Backstage: a look in to my culture

Dear Reader,
While beginning to write this essay I thought about what culture seems to stand out to me and I thought of my dancing. I dance 5-6 days a week and am continually trying to put together a performance, the Nutcracker, the Firebird, Mid-Summer’s night’s Dream, what ever. I thought about the people I know and dance with and how I am always getting to know them better because I spend so much time with them. This culture seemed a logical choice of subject because I am very involved with it and not many people know about it. Yes there is a dance world but is seems to go through phases of popularity. In my example or rather my moment, it was a more a collective moment, something that has happened more than once over many nights. While writing about this moment and analyzing it and I came up with the thing that bugged me the most and that is outsiders making fun of a culture; especially my culture. This culture is one that I am very involved in and belittling it, making it sound as if anyone could do structured dance when the opposite is true, is irritating. As far as traditional dancing goes, such as ballet or modern or flamenco, every one cannot do it and it generally takes years of practice to become even semi-good. Then they (the ignorant) make fun of what we wear. Cant beat that, there called tights and every one has to wear them (yes, even the guy dancers, although what they were more like spandex) but do you know why we wear them. Well i’ll tell you. It’s not to look pretty, girly or pink. It’s so that when we are dancing our teachers can see our legs and the lines and shapes we make with our body. That way they are able to tell us if we are doing something right or more importantly, if we are doing something wrong. If they can’t see our legs and how our muscles are working then they can’t tell us how to fix it. That is why it is important for us to wear tights and leotards.

Thank you for reading,
Aikka R. M.

Backstage

Some people think dance is easy. They might make fun of it by throwing there arms up in the air and doing a mock pouriette (this is a kind of turn in ballet. To do this you turn on one foot, with the other leg making a triangle, the foot placed by the knee of the supporting leg.) The mockers bend their knees and rise up as far on there feet as there able and try to turn with there knee turned in. hopping to get all the way around and falling over periodically in the 2-3 seconds it takes them do the 360’ turn on one foot. They mock the tradition of the dance we try to do. If only they were just trying to mock us but the worst thing is, is that they think they look good and are doing it right. They don’t see the hours of work and perfecting we go through to make this dance look easy. But that is are aim; to make dance look easy, but only outsiders with no sense of culture will actually believe that it is as easy as it seems.

Dancers, teachers and promoters, tecties, choreographers, the audience, and the theater owners and workers are all on the inside of our culture. They all experience apart of the dance whether it is watching, directing, promoting, or dancing, they are all a part of the culture. Now weather they’re a dancer, pick up the dancer, or just go to the shows these will decide if a person is more in than out of the culture. People in the inner circles will know, as Raymond Williams puts it “the known meanings and directions; which its members are trained to” (Williams 5). They know how to dance, the vocabulary or at the least the amount of time it takes to be in condition to dance an entire production. An outsider has nothing to do with dance and might even joke around about how easy it is; there ignorance is proof of there being an outsider. A lot of dance is about connections. Connections to dancers and choreographers and who knows who personally and how well you know the big names and big companies. The more you are involved with a production of a piece, the more you are in the culture. As Williams says “Culture is ordinary” (William 5). So the more involve someone gets, the more ordinary the setting becomes. This culture has many sub-cultures as well. There are groups of people that aren’t more in than out than others but occupy a separate section of an inner or outer circle. These sub-cultures are made of groups that spend more time together than with other groups but are all working toward the same goal. An example would be older dancers vs. the younger vs the parents. What would an inside look at this culture be like? Let me describe it to you.

The lights are dim; the air is cool and set with anticipation, hopes and fears. Its gray behind the stage, the walls are gray the floor is gray the ceiling is gray. The florescent lights that hang over at the top bring about a perpetual gloom. Music floats lightly in like a light sent of roses in the early morning. It permeates the hallway but doesn’t disturb anything, only signaling the start and finishes of dances, dances that you have witnessed being practiced on for the last three months. A crescendo in the music might signal a big jump, turn or lift that you know friends have been working on for months and are praying before and after that they did well. We might have a split cast, which means that we have two sets of people dancing the same part but on different nights. In this case the music will carry us into the piece. Not that we will dance it wherever we are if we aren’t on stage, although some might. But our bones will feel the music to there very core. We don’t think about it, it just happens. We might for example slightly sway to the music or think of those on stage at that moment. All of this can happen to any dancer at any given point in time the night of a performance.

We tune out everything but the key phrases of music that will signal our entrance into the wings, but its not here yet. We have a long time to go. Our blood starts pumping as the minuets go by; time only being measured by the number of people joining you in the crowded hallway. It’s crowded back here because as wide as the hallway was made, ¾ of it is taken up with folded tables, stacked chairs, music stands, and book shelves and tables set up and holding miscellaneous things. Some are props which we will use in our dances; other things are just the maintenance crews’ tools. This is what creates the life of the backstage saga, the small space, and the many people. It is what gives it its many faces. We might have people standing here or there, stretching or flirting with the few boys that are always surrounded by a gaggle of girls, and someone may come dashing through the hall, shouting “Out of my way, there’s a fire on stage!” Then there is just the general hustle and bustle of people gossiping, praying, ruff housing, sleeping, crying, laughing, and all sorts of things.

