"Five minutes to curtain, ladies. Let's shake a leg!" Christine, the stage manager, stands in the door way with her hands on her hips. Her headset crackles, and she hastily barks something into it, then turns back to us. "Adriana, you don't even have your shoes on. Am I going to have to hold the curtain?"
Adriana wrinkles her pointy, powdered nose and holds up her shoes, plus the needle and thread she'll use to sew herself into them. "See l, I'm doing it," she responds. "Anyway, there's plenty of time. I have the whole overture."
Christine smiles then, looking affectionate but also a little tense. It's her job to make sure that every performance of the Manhattan Ballet goes the way it should. This means worrying about everything from the placement of the spotlights to the egos of prima ballerinas. With one last glance at us, she turns and scurries out, her short platinum blond hair sticking up in all directions. "Places," she calls.
I sympathize with Christine: It looks chaotic in here. We're backstage in the Green Room before a Friday night performance, and all around me dancers are being fastened onto their pristine white tutu's. The room is a tangle of satin, tulle, and long, lean limbs. Some girls are deep in thought, while others chat loudly with one another. On the floor are discarded bits of clothing, line pointe shoes, leg warmers, and half-empty water bottles.
"I took, like, eight Advil today," a dark haired dancer named Olivia says as she smacks her gum. "I hope I don't die before the curtain comes down."
"You'd better not let Christine see you with that gum or she'll grab it right out of your mouth," Adriana says as she sews into her pointe shoes. Her legs are long and almost skeletally thin.
But as I step into my own circle of ridged white tulle, I leave the chaos behind. It happens every time I dress for Walt's Variations: I feel as if I've time traveled to a past, more glamorous era. Fake diamonds drip down my sternum, and my false eyelashes seem as large and as dark as butterfly wings. Laura, one of the dresser's, fastens the hooks on my bodice as I pull on my ivory gloves.
