My first ballet class

No, you are not going to see me in leotards and pointe shoes any time soon. Given my figure, that would be downright vulgar. Besides, my Billy Elliott dream was dashed 28 years ago, when I asked Inay if I could study ballet along with my female cousins, and she gave a response of uncharacteristic small-mindedness and prejudice, which to this day I am shocked came from her, and which I am certain she will never admit to saying:

“Hwag, baka maging bakla ka.”

I wonder if, looking back, she wishes she had just let me take those ballet lessons. I turned out gay without them anyway; and at least I wouldn’t be the painfully awkward dancer I am at every party, night-out, or Hangad concert today.

Anyway, I digress. Going back—this “first ballet class” was thanks to the thoughtfulness and generosity of my officemate and friend Nicole,

who was a company member of Lisa Macuja’s Ballet Manila throughout high school. (This was after she was a classical concert pianist who performed in New York, and before she became DLSU student council president and one of the Ten Outstanding Students of the Philippines in her graduating class. Where’s the fairness in that, eh?)

A few months back, Nicole went back to dancing with her old school, Academy One in Sucat, just for fun. And a few weeks back, after reading my “Storytelling” post, in which I giddily heralded my impending life as an impoverished music student earning US$160 a week, at most, in a city where I’ll be paying at least US$900 a month in rent, Nicole suggested: “How about becoming a ballet pianist?”

A ballet pianist, Nicole explained, is simply someone who plays the piano to accompany the dancers during a ballet class. My initial misgiving was that I don’t play classical music. Nicole explained that the music isn’t necessarily classical. However, it doesn’t mean playing just anything either. Rather, it requires knowledge of the flow of the class, understanding of the art form, sensitivity to a dancer’s movement, and t

echnical mastery of tempo and cadence. Ballet pianists today are a rare breed, Nicole said, so most dance studios resort to recorded music for class; but where ballet pianists do exist, they are highly valued and—most importantly for someone who’ll be living la pauvre vie Boheme—highly paid.

So, last Friday night, I drove to Sucat after work to observe my first ballet class.

I loved the experience immensely.

As I mentioned in my New York travel blog, I enjoy ballet a lot. As a kid, Inay would regularly take me to Ballet Philippines’ prouctions of Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, and Nutcracker, as well as “kiddie” ballet versions of Peter Pan and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Decades later, when Olay, which I was managing, was asked by Ballet Philippines to sponsor their 2008 season gala, I was only too happy to go to the event. When my niece and goddaughter Audrey took ballet lessons two years ago

, I was much more excited than she was. And when I visited New York last month, watching Swan Lake by the NYC Ballet more than made up for my totally off-character decision to not catch any Broadway show.

The corps de ballet of the NYC Ballet's Swan Lake. How can you not fall in love with a vision like that?!

Again, I’m no dancer. Neither am I any connoisseur of ballet, having seen only a few shows, and not even knowing the French terms. But all this time, I have admired and adored ballet for its discipline, its elegance, its precision, and its ability to entrance; for the way it shifts from proud and powerful one moment, to delicate and demure the next, in its mission to tell a story or flesh out a character; for the way it paradoxically puts supreme effort into seeming effortless; and for the amazing weightlessness and fluidity that it shows the human body can achieve.

And what I loved about Nicole’s class was, for the first time, I got an up-close-and-personal peek at the behind-the-scenes of every show, the back-story of every ballet dancer. I loved watching the exercises, from seemingly simple squats and stretches at the bar, to series of jumps that spanned from one end of the room to the other—which, Nicole said, even principal dancers in the world’s top ballet companies do, just to keep in shape. I loved seeing leaps and pirouettes that didn’t land quite right, not because I wanted to be mean, but because it showed the amount of practice that went into a single spin, humanizing the divinity one witnesses on stage. I loved the way everyone in class could execute the same 16-bar routine from a simple series of verbal instructions mostly in French, sans counting or demonstrations, repeated only twice by the teacher. And when Gigay, one of Nicole’s fellow senior dancers, and her teacher, Jeff, did a pas de deux from Sleeping Beauty, I was mesmerized.

Some clips from Nicole's class at Academy One last Friday, March 4. Nicole is the dancer in blue. : )

So, more than the potential to earn money, I’m hugely grateful for this opportunity to finally get involved with this art form I’ve always loved. It will take practice—I’ll have to overcome my abuse of the sustain pedal, my love for rubatos, and my compulsion to add 7ths and 9ths to every chord I play—but at least, even if I my career as a ballet pianist doesn’t fly, at least I’ll have become a more disciplined pianist, and I’ll have had my taste of the world of ballet too.