Behind Barres: How UBallet gets its groove on
The rehearsal room in Ida Noyes is tucked away in the basement, opening off a small antechamber filled with chairs and equipment not being used upstairs. The doors to the practice room open and release a musty smell: stale air and the sweat of hard-working dancers. The room’s best, and perhaps only, positive characteristic is that it is spacious, roughly the size of a basketball court, and empty, except for a few moveable dance barres. The floor is taped to mark off a stage area, though it is clear that many pairs of toe shoes have sashayed over markers. The walls and floor are bare, except for tall mirrors that run the length of one short end of the long rectangle. The mirrors are dusty, like most of the other surfaces, but they can still reflect a dancer’s slightest mistake. Early arrivals turn on large metal fans to help circulate the air. It helps, barely. The entire dingy setting is a far cry from the grace and elegance commonly associated with ballet.
Girls trickle in, greeting each other and chatting as they pull on their rehearsal clothes. Preemptive bandaging is important prior to an hour and a half of dancing, and ace bandages, gauze, and band-aids are out in number. This intermediate class meets Thursday nights from 5 to 6:30, but other classes and rehearsals are scheduled six days a week, with Friday off as a nod to the social lives of the dancers. Though University Ballet (commonly abbreviated as UBallet) is open to the public, most of the participants this evening sport University of Chicago sweatshirts and read e-textbook printouts on the floor as they stretch before class. “I have to leave after barre,” one student explains. “I have to write a paper!” The company is almost entirely student-run, with student dancers, teachers, and choreographers, and an occasional professional guest-teacher. “It’s basically anyone who knows how and who has the time,” explains Hannah Chazin, a fourth-year who started dancing with UBallet as a freshman. She bends gracefully and places her hands on the floor, keeping her legs straight. There’s no sign that she’s in pain, but it is not a move I would care to imitate.
Natalie Jerkins, the second-year who is teaching, starts by turning off the fans that are too noisy to be kept on during class. Warm is also better for dancer’s muscles and helps avoid damage during the workout. The girls take their places at the barres that have been moved to the middle of the room, and soft piano music plays on an old sound system mounted on the wall. It is not a point class, so everyone is wearing soft practice slippers, but the skill set ranges from just-moved-up-from-beginner to nearly expert. There is also little uniformity in body type among the students. Some are short and skinny, others taller or more filled out; it is certainly not a room full of anorexic stick-figures twirling around, and movement trumps body type.
As soon as the exercises begin, some who resemble a “typical” ballerina falter, while others look more like professional dancers once they start to move. The difference between perfect and just slightly off is staggering. The long mirrors are merciless, and even to an untrained eye, a mistake is easy to spot when everyone is bending and swaying together. Natalie moves among them, giving pointers and reminding the class about detail—arms, fingers, straight backs—that don’t show unless there is a mistake.
The music and the movements are soft and calming, graceful but carefully regulated. The countenances in the class reflect this combination that is typical of ballet, at once ethereal and focused. The air of meditation is reminiscent of a yoga class. There is time between each set of exercises for general comments and questions, though the atmosphere is good-natured. Completely absent is the cliché of the stern madam rapping the barre and reprimanding her clumsy students. Natalie offers a great deal of encouragement, though she constantly watches for mistakes and corner-cutting in the class.
The music changes, too, becoming faster and more demanding. Speed adds an extra challenge to the drive for precision and perfection. Dance is, after all, entirely about movement. “Even when you’re balancing,” Natalie explains, “your body [should want] to move.” She goes over a new combination of steps, adding “Really enjoy this…It’s not as bad as it seems!” The students laugh and pick up the combination quickly. Being able to learn the basic choreography right away is critical for each dancer if there is any hope of the group being able to perfect collective movements. Even at the barre, a mistake in the order of the exercises is glaringly apparent.
Some of the yoga-like serenity dissipates as the combinations become harder and the room heats up as the class continues to work. Quick trips to the sidelines for water bottles become more frequent. The dancers move the barres and begin to focus on what finally looks like “real” dancing. Jumps and turns are recognizable staples of ballet performance, and the class picks up new combinations and makes the mini-dances look graceful and carefully rehearsed after a run or two. Without the barre, the movements are freer, but there is also no crutch to clasp if you falter. The class ends with one last lively run and a round of well-deserved applause.
Later in the quarter, rehearsals are in full swing for the Winter 2008 Performance of “Duke Ellington’s Nutcracker,” a modern take on a classic, and “Sur la Glace,” a ballet based on ice skating, to be performed together in January. With the end of the quarter already in sight, time is running out to achieve the desired perfection in the dances. Midterms add extra pressure, and the stress is apparent in the short tempers and difficulty focusing among students and teachers. The choreography is still being finalized, and the Glacee corps from “Sur la Glace” must create a graceful frame for the Queen.
The steps take precedence, and the corps runs through them again and again before the music even starts. The life of a ballet is measured in counts of eight, and the dancers must hit specific marks on the right counts and still move gracefully between positions. That this entire process must look effortless to be acceptable is daunting. They run it again and again and again and once more, from the top!
Even between runs, the dancers stretch and go over moves in their heads, looking at blocking and moving slightly as they review. There is no real break, never any time to stop, when bringing a ballet to life. The music further complicates matters, as the steps and measured counts must now be put with a melody, on a CD player that doesn’t work reliably. When the CD begins to skip, disrupting the music for the segment they are rehearsing, they turn it off and go back to working with counts only; there is never an excuse to stop working. The section begins to come together. The teachers work out the choreography, and the dancers memorize the steps and stop running into each other. By the end of rehearsal, the forms take shape and it is possible to see what the final production will look like, with costumes and lights on a proper stage.
A different class enters, hovering, waiting to use the space. The room in Ida Noyes, like all the rehearsal spaces on campus, is in high demand, so groups like UBallet must compete for a chance to practice and make every minute count when they do. Scheduling conflicts move them from one location to another across campus. Performance space, too, is at a premium, and getting on the schedule at venues like Mandel Hall or International House is difficult. It is a problem faced by many performing groups, and it is easy to empathize with the dancers who work so hard to produce a ballet and yet are uncertain where, or if, they will be able to perform.
UBallet finally reserved two time slots at International House, somewhat less desirable but also less popular than the main performing venue at Mandel Hall. They will dance a Friday evening show and a Sunday matinee at the end of the second week of this quarter, forcing the student/dancers to balance a new set of classes with stress of final rehearsals and the nervous excitement of an Opening Night. The rest of the quarter saw dramatic improvement in the ballets, and dance enthusiasts and novices alike will be able to appreciate the work, fun, sweat, and talent in each seemingly effortless step. Ballet is grace replacing strain, and when the lights go down and the music starts, and the toe of the first shoe skims lightly over the stage, the dancers hope every moment in the musty basement rehearsal room will have been worth it.
University Ballet will perform at International House, 1414 E. 59th St. January 18, January 19. Friday, 8pm; Sunday, 2pm. $10, $5 with UCID. uballet.uchicago.edu.
