Chapter 11 of the Ballet Book – A Work in Progress

I wake up to the tolling of the morning bells. The reverberation has a solemn tone and in the darkness of the room the sound seems to groan in a monotone like a heart that has been turned to stone.
I hear the nuns moving about in the rooms on either side and I smell the distinct odor of this new place, mixing with many old memories.
The building clearly has been here for a long time. Situated towards the outskirts of Berlin’s west side, the tree lined avenues seemed to have survived better and taken fewer hits during the wars.
I hear the nuns, one at a time, get up, and dressed. I hear them walking down the hallway with their heavy shoes and the tinkling of their roseries that they hold at the sides of their habits. They move without talking, leaving me with the feeling of their inward focus of merciful self-reliance. The externals matter little to them, and I can feel how they matter much to me.
The world they are seeking is deep inside and today, I am going into a very new and very larger outside.
I think excitedly about this new chapter in my life (so different from the nuns in their quiet procession to mass).
I hear them all leave, and I am free to get up and go about gathering up myself for this day.
I go down the hall to the bathroom, shower, and do my hair. I have prepared point shoes and my leotards and tights are laying on the bed, anxious to dance. I pack my dance bag with all the ballerina essentials and then go down the stairs to breakfast.
Sitting silently in a chair is a nun with a bright smile on her face. She greets me with an enthusiastic “Guten Morgan!” and I walk in to find myself facing a veritable feast of German breakfast goodies.
This sweet nun speaks no English and I speak no German. We talk with each other and laugh when it is clear that we are not understanding what the other is trying to say. She is in her 30’s and so very kind. She has soft boiled eggs for me and more types of breads than I have ever seen that they are sliced and ready to go. Accompanying the breads are a vast assortment of cheeses, salami’s, pickles, coffee, tea, cream and sugar.
Fortunately, German and English have similar roots in their languages and so Coffee is Kaffee, Tea is Tee, Bread is Brot, Cheese is Käse, and Cup is Tasse. Smiling with newfound confidence, I recognize that maybe this might not be as hard as I thought.
We begin a playful exchange that is about her pointing to an object and saying its name and I then I say it in English. She smiles and we both nod. Then I say it is German and she says it in English. Then we laugh. Occasionally we have to help each other with certain pronunciations.
She was to be my first German teacher. We would continue this ritual while I stayed with the Nuns. It was extremely helpful.
After an eventful and informative morning, I go to the Mother Superiors office where I find her sitting, writing on a ledger.
She gracefully stands up as I come in and she respectfully asks me how I slept. I laugh and say “Thank you. I slept very well.”
She then inquired if I had eaten breakfast. I laughed saying, “Is that what you call it? To me it was a feast!”
She smiled and nodded politely, clearly happy that I had approved.
She then held her hand out gracefully for me to have a seat.
She then explained how to get to the UBahn and how to get the correct subway to get to the Deutsche Oper stop.
Then she told me how to get “Eine Karte” to be able to use the subway system. This was to be extremely helpful as I did not realize that I was going to be using this system for the next 4 months.
She again, explained the cost of the room and board. I agreed and signed some paperwork promising to pay.
Then I was off with my map in hand to get to the subway, my Berlitz English/German dictionary, my ballet bag, and the excitement of a young girl beginning the greatest adventure of her life.
I get to the theater without any complications. I go to the stage entrance (all theaters have one) and the guard, escorts me to Gert Reinholm’s office. While he is not there, the sweet secretary that picked me up at the airport was. She showed me the ins and outs of the backstage, dressing rooms, costumer areas, ballet studios, and the Kantine (eating area for everyone).
She showed me the boards where I was to get the information on rehearsals, and the studio where class would always be. Then she escorted me into the dressing rooms for the corps de ballet and showed me my spot and my locker.
A few girls are there, and they look at me slightly curious but do not say anything. I unpack my stuff, get dressed for class. As I am walking out the door, I almost run into a dancer that I was at SAB with that first summer in New York. Her name was Marina Hotchkiss and she smiled instantly and gave me a surprised hug. I hugged back with a great relief. At least I knew someone in this company.
The theater was huge and intimidating. I had never seen such a place. This entire complex was the size of Lincoln Center and I realized that it had more floors (below ground level for stage sets, costumes, and storage) … than it had above ground. It was a marvelous maze that would take me the entire four years to explore at appropriate moments.
But now I had at least one person I knew, and she was going to be one of my dear friends for the next 4 years. I was to learn that the foreigners stuck together. We would become each other’s family while we were there. We would have Sunday brunches together and help each other move apartments, paint walls, and discover the hidden treasures and places in Berlin.
I get to class, and I do what I always do and pick a corner that no one wants to stand in for class. I was not about to upset the other dancers before I even got started.
Class was very different than I imagined. I was used to the quickness, light, and Balanchine-esque movement qualities of SAB. This was very different. The teacher was clearly Russian. And the class had a very heavy tone to my American styled and trained body. While the structure of a ballet class is relatively similar (the world over), there are many subtle differences that I noticed.
For me, the class was harder than I expected. And the tempos were very slow to my taste.
I was a thoroughbred colt wanting to run and this felt like I had been yoked to a wagon with rocks. Clearly strength was this company’s focus … not speed.
I realized that this was going to take some getting used to.
The dancers were friendly and easy going. I was deeply appreciative of that. But I was the new person, and everyone was getting used to each other.
I went to the board to look at the rehearsal schedule only to realize that I was not anywhere on any list. Disappointed, I watched some rehearsals to see what they were like and how they were run.
Goodrun Leben was the Rehearsal Directress, and she was a tough cookie with short, dyed, flaming-red hair. She ran rehearsals and both German and English. Something that I deeply appreciated. Though when she spoke German, the sound was very hard, harsh, and forceful. But German is kind of like that.
My joke (which was not going to be a joke) was that you have not been yelled at and scolded until you have been yelled at and scolded in German! Though when the Russian’s got going it sounded like they were practically spitting at each other while they were talking.
Goodrun was going to be one of my great gifts and teachers and she was going to be a thorn in my side. Little did I know that for the next year and a half, it would seem that I was going to be her whipping post and much of her negative focus was going to be put directly on me. This was nothing I had really been prepared for. And she was a tough taskmaster!
Behind her back we called her, “The Commandant”.
After all, I am a Leo and I got along with almost everyone. And at that time, I knew how to stay out of the way of certain, select people as well.
I would soon come to believe that she hated me. One comes to that conclusion when one is yelled at every day in German for a year and a half.
I would take the abuse from her, then go home to the nunnery and cry myself to sleep every night. I would even get on my knees and pray for me to find some understanding as to what I was doing that was making me such a target for Goodrun’s wrath.
I did not see that (in her reality) she was giving me attention and that she had decided to shape and mold me to her liking.
I missed it because I honestly am not used to being yelled at as some form of love. Until that moment in time, most of my ballet teachers … while tough and demanding were not mean-spirited.
I did work with Arthur Mitchell for a season … when I was 16 years old, and I did not understand why he kept hitting me. He was hitting my arms, legs, back and shoulders. He was relentless and I thought he hated me until people started coming up to me and saying how much Mr. Mitchell loved me and how he saw my special qualities and was so eager to work with me.
I learned in that moment that teachers can appear to be mean … in order to get us to pay attention to certain parts of our body.