With a glance around I start stretching, one leg out, bending over at the hips, till my hands touch the ground, gravity works on my back, and the pressure makes me smile. I can feel the bones in my back loosen as they are pulled toward the earth. My tutu starts tickling my face and I realize that it is hard to breath in this position. So I stand up and catch my breath because the bodice of the costume feels like a corset and it is hard to breathe in. Hand to the stomach I complain to some of my friends that have started filing in that I can’t breathe and they all murmur in understanding. We all wonder how we are supposed to dance in these things; we all have complaints, but really its not a big deal mostly its just hot air, stuff to pass the time with until we’re up. And unless I faint on stage no one is going to remember any of the little comments made right before we go on.
Every one is waiting out side the doors that leads to the wings…we’re getting close. We’re all very supportive and careful now, listening intently to the music. We whisper encouragements to each other saying “break a leg” or “mer”, as everyone hugs. This “small talk” is what brings everyone bake stage together, it makes us family. When under the stress of performing and spending time together it creates a bond that is not easily forgotten. This, as William comments “the making of a society is the finding of common meanings and directions, and its growth is and active debated and amendment under the pressures of experience, contact, and discovery, writing themselves into the land,” (Williams 5). The fact that we have adrenalin running through our blood, it makes these times stand out all the more, and builds up strong bonds though the experience. Having shared experiences under pressure makes it easier to talk to these friends. Talking and communication is the key to these relationships we build. Mostly in this moment you are communicating support and love to those around you and this is not forgotten the next day in class. This trust and support defines this culture it is a “common means and direction” (Raymond Williams 4-6) for us. This common experience really defines our relationships with each other.

The shape/form in which we say something to cheer others adds history to what we are doing and connects us to the thousands of others who have said the same things over the years. Take “break a leg” for example. Now why would we wish something as atrocious as a broken leg on our friends? Mainly this has to do with superstition and jinxing. Basically we are jinxing them not to have bad things happen, like breaking a leg, by wishing them ill. If we were to wish them well with this phrase and say something like “don’t break a leg” it would be more or less of an insult. Well insult is a little extreme, but saying “don’t break a leg” is something that just isn’t done. Now why do we say “mer” and what does it mean? Well “mer” is actually a word in French that means shit. It’s just something people say with a smile on there face, excitement in there voice and an exclamation point at the end. Mostly someone will tell others about these phrases once then, people start saying them to each other and they will respond in a like manner. We are trained to say these things by those who have come before us and when they leave, we say them still, and teach them to the younger ones. Both of these are traditional phrases were said before my generation started dancing and will be said after my generation stops.

Finishing the scene, it’s almost time to go on stage. Closer now and our hearts start pumping just a little faster. We notice a friend is starting to shake so a few of us go over and one of us will put an arm around her. She whispers “I’m nervous” (and by now there are three or four of us gathered around her) an with a squeeze on the shoulder we tell her that she will be great, that we’ve seen her do her dance perfectly a hundred times beyond perfection and she can only do well. She sends us a half hearted but grateful smile. Then the door opens and as the others are ushered in you give her one final hug. It’s time.


This moment is only one peek into our culture and after a few performances these experiences become more ordinary but they are still there and they mean a lot to us. Our culture becomes ordinary or rather we try to make it ordinary to us because we are around it every day. Point shoes, splits, pink tights, and triple turns while impressive are less amazing than to your average American citizen who sees a ballet but rarely. It must be realized that when watching a performance, what the audience sees is the average technique for any given dancer. This means if you see a triple turn on stage then that person can to a quadruple or quintuplet turns in class. We see things in class and work to make them look normal even if they aren’t normal for us. It’s kind of ironic when people make fun of this culture of ours because they think it looks girly and easy. Girly, yes there is a lot of girly stuff involver in ballet, and normally guys don’t wear tights; but easy no. It is not easy at all. Dance is a form of conditioning; you are always working to prefect your turn out, arms or just the expression in which you dance. Even a professional dancer has to and needs to take classes every day to stay in shape. So when the general impression gets across to the masses that what we do looks easy, they make fun and we get irritated that they take the impression of ballet as being “easy” seriously. I just want people to know that dancing ballet in particular, is not about wearing tights and leotards; it’s about dancing, working, history and relationships between peers and teachers.



Works Cited


Williams, Raymond. "Culture is Ordinary." Reading Culture.
Diana George and John Trimbur. New York: Person
Longman, 2006. Pages 4-6.