Pirouette

The crown of my head rises toward the heavens, bungee-spine releases, tailbone tucks under. One heel fits snugly into the other foot’s arch. Arms drift to breast level, the right curved, the left as if I’ve flicked a handkerchief. A foot slides out, then to the back, and anchors as my knees bend. Balanced torso – perfect prep – push off the back foot – arms whip – body revolves –

WHAM! SPLAT!

Another failed pirouette.

***

Once upon a time, a little girl dreams big, of growing up to star in Broadway musicals. That girl is my eldest sister, Eve, of the irrepressible grin, the fire-engine-red hair, the indefatigable you-couldn’t-shut-her-up-once-she’d-started-singing-’til-she’d-finished-the-entire-song fame.

In our family, Eve is the star. Not Mum or Dad or Grama (though she wanted to be). Even as a child, Eve had the assured poise of a doyenne, confidently the epicentre of any room she enters. My sister Ann is the quintessential middle child, watchful, careful, counting up slights. And I am the Eve-wannabe, her supporting player, her second banana. Whenever she generously condescends to acknowledge my existence. But even second bananas need chops, moxie, a skillset, so I follow her into our community's theatre, with its kids school and full productions.

***

At eighteen, I move to New York. Eve is already established here and grudgingly lets me crash with her until I line up a place to live. We go to auditions but for different shows. She’s a star; I’m a singer. She plays roles; I go after chorus positions. Her auditions are appointments; mine, cattle calls.

In addition to a teeny one-room flat, I find a day job, an acting class, a voice teacher, and a dance studio that caters to wannabes as well as professionals. At auditions, I’m prized for my vocal range and musicianship, but choreographers cut me with glee because I can’t do that swift, one-footed, 360° turn known as a pirouette. The bottleneck between cattle call and callback, my bête noire, my waterloo: I must prove that I can dance near real dancers without making them fall over me.

***

Did I mention that I’d spent my entire childhood dizzy? Oh yeah. That too.

***

Surprisingly, I love dance class. How the accompaniment inspires my random assemblage of parts to move fluidly, coherently; I love the ever-increasing difficulty of the combinations of steps. My gestures become sinuous, melodious; I make the teacher feel good about their teaching abilities.

Until we spin.

The second time we work on our turns, I hear someone making pointed remarks under their breath about ‘people who don’t belong in this class.’ I swiftly slink to the back of the room before I’m asked to leave. In the corner near the doorway, I try my best, which is roughly equivalent to a weeping willow on a day with no wind: I can stay steady as long as I don’t move.

It’s not like I’m not used to it, the feeling that somebody’s about to shout, ‘Timber!’ When I climb more than one flight of stairs I must pause at the landing and turn around carefully in the other direction before continuing, or risk a tumble.

But what’s embarrassing or dangerous in waking hours flees when I sleep. I switch off the lamp, close my eyes, and see multicoloured threads of light arcing, twining, waltzing in the void. I lie on my back, arms akimbo, and feel I’m revolving like a crazed clock’s hands. I entrust myself to the gyrations and somersault through inner space to unknown landscapes that, upon waking, I still believe exist. Parenthetically, I don’t need to join my friends in boozing or Eve in smoking grass. I just go to bed, breathe, wish, fly. Would that I could fly awake.

***

Eve lands a role in an off-off-Broadway rock musical adaptation of King Lear. She’s playing Princess Regan, the smallest female role, and rabbits on about how different it is to see the world through the eyes of a middle sister like Ann.

Meanwhile, I have not yet been invited to a callback.

***

It’s not just about feeling worthy of being Eve’s sister anymore, or even of succeeding in theatre. This has become a matter of honour. Between classes, lessons, workshops, work, in my apartment I pity my downstairs neighbour. Every day, BIFF! Again, OOOF! Days, weeks, months. I teach myself to ‘spot’: both feet on the ground, I turn incrementally in quick, strict rhythm. First I focus on the spy-hole on my front door, then the key hanging to the left of it, a bright green book’s spine on the shelf next to that, then a chink of light through the wooden shutter, Mona Lisa’s left eye, the lamp finial, the crack in the wall, on and on ’til I return to where I began, snot dripping, tears blurting, the room whirling. But I don’t throw up and I don’t fall over so I look at the spy-hole, the key, the book, again and again and again. Eventually I do it on one foot. WHAM. I don’t care. No grace, no prep, just a blind pushing because dammit I’m doing this.

One day I manage to stay upright a quarter of the way around! I try again, fail, fall, cry, ice the bruises on my bruises, and ‘mark’, performing the move with my hands as if they were my whole body.

THUNK! Just from thinking about it.

***

Mum mentions that Eve’s show has opened and closed. Eve never told me when it would run, never invited me to attend. The next day, as usual, I try again. A quarter-turn. A half-turn. Again. Did I just complete a full circle? Probably not. But at the next dance class, from the back of the room I mark and don’t fall.

***

One day after class, two weeks later, I wait for the studio to empty. I stand dead centre and face the enormous mirror, spine straight, stomach in, bum tight. My arms float, my foot pushes me up and around. In the blink of an eye, I’m facing the mirror again. Standing on my own two feet. Shaking. Laughing. Crying a little. Someone says, ‘Do it again.’ What?

I look back. A bunch of folks I know from classes and auditions are crowded in the doorway, watching. I can tell that a couple of them want me to clear the room so they can start the next class but most of them, well, I can feel them pulling for me. ‘Do it again.’ ‘You can do it.’ ‘You can.’

Breath in – chest up – arms out – feet deployed –

I do it again.

Picture by Vallerato