In this new day and age … such things would probably not be allowed. But back then, it was more frequently used as a tool for training in dance than I had realized.
Personally, that style of “hard knocks” motivation was never to my liking. My teachers in Dallas had been (for the most part) extremely kind and caring. I considered them my emotional parents.
Gudrun Leben was one of a kind. She clearly had a tough shell that had kept her going through the War and the reconstruction. I am sure her personal history was one that I could have never survived. And to this day, I do not know what she went through. But it clearly shaped her from her personality to the distinct lines on her face and the constant frown that she exhibited as she watched rehearsals.

I kept trying to keep compassionate thoughts on the surface of my awareness in an effort to find a way to try to understand her behavior and aggression towards me as she yelled at me in rehearsals.
And that was often, every day … for a year and a half.
It was brutal. I did not understand what was going on. I tried to be sweet. I kept smiling and nodding. I attempted to do what she asked exactly, but it never seemed to change her behavior towards me.
I tried to figure out if it was me personally, she hated. Perhaps it was because I was an American and that she resented the Americans controlling her country. I tried to come up with any and all explanations and excuses for her behavior.
I tried to look out through her eyes at me to see if I just looked like a baby. Perhaps she saw me as naïve, and not mature enough to be here.
I tried to see if it was my personal dance style that was very SAB, New York City Ballet style of movement that she hated and she wanted me to have a more Russian look.

But nothing worked! Nothing I did seemed to make sense or made any difference to her.

I tried to be strong … Nope that just made her madder.

I tried to be sweet … Then she looked at me like I was some manipulative child.

I tried to be blank … and not react. That did not stop her tirades at all.

I finally decided that what she wanted … was to break me. For some reason she needed to see me break. Perhaps she needed the satisfaction of breaking my spirit.
So, I decided the next time, she yelled at me that I would cry … silently and put my head down trying to hide it.

