As beautiful as it is to watch, some aspects of the\u00a0ballet are brutal and unforgiving. Losing a coveted role to someone else. Being
hungry and eating as little as possible to maintain a slender body. Touring\u00a0across the United States for ten weeks of one night stand performances and\u00a0sleeping in a different seedy hotel every night. Dancing on twisted ankles and blistered\u00a0toes. And then there are the devasting and embarrassing incidents that come up\u00a0unexpectedly, like wardrobe malfunctions and falling flat on your ass in front\u00a0of a sea of people.<\/p>\n
It was 1964 in New York City during a sweltering heat\u00a0wave. I was sixteen, standing on the landing of a seven step staircase at the
world famous School of American Ballet. I looked down at a large studio filled\u00a0with young ballet students. There were no air conditioners, only ceiling fans\u00a0that blew the hot air around. Wall to wall barres made up the perimeter of the\u00a0studio and the dancers were stretching and fidgeting in the odd ways that\u00a0dancers do, pulling at their leotards, rolling their necks, putting one leg on
the barre and bending forward from the waist until their flat chests kissed\u00a0their shins.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d wanted to get there early so I could take my place\u00a0at the barre undetected, but during the drive from Worcester, MA. to Manhattan,
my mother had gotten lost several times. The Cagan curse of absolutely no sense\u00a0of direction. My shoulders were taut, my fingers clenched as I got ready to\u00a0enter the room. I was about to audition for the renowned choreographer legend, George\u00a0Balanchine, artistic director of the New York City Ballet. And now, I would have\u00a0to walk down the stairs in full view of everyone \u2013 not that anyone was looking.\u00a0They were gazing at their reflections in the mirrored wall that ran the length\u00a0of the front wall of the studio.<\/p>\n
Trying to act casual and composed, I took the first\u00a0step off the landing. I lost my footing, I slid forward and fell loudly, step\u00a0by step, to the bottom of the staircase. Everyone stopped fidgeting, pulling,
bending, and stretching for a brief moment and stared at me. I had made my\u00a0entrance into this scary world not neatly, quietly, and inconspicuously, but\u00a0instead, awkwardly with a roar and a bang, a red face and a wounded body. To\u00a0make matters worse, no one at the barre wanted to move to give me any space so\u00a0I had to physically push someone forward.<\/p>\n
Being a professional dancer was the hardest thing I\u2019ve\u00a0ever done, but it was also the best. I got to be a real live ballerina, living
my dream, but the only way to get there was to show up at the studio every day,\u00a0tired or not, hurting or not, and do the long term training that would earn me\u00a0the glory of performing on stage every night. The gorgeous costumes and fierce\u00a0makeup. The sparkling tiaras and glittering earrings. The tutus and pink pointe\u00a0shoes. The energy of an expectant audience, waiting and watching.<\/p>\n
In the world of ballet, the magic of performing eclipses\u00a0all of the tough training so you have to find a way to enjoy the process, to do
whatever it takes to reach a goal that initially seemed unreachable as you\u00a0claim mastery over every muscle in your body. You turn the impossible into the\u00a0possible and bask in the energy of a packed audience who are expecting\u00a0excellence.<\/p>\n
This kind of dedication is not singular to the ballet.\u00a0It takes the same effort and repetition to achieve excellence in any field,\u00a0aritistic or not.<\/p>\n
\u201cGenius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration,\u201d said Thomas Edison.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Lots of little girls want to be ballerinas. They prance around in tutus \u2013 until the dedication required becomes a reality. Most of them leave the ballet but there are some of us who kept on going. We were willing to be awkward until our bodies began to understand a new language, a new way of moving and contorting into new shapes that seemed impossible at first. I remember working diligently every day to finally do the splits. Learning to do Piqu\u00e9\u00a0turns\u00a0as I spun from one side of the room to the other and did my best to avoid\u00a0bumping into walls. Balancing and jumping on my toes. Leaping through the air
and landing gracefully and lightly back down again. And doing these things all\u00a0day every day.<\/p>\n
It all started for me when I was six and I saw a newspaper\u00a0photo of British prima ballerina, Margot Fonteyn. Her pink pointe shoes. The
delicate pink ribbons that criss crossed her ankles. Layers of diaphanous tulle\u00a0that draped her body and the way she gracefully held her arms above her head, standing\u00a0on her toes with a sparkling tiara on her head. I vowed to learn to do what she \u00a0did and it\u2019s a mystery to me why the hard work didn\u2019t discourage me. I just did
it. I somehow understood that the training was simply part of the deal and each\u00a0time I fell, I got up and carried on.<\/p>\n
A friend once asked me why I chose such a demanding\u00a0athletic endeavor. How did I find the discipline to keep going and deal with the\u00a0pain? I still don\u2019t have an answer. I don\u2019t recall making a decision to train like\u00a0that when I was teaching my feet to obey my mind. I just figured that if I kept\u00a0going for however long it took, I\u2019d probably get where I wanted to be. And I\u00a0did.<\/p>\n
When Olympic gold medal winners Michael Phelps and\u00a0Simone Biles were asked how it felt to be a champion, they both said that they\u00a0didn\u2019t think they were better than anyone else. They just worked harder.<\/p>\n
There is a phrase in Buddhism: To reach enlightenment,
chop wood, carry water.<\/p>\n
Once you are enlightened, chop wood, carry water.<\/p>\n
To me this means that whether you\u2019re at the start of your\u00a0journey or well along the path, you have to stay humble and do the work. The
rest will follow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As beautiful as it is to watch, some aspects of the\u00a0ballet are brutal and unforgiving. Losing a coveted role to someone else. Beinghungry and eating as little as possible to maintain a slender body. Touring\u00a0across the United States for ten weeks of one night stand performances and\u00a0sleeping in a different seedy hotel every night. Dancing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2504"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2505,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2504\/revisions\/2505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}