DANCING FOR BALANCHINE

Dancers called him "Mr. B." He was probably the most important name in ballet of the 20th century.

I was nervous, excited, all fluttery inside, when Todd Bolender, the choreographer, said he was bringing George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein, fund raiser co-founder of the NYC Ballet, to my studio to see "At the Still Point."

My studio, in those days, was on the top floor, separated from our living quarters by blue plastic shower-curtains. The floor, which I'd labored over with sandpaper and beeswax, to tamp down the splinters in the wood, was carefully checked for slippery spots.

I was in point shoes (pink toe shoes), and slipping was dangerous, especially when you're used to dancing in plain old ballet slippers.

Wow, toe shoes -- that was brave of me -- I did it for Todd with whom I was in love (the way dancers fall in love with the man who tells you what to do, praises you, criticizes you, directs you). And of course, that was part of what upset my husband at the time, my partner Mark Ryder.

Mark, who bent over backwards to show off his masculinity, to display the rough, tough, muscular guy aspects of himself, did not like Todd who was homosexual and talked a lot about his roommate. At our first meeting with Todd, his roommate served us espresso in exquisite demitasse cups, with tiny spoons, lemon peel on the saucer, and dainty napkins.

In our rehearsals with Todd, on the breaks, my husband stormed off through the blue plastic curtains to our shabby, undecorated living quarters -- bed, a mattress on a board on bricks -- bookcases, boards on bricks -- dining table, chairs, lamps, all discards Mark scrounged from the street.

Mm ... Writing about those days ... My eyes don't feel with tears, but tears are somewhere in and around my brain and heart -- tears for the strong, arrogant, confident, young selves of ourselves in those days.

We'd toured, we'd been successful as a team, but irritation -- basic conflicts -- were developing. (My mind keeps searching for a way to clarify what was going on behind the work scene in the studio -- to explain why and how Todd and Todd's world became the beginning of the end of my first marriage.)

Anyway, there George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein were, seated on the bench next to Todd.

I don't remember any social preliminaries. I just danced. I was deep into the feeling of the piece. Lonely girl, other girls with partners ... Girl painfully alone, haunted by her longing to join in with the others as they waltz off stage, enjoying themselves ... Manly handsome man appears ... Girl and man discover each other in a tender, adagio duet ... Other couples return and man connects with them, gradually becoming part of their celebration, leaving the girl, once again, lonely, alone.

I'd written the libretto and picked the Debussy music. Todd transformed it into a ballet that's in the repertoire of quite a few ballet companies. As "Still Point," it's performed with just three of the movements.

As I said, I just danced. Todd's choreography did it -- transported me into the moment by moment feelings, the progression of the dance and the unfolding drama. The steps didn't scare me, not even the turns á la seconde that Todd used (a man's series of turns with an extended leg that ballet audiences often applaud). I just danced, and Balanchine and Kirstein were touched by it.

Well, the repercussions of that performance continued for a very very long time. We were invited to perform as guest artists with the New York City Ballet, after they mounted the Still Point. Tanaquil LeClerc and Melissa Hayden came to studio, and again, we performed it for them. I worked with Tanaquil and Melissa, and taught them my role.

It was exciting, more than a exciting ...

It was as if a beam of sunshine was on me, following me around. As a little girl, I'd often imagined that my life was movie, and a spotlight was on me -- the eye of the camera was watching and a film was recording the moment by moment events of my life.

I'll bet if I went to my QuickFinder search file, and searched the word "ballet" -- wow -- how many, many times have I written about my childhood dreams, my deep and current, intense connection to dancing.

This story ... it's what makes me ME -- Em the dancer, Em the writer.

I didn't dance as a guest artist with the New Ciry Ballet, but I almost did.

Continued tomorrow ...

Or a couple of tomorrows from tomorrow -- sometime later when I can write about all this freshly.

GO BACK AND DO IT AGAIN?

Do what? Live my life again? Could I do things better?

