Ballet Chooses the Dancer

My father was still recounting the story on his deathbed:

I was four years old, a wisp of a dancer in an itchy tutu, taking ballet classes with a teacher whom, my parents liked to boast, had studied under Martha Graham. Like other young girls, I dreamed of becoming a prima ballerina.

But I was not like most other girls. Shy, stubborn, I balked at following choreography and often found myself stranded alone on one side of the studio while the class, moving as one body, occupied the opposite side. And then suddenly, before I had mastered a single step, it was time for my first recital. A chorus line of us baby ballerinas was positioned center-stage as the towering velvet curtain slowly, slowly opened. One look at the audience and I froze, mouth wide-open, hands clamped to my cheeks.

My parents removed me from ballet class and enrolled me again thee years later—with similar results. There would be no more recitals. I moved on to other interests and other dreams, taking with me what little knowledge and grace I had managed to acquire.

Flash forward half a century…

I have ripened into, not a ballerina, but a writer with abiding creative and emotional ties to dance and dancers. My forthcoming novel, You, Fascinating You, the story of a forgotten ballerina who inspired a timeless love song, will be released within weeks.

Throughout the process of writing the book and preparing to launch it, I have been humbled again and again by the generosity of the ballet community. Russian danseur Stanislav Belyaevsky gifted me with the book’s exquisite cover image. Ballerinas Susan Jaffe, Janet Panetta, and Elana Altman read the book and offered cover blurbs, as did the granddaughter of the legendary Vaslav Nijinsky, Kinga Nijinsky Gaspers.

This outpouring of goodwill has been both gratifying and bittersweet. What earthly Nirvana of camaraderie did I walk away from when I flung my leotard into a drawer and resigned myself to a lifetime of klutziness? Could I have tried harder?

The protagonist of my novel, Margit Wolf, begins the account of her life, “They say ballet chooses the dancer.” Regrettably, I was not among the chosen. How I envy those who are!