Outside Green Street Studio in Cambridge, MA

I’m sure many of you have heard an old ballet saying that goes something like this:
If you miss 1 class, you know it.
If you miss 2 classes, your teacher knows it.
If you miss 3 classes, everyone knows it.

My situation: I missed 11 months of ballet class, and regardless of what other people saw, I really felt it!

I haven’t danced since leaving Israel in July, and after traveling around the wilds of Cape Cod and Maine for a few weeks, I swung through Cambridge today to take Marcus Schulkind’s ballet class at Green Street Studios. Marcus has been one of my favorite ballet teachers since I “converted” to modern dance, for he designs marvelously intricate combinations which challenge me to use my weight, feed my hunger for traveling through space, and play with my sense of musicality. The last ballet class I took was with Marcus in September, just a few days before I flew to Tel Aviv, and when I realized this might be my only chance to be back at the barre with him, I seized the opportunity.

I knew I would experience reverse culture shock upon returning to the U.S. - and I figured my body would go through some shock today after being away from ballet for so long - but I hadn’t thought about the culture shock I would face in the studio. For the better part of a year, I had struggled to understand verbal instructions given in Hebrew but was largely able to physically execute the movement in my dance classes. Now the situation was reversed: I could comprehend every word my teacher said (including a few Yiddishisms and even some Hebrew words that Marcus threw in today - he danced with Batsheva back in the 70s), but my body just couldn’t quite keep up. Pirouettes, arabesques, and entrechat quatres now felt foreign to me - and as a lapsed ballet dancer, I don’t think I’ve done a gargouillade in almost a decade! I also realized partway through class that I was no longer used to working with a mirror, since Gaga and many of the contemporary classes I took in Israel were mirror-free. I myself have plenty of reflection to do . . .

And now for a little nostalgia:

I needed a bit of comfort prior to my first class back, so I pulled out the equivalent of a blankie: my favorite warm-up shirt, which dates back to my first performance in 1989. I was 8 at the time and made my debut as a jester in Princeton Ballet School’s production of Cinderella. Since it was the 80s, big t-shirts were in style, so amazingly this pink shirt has moved with me into adulthood. It’s a bit tight in some places and quite worn, but I still love it!