Strip. Andrew Binks

ass sagged over the tiny seat of the wooden chair. I strangled the art.

      In Quebec City I stayed at Madame “Smoke-cough-ska’s” house. I will never understand the link between the physical demands and stamina a dancer must have, and the ability to smoke in spite of it. Madame met my bus in her rusting crayon-orange Volvo station wagon that smelled a nauseating combination of fresh and stale cigarette smoke and rotting apple juice mingling with kiddy poop. Madame had dropped the posturing, let her hair down, but was in full makeup. Regardless of the filth, she had a pristine allure as if she had just stepped out of a Blackglama magazine ad. All she spoke of was Jean-Marc: “He’s finally coming into his own.”

      We chugged into Sainte-Foy. “He’s got charisma and energy like the dancers I knew in Hungary.” We coasted up to her peeling bungalow, surrounded by yellow grass and no trees. I was starting to feel defeated and inadequate and I hadn’t even so much as sautéed for Madame. I wondered if she had already started with the head games or if she was simply oblivious to my presence. “He’s lean, handsome and hungry for it. I remember what that was like.” The last sentence was another silent mantra that aging dancers lived by, usually followed by a wistful sigh, as they swallowed their bitterness back into their core and secretly prayed those nearby would whisper about their greatness in the past, saying things like, “She had amazing technique,” or, “His was the definitive Albrecht.” I followed along the cracked walkway, to the front door, as she shoved children’s toys aside with her foot and cursed under her breath before announcing, “He will make our name in New York.”

      Was I surrounding myself with people obsessed with anyone but me? Everyone loves to talk about how much they are in love, or attracted to so-and-so. But I had been around enough male dancers who had impressed the pants off someone, and even been described as the next Godunov or Baryshnikov, and they wisely rode that wave of enthusiasm. Those were the ones who knew they had an ace in their pocket. Others had no faith in that allure and had slept with Kharkov, perish the thought, or his wife—which made Kharkov even happier—or with anyone who could help them along the way. And there were tons of Jean-Marcs to be obsessed about, which led inevitably to someone’s heartache or break, while they forged their own route to the top.

      Madame led me into the house, took off her coat, revealing her walking-anatomy-lesson taut torso and medium-sized breasts with no bra, amazing for a woman her age. She knew it. She dropped her coat, almost on a chair, and then rifled through her bag to finally find a cigarette, which she lit and took a drag on. She led me to the kitchen. The house itself looked like it had been ransacked and I was waiting for her reaction, but none was forthcoming. This mess was de riguer. In the kitchen, she leaned over the cluttered counter. “When I first saw you I wasn’t sure. You have blankness in your eyes. Are you sad or just hesitant? And there is something very uneven about your face. Your nose.” She grimaced as she choke-talked, “But now I see you again and I think maybe you are handsome.”

      “I banged it on the bottom of the pool.”

      “Playing pool? Hmmm.”

      “Not playing…”

      “You could get it fixed.”

      “It hasn’t affected my dancing.”

      She tapped her ashes effortlessly into the sink.

      The studio was situated on a road that led toward the walled part of town. It was simply a sad fluorescent-lit, linoleum classroom on the top floor of a 1950s beige brick high school that had been converted to a clinic for mental patients. When the wind blew up the slope, the windows howled. No sprung wood floor. No showers; we changed in the bathroom across the hall. After class the girls used talcum. We used cologne; Jean-Marc shared his collection of Drakkar, Pierre Cardin and Christian Dior for our stinking armpits. Bells went off at weird times, people in white coveralls, lab coats, pyjamas or nothing at all ran down halls. Hortense, the pianist, arms like water balloons, hammered everything from Chopin to Delibes to Tchaikovsky with the same heavy hand.

      I wanted to believe that Madame’s classes were the best I had ever taken. I told myself that this was it. Yes, it was gruelling; my thighs screamed every moment with every plié. Madam had an incredible imagination when it came to putting together a class—the barre was intricate and rigorous, although she seemed to have a habit of forgetting what she had showed us. Regardless, it was hard: from a full plié in first position she would have us développé so that we were being supported by one fully bent leg. She seemed to do whatever she could to make our thighs scream and our calves seize up. I might have been starting to get my form back, feeling my legs stretch, feeling my arches once again, and starting to feel like everything was finding its former place within my body, but it seemed too ambitious, and I was too physically worn to sleep well. But I told myself—in the glow of the newness of the experience, and of Madame Talegdi’s allure and charisma—that it would make me great.

      The days were full. At nine in the morning the six of us had company class, with Hortense at the piano and Madame stomping out the beat for two hours. We extended our tired muscles and followed her commands through a series of pliés, tendus, battements, with the aid of a barre. “Don’t hold the damn thing like you are trying to strangle a cat,” she’d shout. I was developing bad habits all over again; I used to rest my hand lightly, if at all, on the barre, but now I needed it for most of my support. The second half of the class there was adage floor work, where we danced and danced and danced—worked on our jumps, turns and everything you could do from one corner to the other. Although there was an air of competition, I doubt they would have acknowledged it. Dancers watch not only themselves, but others, to measure their progress. Following this, Madame would alternate later mornings with a follow-up men’s class—more thigh-bursting held pliés, Ukrainian kicks, Russian splits, endless leaps, tours en l’air, grand jeté en tournante, exercises that focused on male capabilities, designed to exploit the major muscle groups, all interspersed with endless sets of one-armed push-ups with the heal of her Capezio digging into our backs. (She knew how to work a man.) People say that a male dancer’s role is to support the woman. Balanchine said ballet is purely a female thing. And I say it’s not fair: go to any classical ballet and tell me the man doesn’t fly or spin or become airborne for supernatural lengths of time, and I’ll know you slept through it.

      Madame had the good sense to alternate our men’s class with women’s pointe class every other day. Jean-Marc, Bertrand and I would watch the women’s class closely, but during our class, Maryse, Chantal and Louise would talk in the lunchroom to the extent that Madame would have to shout for them to shut up. After lunch we would all have a short warm-up at the barre, then a pas de deux class. It was odd and good to have such a small group; the good being that we danced so much more than one would in a large group, the odd being that I knew my body was undergoing some fundamental changes and I wasn’t really sure what my condition would be when I came out the other end.

      To finish up the day, we rehearsed sections of repertoire, including Madame’s ballets. I rest my case: if it looks like dancers work longer hours than athletes, that’s because it’s the truth—which is to a dancer’s disadvantage. The body needs a sufficient amount of rest and recovery as well as nutrition when it is this active. The ballet world, built on obsession, competition and starvation will never figure this out. It is cemented into a tradition that involves an outdated work ethic. The dancer’s fitness regimen involves hours of physically demanding repetition (why else would it look so easy onstage?), optional cigarettes, mixed with coffee and no food. The law of diminishing returns has never been read to the dance world.

      Maryse and Chantal kept their noses turned up at me when I was partnering them, when I was beside them at the barre, when I was dancing next to them and when I was anywhere near them for that matter—fortunately it was perfect ballet posture. I had no qualms about staring at their chests, it made them horribly self-conscious—they needed to get out in the bigger world and see how far being a little league bitch would get them. And I noticed everything: when Maryse got thinner, Chantal seemed to put on weight, as if no stray pounds would leave our little company. But Maryse looked like death in this condition, which, paradoxically, made her perfect for the children’s roles that called for waif-like fairies, sylphs, fireflies or something equally translucent. Chantal did her best to disguise