers refers to her as "Madame Point." Another time, Claudine corrects me, in French, because I have misunderstood that the teacher wants us to go one at a time across the floor. She points her finger at me and adopts that scolding tone the French have mastered so well. I try my best to make amends, apologizing profusely for my lack of skill in French and thanking her for her patience. As is always the case in France, I am not sure if she reads my apology as sufficiently humble or merely obsequious. It really doesn't matter, however, as I always manage to commit some new insult that requires me to apologize yet again. For example, one day, I try to compliment Claudine on her port au bras, but instead of saying that the way she carries her arms is beautiful, I end up saying "Vous êtes belle"--you are beautiful. I'm convinced that she now thinks I tried to make a pass at her.

The French ladies are typical of good dancers everywhere in that, on the one hand, they want to be able to see themselves in the mirror so that they can correct their mistakes; on the other, they are too self-conscious to stand too close to the front of the studio. As a result, they stand in the center of the dance floor; the rest of us are thus always crowded together in the back of the room. When the class is too large to perform a particular combination comfortably, the teacher divides us into two groups, but there is some kind of unspoken understanding that the very best students are allowed to go in both groups and to take the same place near the front of the class. The rest of the students never challenge them to get out of the way.

For some reason, our dance teachers keep having accidents that prevent them from conducting our cours--this, despite the fact that most of them never actually dance in class anyway. In just a few months, we have had four different instructors. Whenever a new teacher arrives, I walk up to him or her and say, in French, "I don't speak French very well, and I am a beginner." If one of them should miraculously decide to correct me, I don't want him or her to think I am either deaf or thick in the head.

When I approach our first teacher, she cuts off my carefully rehearsed explanation with "bonjour," thereby reminding me that I am a boorish American and have already violated one of the basic rules of French society: always begin a sentence to a superior with "bonjour, madame" or "monsieur." I stop, excuse myself, say "Bonjour, madame," and then continue, "Je ne parle pas bien français, et je suis debutant"--I don't speak French well, and I am a beginner.

In response to my declaration, our second teacher basically says, "Too bad." After several classes, however, she begins to take a mild interest in me, pushing down my shoulders as I try to maintain my balance in relevé, wrenching my foot straight as I stretch into an arabesque, and reminding me that my face needs to stay forward when I attempt to execute a pirouette. One day, she has me bow down on one knee so that she can explain how a dancer should treat the barre--as if it were the hand of your dancing partner. She chides me that I am not holding her hand firmly enough for her to find her balance, and when it comes time to do the combination she has just demonstrated, I joke by going down on my knee and saying, "Is this my part?" She, too, eventually asks my "prenom," and, in response to my "John," she laughs, saying she can't possibly pronounce my name as I do. It is now a running joke: every time I am asked my name by a new teacher, I say it with the strongest American accent I can muster, and the rest of the class laughs.

As a result of taking my class, I am learning many interesting vocabulary words. Many of the terms are already familiar to me from my previous experiences taking and playing for classes. One of the reassuring things about ballet is that it is in fact so codified. As a result, if you have had a semester or two of lessons, you can take a class in Paris, New York, Moscow, or Beijing and, regardless of your own native language, follow along.

Every time I am asked my name by a new teacher, I say it with the strongest American accent I can muster, and the rest of the class laughs.

Corrections, however, are offered in the local language. In France, let go of the barre is "laichez la barre." When the teacher wants you to find your balance, she will say, "Un petit équilibre." "La jambe vers la barre" is "the other leg, stupid," and "Ça marche?" is "Can you remember the combination, or do I have to demonstrate it yet again?" Not being a native speaker, however, there are certain terms I do not understand and cannot even remember. I can't very well carry a pencil and notepad or dictionary in my tights, and so I never learn the French equivalent of "turn out," for example, though when another student nudges my foot with hers, I understand that she is telling me that mine is insufficient.

One day, after an elderly lady and I--the only people apparently in the second group--are skipped over completely when it comes time to perform the adagio, I get fed up and say, in French, "I don't speak French very well, but even I understand 'first group.'" The teacher explains that he thought everyone had gone together, and a few of the students grudgingly concede that I am right; we were supposed to go in two groups. I am mortified afterwards at having spoken up, though, given French logic, this might actually have earned me some respect. And the very next class, the teacher makes sure that people do not try to sneak into more than one group. "Reposez-vous," he says politely when a group has finished.

After a few classes, I realize that I am not as bad a dancer as I think I am. Even the very best students sometimes have trouble remembering the combinations, and while I am a weaker dancer than many of the others, I am a better musician, and so I more often than not dance on the beat. Some of the younger women in the class are extremely friendly. They ask me where I am from in the United States--I have taken to saying that my home of Erie Pennsylvania is near Chicago, as Chicago is one of the few Midwestern cities they are likely to know-- and I ask them if they would mind dancing the combination with me. While I have a terrible short-term memory in French in particular, I am pretty good at following someone else's moves.

All the regulars know my "prenom," and so now Claudine simply orders me around by her version of "John," which always sounds closer to "Zhon." Just the other day, she asked me to move so that the teacher could take the place at the barre right alongside her. Unfortunately for Claudine, another French lady who was a late arrival to the class took the space I had vacated. Apparently, Claudine's words don't carry as much clout with the other French ladies.

I don't mind being bossed around by my nemesis, however. After all, she is one of the best students, and I myself am French enough to realize that, while all of us are equal, some of us are more equal than others. And in the middle of class today, Claudine turned to me and asked in near-perfect English, "Are you really a beginner, Zhon? I notice that you are doing quite well." I explain that, twenty years ago, I had in fact studied for a semester. "Ah," she replied, "I thought so." Even in English, I can't tell from her tone if she is paying me a compliment or accusing me of being a fraud by passing myself off as a beginner. And I wonder why she has waited until now to speak to me in my own language. Nonetheless, I leave class happy.