Strip. Andrew Binks

in his killer kind of way. “If you want any kind of life as a dancer you must pay attention. You started late?”

      “I swam competitively until about five years ago.”

      “So you’re twenty?”

      “No. I’m going on twenty-two. Swimming was boring.”

      “The dancer’s friend.”

      “That’s true.” It had made me supple and strong, but I needed more than endless hours of lengths at 5:30 a.m., five mornings a week, and in Edmonton winters. “But when I started dancing…”

      “It’s no use starting late only to finish early. So they’ve given you a job after five years of this.”

      “A bit longer, I danced and swam…”

      “Why second soloist?”

      “I was next in line.”

      “You should be further along. You get paid a little more than corps. So what? If you stay on this path you’ll be in a wheelchair by the time you are thirty, teaching little girls to point their toes for the rest of your life. You obviously have a gift. Don’t abuse it.” These were the first positive words I’d heard him say. “And don’t be arrogant. They always need males, especially in the Company. The prairies are a wasteland. Males don’t last there.”

      “They’re born there.”

      “The prairies are too limiting, too Russian. Maybe Vaganova will make you strong, but your muscles will bulge and your joints will turn to putty.”

      I bit my lip, while he sneered. “You’ll be bulky with t’ighs like the Winnipeg football team. What do you call them?”

      “The Blue Bombers.”

      “The Blue Bombers—there’ll be no difference, in their white tights and dance belts.”

      “Jockstraps.”

      The right corner of his mouth reached the far corner of his eye, as he stifled a laugh. “You must know tu es adorable.” He flicked at a bag of sugar, “But your knees, mon ami, won’t last.”

      “You’re telling me to give up on second soloist?”

      “The Company repertoire is tired and boring. Romeo and Juliet is their newest ballet in what, thirty years?

      “The Company’s expanding.”

      “Not if they want to tour.”

      He was right; Romeo and Juliet had been a gamble that paid off. And as far as my knees were concerned, he was right; they burned every time I stepped up onto the street curb, although they were fine in the studio. The hours I had spent dancing now rivalled all of my schooling, ever. As a child I badly wanted to get up on that stage with Nureyev and Fonteyn, even if I was going to be stuck beside the scenery or in the shadows, holding Rudi’s cloak. No matter if it was The Nutcracker, Rodeo or Swan Lake that my mother took me to, sitting in the audience while the action was onstage was pointless.

      Seven years ago I stopped twirling around the basement, slipping on the carpet, wearing holes in my socks. I stopped dreaming. In fact, it was a Thursday in early December that I took the leap and lied about a trip to the doctor for a flu shot. Yes, I climbed that same narrow staircase that led to our family doctor, but kept right on going. Up. Up to the place that made the high ceiling in the doctor’s office throb and sent fine plaster dust snowing down during checkups. Six months earlier, on the staircase where I had previously seen only armies of young girls with tight buns on their heads, I saw two male dancers ascend. If there were other men dancing in Edmonton, I would, too, but it took six more months of dreaming, yearning, gathering my gumption.

      Soon I lied about other things—swim practice, movies, getting together with friends. All traded for a dream. (Look at me now, lying about everything, to everyone, myself included—sitting in this stairwell, now, has nothing to do with the dream.) Up I went, like Alice following the rabbit down the hole, but in the other direction, to a wonderland of Chopin played on out-of-tune pianos, the thick scent of old lady perfume, sweat, talcum powder. Bodies wafted corner to corner across creaky floors, mirrors for walls, boxes of resin in room corners, people dashing from dressing rooms to studios, draped on the barre, sitting splayed in hallways, stretching, waiting for their class to begin. In the musty windowed office Lisa, my first teacher, looked over the class list. “Are you a football player?”

      “I swim.”

      “We get football players. Their coach sends them. A few times and then they’re gone. It can’t be the tights, can it?” She smiled at me. I relaxed. “God, football. Football is some kind of abomination to human movement. It frightens me to see these guys with clunky feet and mitts for hands—banging their knees sideways. Funny, in the long run, ballet is probably going to do as much damage.” She winked at me.

      “I want to dance.”

      “Show up regularly and I won’t charge you.”

      After the class, she stopped me at the door. “Will we see you again?” She smiled. My father could have adjusted her slightly protruding eye teeth. I could tell by her openness that she liked men, a lot. She said a lot of guys who started late had careers. I couldn’t believe we were talking about free classes, talking about careers, like it was a possibility and not just a dream. My whole world was starting to shift. I was involved in something I absolutely loved.

      “Keep swimming,” Lisa said, “for now.”

      So there I was plié, tendu with the beginner adults, women and the two men I had seen on the stairs. Then Lisa threw me into a room of little girls balancing on tippytoes, learning the syllabus, for a moment, and after that into seasoned recreational adults with timid wrists and tight fingers, until she figured I could rub shoulders with those who had hoped to be dancers one day, and along with them classes of serious teens with talent, strength, discipline and their dreams still in front of them. This all meant that some nights I was at the studio for up to four hours. The girls needed a male partner for their exams, and the adults wanted partners to make class more challenging. And all I wanted to do was dance. A simple port de bras at the barre was enough to satisfy the craving. I couldn’t wait to get to the studio, change, stretch the soreness out of my muscles and see how much further I could turn and how much more controlled I could be when I leapt. At night I dreamt I was so much better. When I swam I reached for the end of the pool; now when I danced, I reached for the heavens.

      “Just turn,” Lisa shouted, while I made myself dizzy with tour en l’air. “Worry about your technique later, just get around for God’s sake. Be careless.”

      Classmates started to recognize me as a dancer. And if I recognized them on the street, they’d introduce me as “one of the dancers from the studio.” It seemed unfair that because of my sex I was fast-tracked. Being called a dancer can be like a drug. Yet I didn’t feel deserving of the title, not then.

      Soon Lisa asked me to come and dance with a group of retired pros in the morning in the Company class. “Stay in the back,” she told me, “and follow. You’ll get it.” I skipped school to make that class, and soon we were rehearsing for festivals as far away as Red Deer. Fantasy ballets. Ukrainian folk dancing—holding the girls by the waist on cue—them grabbing my arm, run here, run there. Jump. Kick. Wait for the applause. Bow. I begged off my parents’ European tour (it was Mom who wanted me along, not Dad) with the excuse of a part-time job, but while they toured Europe, I toured the sun-baked stages at Alberta county fairs. Old ladies and the odd queer stage door Johnny off the farm were my fans. I looked like an honest-to-God dancer.

      My body took to it. My brain. My balance. My thighs thickened, counterbalancing my aching butt. “You’ve got to stretch all the time,” Lisa said, “especially in this heat—take advantage of the heat. You need strength up the back of your legs, too.” My swimmer’s shoulders screamed with each new partner I lifted. My lower back ached. And I couldn’t keep my eyes off myself. I am still obsessed with the potential for beauty, proportion and line.

      Lisa had