Filling The Void
It’s a sad ballet day. We found to our beloved pointe class is getting cancelled *sob*.
This was by far my favourite ballet class and has been for years. I get so much joy and pleasure from it and whilst intermediate class frequently leaves me angry and frustrated with myself, pointe really doesn’t at all, even when I’m doing badly. However, for the longest time it’s just been my friend Elizabeth and I who go. Sure, we get girls pop in occasionally, but they are rarely able to do the class so they never come back. Pointe scares away a lot of people who thought it’d be easy, well easier.
It’s sounds dramatic, but I feel genuinely lost at the idea of not having it my life. We have a month left before it gets cancelled but I feel the weight of losing it already. Elizabeth and I have have been looking around to see if we can find an alternative pointe class or an alternative ballet class, even if it’s not pointe, to fill the void.
The thought of going elsewhere though rather fills me with dread! I’ve grown so very attached to the studio where I take all my classes, and have done for the last 4 years, and the thought of having to go somewhere else is none too appealing. However, we must dance, so if that means going into another studio, then so be it. Scottish Ballet are running open classes on a Monday and Thursday so we are considering that, and since we both danced there for a year it doesn’t feel strange to us. Their Intermediate class I attended recently was terrifying, although I think it was the teacher rather than the class itself, but we are hoping the open class has a different teacher!
I knew ballet had become not just a hobby, but a huge part of life, but until I felt the sheer sadness of losing one of favourite classes I didn’t quite realise to what level I needed it.
On the plus side, there will some pointe work in our next grade where we move up to elementary level, which we will be starting in the next few months after we sit our exam in the beginning of May. Eek! I’m really not ready for the exam at all and will be lucky to scrape a pass this time - a far cry from the Honours pass I received in my last exam. I’m struggling to remember the names of the exercises and get muddled up when the music starts and invariably start entirely the wrong exercise!
Other exercises, such as the grande jete en tournant en l’air, just feel impossible to execute with any kind of panache because of the fact we have to land in temps leve, which we have to hold before going into a pas de bourree to repeat to the other side. That shit is hard when you're old!
However, I'd be liar if I said I wasn't sick to death doing grade 5 as that's almost 1 1/2 years we've been working on it, so perhaps I just need to accept my low pass and just enjoy being at elementary level.
What is it they say? Onwards and upwards? Aye, that.
QMichelle