What age, which self would I want to be?

Be young again? Have the affair I contemplated having? See my mom one last time before she died? Find another place in Malibu to live? Produce my "Shattering Panes" play one more time?

So, what about the be young things?

Be a beginner dancer? Could I stretch more, make myself more limber -- despite my feet, learn to dance on pointes? Be a ballerina, even though some of the steps, some of the essential moves still look silly to me?

Be a teenager, and have to deal with making the highest marks in school, and what am I going to be when I grow up? And pimples? And fall in love with the quarterback Dave, the handsomest big man on campus in High School.

I changed myself -- makeup, clothes, dimmed down my brain, learned to talk sports, made friends with Dave's side-kick, a shrimpy twerp who ran Dave's errands -- I actually gave this shrimpy kid the clever, facetious do-you-like-me note I wrote (lavender linen stationery, purple ink, each word worked over and over) to hand-deliver to Dave ... Never, never would I want to be back in those days and feel how I felt when Dave never, never, never answered.

So what about love -- other possible life partners -- go back and be in a position to consider the possibilities again? NOW? Hmm ... I'm not geared up by my upbringing, my era, to picture myself operating, functioning successfully in the current scene.

And what would I wear? I gave my wardrobe away -- all those fantastic outfits I had that were innovative, created by me to catch the eye of discerning men and women (mostly the later). Could I create clothes like that again? Would I wear Victoria Secret bras that create cleavage? Get boob enhancement surgery? Oh dear ... I don't think so.

Even if I could turn back the clock, could I unlearn what I know and feel? Would I want to NOT marry my first husband? No, gee, we created a dance company!

What would I want to go back and do again? Some job I did, like mopping the studio floor last night? I could have done it more carefully -- why didn't I put "SlipNoMore" in the water -- it makes the floor less slippery and I'm slipping too much?

No, the quick, light, cold-water mopping removed the layer of dust -- the dust is why I'm slipping. Anyhow, I can go back and mop it again if it's still slippery.

At the top of this page, the doodle (seven ages of Em) -- that's a job I've gone back and redone at least six times --scanned it, pasted a new face on the 2nd smallest toddler. Click it -- you'll see how I fussed over it -- going back and doing it again definitely improved the doodle.

Okay! "If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again..." I can do that with writing, but would I? Do I want to go back and write another version of a "The Woman," a/k/a "Cordelia," a/k/a "Woman of the Century," a/k/a "Cordelia's Almanac," then "'Somebody"?

I, wore myself out -- wearing her clothes, living her life -- I grew up in her time, aged as she aged, even described her death so vividly I feel as if I've already described my own demise. No. I do not want to live through Cordelia's life again.

And "Shattering Panes" is a project that I'm finished with... (Shh ... I love the play -- wrote it for me to perform in with my husband and son, but where their careers are at, my revving it up, even doing another reading ... well it would be sweet for me, but a backward move for them -- fun maybe for JC but wrong for our son.)

Hey, a mother knows.

I keep thinking of the lioness patiently, sometimes impatiently boffing, pushing her cub out of the den so he'll learn to find food, avoid predators, and survive without her. What the cub knows, and what the cub does with what he's learned is HIS LIFE. (Even if Mom knows best, it has to be up to him.)

Ergo -- no play project for me.

Ergo, all that I've done, learned, yearned for, tried, avoided, regretted, loved, hated, mourned, and sought -- is me, moving ahead, sticking to what I am because that's me.

Hmm. I like that!

THE MAKING OF "EM"

A website, a blog are not things I ever thought about till nine weeks ago.

Today Fran and Sue got the first "stats." Fran the designer was proud, Sue, who's handling the PR, was proud. "Em" was back in Edinburgh, in the great grand theater where my dressing room was where the greatest Shakespearean actors of Great Britain once upon a time powdered, prepared.

