SISTER MIRIAM

 

When I first  thought about creating a dance--- it was the Ballad of The False Lady. 

False Lady pretends an awful lot that she is very sexy even when she is not.  It was a ballad that I heard someone sing when I was 13.  More than anything I wanted to be a great ballet dancer.  I wanted to be the greatest dancer in the world.  I didn’t have the feet for it. That dream  was the dream of a false Lady. 

I came to NY in the summer from Harrisburg PA. My sister Miriam opened the grand piano, open all the doors and windows in our house and when my parents gave me permission to try a summer course in NYC at the Novikoff school of dance which advertised in Dance  Magazine every month,  Miriam opened all the doors and windows, put a record of the Romeo & Juliet overture on the record player--volume up, piano lid open she pretended she was playing and people stopped on the street to see and hear her.

I went on pointe too early when I was young.  Miriam has a snapshot  of me in my first ballet class outfit. There was something extraordinarily beautiful about my hands, my arms. At the end of the summer Novikoff told me and my parents I was a born ballerina. But when I returned to school  I couldn’t walk without a lot of pain.  Finally we consulted the best Doctor in Harrisburg.  He said ”she will never be a dancer--she has wrong FEET FOR DANCING,  

 Of course I Walked to and from school everyday.  I was eleven. We were living  near Indiantown Gap. I remembered Valse Trieste, EXCRUCIATINGLY  sad music by Sibelious . While it was playing, some soldiers asked if I could dance for them. Thinking very sad thoughts, I circled the room where soldiers where  they were sitting. They applauded., One soldier wiped his eyes with his handkerchief. .

        Despite  wrong feet, I allow myself to think  about dancing that sad circle in pink satin toe shoes.