That year was a tough one. My mom was having health problems and I was still figuring out how to be mentally healthy. Training with Patrick was interesting. I was fascinated with the musicality he offered in his classes and the way my body changed in response to highly focused Balanchine training. Although I wasn’t his first choice, my ability to pick up his choreography quickly and stay injury-free landed me in some soloist roles that year. Dancing the snow pas de deux, usually reserved for professionals brought in, was a major highlight. And, I was paraded to news stations and mall performances in my Arabian costume which featured a push-up Victoria’s Secret bra. In many ways, I was treated like a professional. I was given a ballet class to teach young beginners and I became the company member who could quickly interpret Patrick’s frustrated instruction to support the other dancers. I toured with the adult ensemble and went into schools to perform shortened children’s stories. And I worked as a visual merchandiser at Marshall Field’s department store, where I had been since I was 15.
Patrick made a lot of big promises. Having grown up a ballet prodigy of sorts, he had joined the highest ranks in the U.S. with the New York City Ballet. Rumor was that injury cut his career short. And like many of my teachers throughout the years, he taught his young students with a sense of regret and jealousy, but very effectively. During this time, my eating issues shifted. Bulimia became the way I felt in control. I remember being in the small bathroom stall at the studio having had what I thought was too much French toast for breakfast. It seemed reasonable to throw it up, so I did. Then I went in for morning ballet class. That habit would last me into my early 20s.
As you might have gleaned, ballet is all about control. Extreme control. Of body, mind, and spirit in some ways. The only way to excel in such a highly-demanding technique is to focus all of your energy on control. And this requirement leaves a mark. And the ballet world attracts a certain type of person who is able to thrive in such an environment. From the leotard you wear, to the tip of every finger, how you move, how you look, is scrutinized. Similarly to theater, for every role someone aspires to, there are hundreds willing and able to do the same. And in many ways, the people closest to you, the only ones who can begin to understand your experience, are also your biggest competitors. I wasn’t always first choice, but I knew all I had to do was be ready, to know all of the choreography, to always be alert and attentive, to always be working on the side, so that when the opportunity arose, I would be the obvious next choice. This is what we learned to do. To support, yet secretly vie for attention from the powers that be. The only ones who could tell us we were good enough, and too often straight, white older men.
I was lucky that Patrick was not only married, but had brought his wife with him to perform with Southold. And still, the level of control he had over all of us, although not out of the ordinary in ballet, was like a chokehold. He knew that we all looked at him as a direct line to Balanchine. And he knew we were all depending on him to help us advance our careers. I could have gone to the ballet company that moved to California, I could have moved to Chicago where I had trained and connected with Daniel Duell of Ballet Chicago. With my age, my level of proficiency, my desire for a career, I could have gone to most any major city and made my way. But I believed that Patrick offered the best option for me and that he would look out for me. Looking back now, I know so much of this had to do with my depression and lingering guilt from not feeling that I had accomplished what I had meant to in North Carolina.
I still remember when I received the letter while at school that I was not invited to return the next year. I didn’t mention this earlier, but it’s regular practice to have to continue to re-audition in order to earn the spot you already did at performing arts schools. It’s the same in professional companies. You could be the favorite one moment and then do something wrong or simply lose the attention of the director and get thrown aside. This is what is so often not shared about ballet and the dance world at large. There are just so many young girls willing to do anything for a shot. And once you get to a certain level, you can get desperate to be noticed among so many. In some ways, being a Latina helped me in this respect. I could easily be picked out of any room. So I used that to my advantage. It was my goal to ALWAYS be the hardest worker, and to absorb choreography more quickly than anyone else in the studio. And my strategy usually worked. I would become invaluable to the directors my remembering not only my part, but everyone else’s too.
That is what I became to Patrick. In many senses, I was more favored than his wife. She had no interest in trying to impress him. And she obviously felt that dancing with a preprofessional dance company in South Bend, Indiana was beneath her. While I was constantly striving, she was phoning it in. He arranged an audition at Milwaukee Ballet which he said was for four of us that year. We went and quickly realized it was an audition just for her. I was proud of how I danced during the class. And I saw the director noticing me when I did a quadruple pirouette en pointe. Did I talk with the teacher after class? No. Did I advocate for myself? No. I simply asked Patrick at some point maybe a week after and he said nothing.
At one point, my mom who was a computer programmer, offered to help update Southold’s website. She was willing to volunteer her time and services. She and Patrick met to flesh out the details and vision for what he hoped it would be. She put in a lot of time and effort drafting plans that fit into what he wanted. And at some point, something shifted. She never told me all the details, but it was like Patrick had an alter ego. As soon as they got to the point where they were putting things together, he turned on my mom. Sending her irrational accusations and advocating to the board that she not be the one to help with the website. I saw that it hurt my mom, and I know she kept details from me so as not to affect my opinion of him. She was mistreated by him and the board had gone along. The cracks were starting to show.
I persisted. Convinced that I was working hard enough that my connection to Patrick would pay off in the end. Technique-wise it did. I still use some of his exercises when I teach today. And, I was accepted with scholarship to the American Ballet Theater summer workshop in New York City that year. The one where they recruit dancers for the studio company from. Then something happened again.
We were in rehearsal for our spring performance, Sleeping Beauty. I was to dance the Diamond variation and was understudying his wife as Aurora. It seemed like I was hitting my stride. It seemed like next year I’d be in big city somewhere apprenticing for a company. I was 18.
We were in rehearsal. Saturdays were our long days and this was a full cast rehearsal for the finale. Since I was the second oldest dancer next to Patrick’s wife (who I assume was in her 20s), there were a bunch of parents observing their younger dancers. Rehearsal observation was only allowed at certain restricted times and parents were not to talk to their dancers or disrupt in any way, subject to being kicked out of the studio. I slid sideways across the floor on a chasse. And with one leg behind me somehow slipped and fell directly onto my right hip. It was a big fall. I had swept my leg so far behind me that I was almost horizontal to the floor off the ground before I landed. Some of the other dancers immediately started asking me if I was okay. They were quickly yelled at by Patrick. No one was to check on me. “Get up!”
And I did. But something dawned on me. As I painfully peeled myself off the ground, I looked around the studio. It was silent. The parents said nothing. The dancers said nothing. And Patrick looked at me with disdain. In that moment, I suddenly realized how convoluted the whole dance world was. How even in a small city, a teacher with clout could not only have complete control over his students, but over the adult parents as well. How everyone knew that if they wanted to get ahead, they had to withstand whatever abuse necessary. It was like all of those years finally culminated into one big realization, this was not a world I wanted to be a part of.
I slowly got up and as Patrick screamed at me. I walked out. And never went back.
Marie’s Move It Story – Part V 