Huge old theater, at least three balconies. No heat. Winter. A morning performance. The members of my dance company were peeved, cold, sleepy, outraged that we were on stage, warming up on ancient floor boards, with vapor from our breathing visible as we said "Good morning."

Grim performance. There were only 30 people in the audience. But I was in Edinburgh, and in my mind, it was a precious memory, cold as I was, an achievement to be there.

There were four people in the audience when I performed in Sidney Australia.. The program was me alone, dancing Opus 10, all of Vivaldi's "Four Seasons." I wanted to pay them for their tickets, pay them extra if only they'd be willing to leave.

Once, just one time, I danced for 10,000 in an outdoor stadium.

Most of the time, practically all of the time on my 1000 one-night-stands which became more than a 1000 before I finally decided I CANNOT DO THIS ANYMORE, the audiences were small...90, 50, 125, maybe 250. A modern dancer and her troupe on a college campus concert series is not a big draw.

In New York, on Broadway, when John Cullum and Emily Frankel did "Kings" at the Alvin Theatre on four Saturday nights, the house had to be papered. ("Paper" means tickets were given away.) When I did "Zinnia" at the Colonnades for 55 performances, it was the most performances I'd ever done in one theater, whereas, when John unpacks his makeup kit in a Broadway house, the kit stays there -- the same dressing room has often been his for a year or longer.

No, I don't think about this very often. When I was little and dreamed of being a dancer "till death do me part," I would have been thrilled to know that I would do in Dance what I've done. But today, when Fran and Sue showed me the stats, how many hits on our Website, how many files, pages, chapters downloaded, how many visitors ...... My eyes fill with tears. A website barely one week old, and more eyes have been on "Em" then ever before.

THE # ONE PRETTIEST GIRL

It wasn't Emily F. Her name was Carlie, and she did toe tap, back flips, no handed cartwheels and wore a tutu with sparkles on it for the 4th grader's talent show.

I wanted to be in the show but my talent was getting the highest marks.

After the show, Carlie and I were walking home – I was wearing a royal blue dress with thin white stripes. At my father's factory, they made KATE GREENAWAY dresses. Once a month I'd go to the factory with him. He'd take me to racks with my size and let me pick out a sample.

Carlie was bubbling over about acrobatics and the splits and tap classes, and her next performance at the local dance school's annual show for the parents. Looking down at my dress, which was princess style (Daddy said) because it curved and fitted my almost curvy, not really curvy little girl shape, I was getting ready to compliment Carlie politely --I didn't want her to know I was jealous.

I opened my mouth and said, "I want to be a dancer more than anything in the world."
Carlie said, "Your legs are nice. You have a nice shape. Your neck is long. You do sort of look like a ballerina."

I took it! I grabbed it. It was my Tell Nobody dream that had been getting larger and larger -- like a weather balloon, radius 4 feet, 6 feet, 8 feet Pi - R - squared -- it was already big. Carlie's words enabled me to blow air into the balloon and it's never stopped growing.

As an ex-dancer, I dance every day. Not exercise. Nope. I go into my studio. Its a 45 x 25 foot space. It transforms into a rentable theater, which I don't rent out. It's only for me, JC and JD. In it, I warm up, very simply, unstrenuously, without boring endless repetitions and the hope of losing weight or firming up sloppy saggy anything (though there are places where it might be good but I don't look at them). The Warm-up's about 26 minutes of a basic ballet barre that I've evolved, that fits what I can do without too much discomfort. Then I switch on the music. (Vaughan Williams, "Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis.")

Seventeen minutes. It's choreographed. A visit into the room: I've placed 3 chairs, a small box to step up on, a barre made of pipes, that JC made so I could have a portable bar in the studio. The choreograhy is divided into 4 sections. I dance a section for two days, then the next section for two days; the next, and then the next. After eight days of sections, I dance the whole 17 minutes for two days. Then I'm back to the beginning again.

Thank you Carlie, I don't do toe tap, but I become the # one prettiest girl in the world just about every ten days.