Studio 1- Ballet

Abraheme Hassan

Studio 1

Tchaikovsky, Victorian, leotards, bulges, glutes, pink slippers, poise, and power.  My initial thoughts of the ballet could be anonymous with anyone else – superficial. My time at the Joffrey Ballet School is insufficient; I’ve only scratched the surface. However, my preconditions have advanced and matured dramatically.
I grew up frolicking to Michael Jackson and MTV tunes, sparred with my older brothers in martial arts and wrestling bouts, and played every sport I could get my hands on. The performing arts (if you consider wrestling or martial arts – performing arts) were and are a significant part of my life. Ballet was the void and stagnant part of my curiosity. Ask any boy about the ballet, ‘ballet is for girls and sissies!” said my seven year-old cousin. “Sissies” in my neck of the woods were not respected nor harmed. Men who dance professionally other than hip-hop were like steel bubbles, floating in grace but with a macho exterior.
My curiosity of the ballet was reignited once again by the film “Billy Elliot,” a boy in a Northern England coal-mining town finds his true calling in ballet, a stark contrast to the his father and brother’s lifestyle. This project is my first glimpse of the ballet. Specifically, male ballet dancers, who testosteronal grace repulses many but intrigues and captivates me. Syncopated in classical composure is a delight you can enjoy and experience other than the clashing in sports.
Step into Joffrey Ballet School and you’re greeted by two entities; gossip from ballerinas and the rankest wall of humid perspiration, incomparable to the high school locker rooms your nose remembers. I stepped into the office and ask for Linda, whom I spoke to on the phone regarding photographing the men’s class. She greeted me as I step in, and takes me out to follow her. The funk over saturating my nostrils, Linda has her jeans rolled up above her curvaceous dove-white calves. A rusty brown bulletin displaying San Francisco Ballet posters, trips to local ballet schools and performances and schedules of the upcoming Nutcracker Suite with casting calls and dress requirements. A trail of pink tutus, like flamingos prancing in a small pond, stride past me to the vending machine. Overtures and abridged concertos danced in the hallways. Instructors repeat ballet steps in French meanwhile the falling thuds of ballet dancers echoed on my way to Studio 1.
I get into Studio 1, bracing myself for a hoard of eyes in confusion and discernment. Linda speaks to the instructor, Alexandre, a tall debonair man with persevering toned muscles takes a look at my camera and welcomes me with a nod. I take a quick glance panning the room. A tall slender figure, like meter sticks set at the largest obtuse angle possible, pale by the cloudy sunlight is stretching on the snaking and nailed parallel rails. Across the studio, an Asian man with voluminous straight hair wearing windbreakers drops his hands the floor, palms flat against it, pliability I only dream of having.  After a few minutes, six men in leotards with duffle bags and sweaters hanging off their shoulders march in and diverge into their self-assigned places along the rails. No hellos and handshakes, words are of no use here.
Immediately, I feel slight drafts from their semi-circling limbs. Seeing how fierce limbs can be without a stopping force is alarming to sensitive eyes. I get to chat with Eric, the tall slender man by the rails, and his life story about ballet and performing arts. “You learn to love it, you block the negativity around you, common people see it a girls’ sport.” He’s been into ballet for twelve years, through all the teasing by his schoolmates and even his brothers; he has supportive parents who push his dream of becoming a professional ballet dancer. “Music is part dance also, I was part of the orchestra when I was a kid, and I had to decide whether to dance or stay in the orchestra, I chose dance because with dance comes music, not the other way around.”
Henry, the Asian man across the studio had other thoughts of the ballet. He hated it as a child, forced by his parents because the Beijing Academy of Fine Arts is to China as the Actor’s Studio is to New York. Everybody around him practiced martial arts, foreign or Chinese literature. His English is basic, and his shyness to answer my questions shows through his hesitation and pauses mid-sentence. I really wanted to get a shot of his ambiguity, he’s only been in the school for three months, but ballet has now become his passion, seeking professional employment after sufficient training at the Joffrey Ballet School.
Alan, who occupied his spot nearest to the door, was chosen to be the cavalier of Cast B in the Nutcracker. He started in musical theatre, and then went into the ballet for seven years. With a fee of one hundred-fifty dollars for every three months, Alan has been in the Joffrey Ballet School for a year. ” The fee doesn’t scare people, it’s the determination and will power. Five days a week, four to eight hours a day can be a real put down for aspiring dancers.” It’s much harder for guys, I assume, our rigidity comes as a tipping point in ballet.
After my first day in the shooting in the studio, I was relieved and disappointed in my shots, some were what I wanted, others were repeatedly taken from the same angle. My sluggishness had got the best of me; I was the only rock in the river. Stephen, the most animated student to my eyes, whispered, ” thanks for watching,” as he exited the studio. Maybe it’s my camera and that fact that I’m not a professional dancer or a performer, I am a photojournalist. And I hope the Joffrey School students would be more accommodating, or as Diane Arbus said, ” If you can’t arrange the environment, arrange yourself.”
After several days of photographing and getting to itch the dancers’ and instructors’ skin from my presence, I wondered if the students were going finally open up to me voluntarily. Turns out they didn’t. I was there for the last three weeks of the fall semester – in essence, their finals week. I wouldn’t want to spill the story of my life during the most intensive and procrastinating week of the semester either.
During last weekend, the rehearsals of the Nutcracker took place. The entire school was empty on the last day by noon. All the dancers have gone to the Skirball Theater at NYU. The funk has settled down on the mildew stained wooden hallway floors. Being there five or six times, I can still hear the echoes of the piano music. I trek down several streets and avenues to the theater, and I see the final product of their training. In late-Victorian fashion and music, the whole dance school is scurrying across the stage: last minute stitches of buttons, make-up, the Nutcracker playing in the background for tests, Eric, Stephen, Henry, and Alan all rehearsing with their counterparts. The call by George, the artistic director, to stand by and to start rehearsal of Act I is made. The curtain closes. The music and ballet start.
I hope to extend this project past this semester and become a part of the community. Whether or not I join the school, which will not happen in the near future at all. I want to eat, dance, pray, sing, and dress with them. My camera, my license. My curiosity, my drive.