Shockingly … that seemed to work!
She backed off and the daily tirades went more weekly instead of daily.
But what unfolded over the next 4 months was that I had class but no rehearsals … ever! It was grueling, miserable, and I just wanted out!
I stayed and watched rehearsals to try to learn choreography but I was never in anything.
The darkness of the Berlin winters were getting to me.
I begin to wonder why I am here? I rationalize that I am getting paid but then I question why I am not really dancing. I begin to question, “Why am I here?” The glimmer of some golden spotlight was beginning to fade in the gloomy Berlin winter.
I start to make up things in my mind that I am going to get fired. Though I don’t know why. I go into mental chats in my head that no one in the staff likes me.
I feel as if I am getting along well enough with the dancers. That is except the German dancers. They were always a bit stand-offish and would remain so until my fourth year in Berlin. But this was understandable. Their country had been invaded and conquered twice and they still did not have the control of their own country back. Foreigners were suspect on a good day. And for good reason.
So while I am not working in the theater, I discover that I have much to do in the process of getting living and working permits in Berlin. Seems that you need both. I have a letter from the Berlin Ballet that I am hired there as a dancer. I am told to go to get a working permit in an obscure section of Berlin. After UBahn and bus journeys I make it to this very official looking building. I go in and I am abruptly informed that I cannot have a working permit until I get a living permit. And that requires me to go to the completely other side of the city.
Frustrated but determined to follow the rules, I head back out, retrace my steps and move towards another location and government building. I remember the day. It is pouring rain and miserably cold. That wet cold that chills you to the bone. I get to the second building and walk in feeling like a drenched and bedraggled cat, only to be told that they cannot possibly give me a living permit because I did not have a working permit.
I am trying everything to not snap at those employees only following the very strict German Laws. I was quickly seeing how Hitler could take over. If you made things the law then the Germans were excellent and following those rules and laws to the letter. Even when they did not make sense or when systems were not communicating clearly with each other. Such as now.
I explain that I was sent here because they already told me that I could not have a working permit without a living permit. After much too do, I get them to get on the phone with each other and work it out. While I had time for this back and forth, I did not want them to know that. I complained that I had to be back at rehearsals.
This fiasco destroyed one day and at the end of this very frustrating time, (made worse because of the language barrier) I was no closer than at the beginning of this day.
I go back to the Deutsche Oper and talk with the secretary explaining my problem. She gets on the phone and works her magic. Clearly, she had done this before. I don’t know why I was not told to start with her.
She calmly explains to me that tomorrow, I will have to go to the Living Permit building, and they have agreed to give me a 2 week living permit. With that I will go back to the working permit place, and they will give me a 2-week working permit.
I instantly see a looming future problem. And I ask the obvious question, “Does this mean that I will have to go back in 2 weeks and do this all over again?”
She smiled and said, “Welcome to German bureaucracy!”
Then she explained that after the two weeks they will then give me a living and working permit for a month, then six months and then finally a year. Once I have the year permits, they will automatically renew with a letter sent from the theater.
I think, “Okay! At least there will be an end to this at some point.”

The gloominess of Berlin was punctuated by my quest for sunlight. I felt like a Texas sunflower desperate for bright sunlight but I was trapped in some foggy, damp, clammy, and wet foreign land with just enough light to survive but not enough to thrive.
The language barrier was challenging every day because this company spoke many languages. Not just German and English. There were many Eastern Europeans, and Russians. There were South Americans (Columbians and Brazilians), so Spanish and Portuguese. There were French dancers, Icelandic dancers, Danish, Swedish, British, South Africans, Australians, and Egyptians.
The overwhelm of so many languages hitting my nervous system (while I was trying to just sort for German and English) was trying and exhausting.
I felt as if my head was a washing machine filled with various words from other languages and they were mixing more than they were managing to sort into appropriate places. The dancers would playfully tease, saying, “Suzanne, say something so we can all laugh!”
I would happily play along with this game because it helped me to learn.
But things were getting to me. I felt very lonely. I was still living with the nuns. Even though they were so very kind to me in all ways. I wanted to get on my own. I wanted to have my own apartment. I wanted to feel … grown up!
Everything felt stuck. My ballet career was clearly going nowhere. My personal life was minimal. I was not performing at all. The weather was shitty. In fact, I called it, “Sheiss Wetter” or Shit Weather!
I would go into the studios early to close the windows that the “Putzfrauen” had opened to clear out the stinky and sweaty smells of hard-working ballet dancers, and to find hopefully one small spot of sunlight that came in through the windows in the morning. I would lay on the floor and try to pretend I was back in the heat and warmth of Texas.
But everything was getting to me.
Through the ballet grapevine, I hear that Zurich ballet is giving an audition. Instantly my ears perk up. Patricia Neary (the artistic director of the Zurich Ballet) was a tall New York City Ballet dancer. I did not realize till later that she had worked for Gert Reinholm as ballet mistress from 1971-1973. Her sister, Colleen Neary had given me my Ford Foundation Scholarships each year to go to the summer programs at SAB. I thought, “This might be my in!”
Since I am not dancing or in any rehearsals, I put in my application, got a plane ticket, and prepared to sneak out to this audition.
Fortunately, we had two days off together right when the audition was happening. I still needed to leave early to catch my flight the day before and I had arranged a hotel for the one night so I could be fresh for the audition first thing in the morning.
I had a flight scheduled after the audition that evening to get back in time to regroup in Berlin and consider my next move if I got the job.

Excited for the first time in months, I get everything ready and I was out the door … off to claim my next shot at a ballet career. Zurich was a ballet company that did many Balanchine ballets and that was my home base. I was sure I had a shot at this job.
I get there and get into my hotel, nervous and ecstatic to be out of Berlin’s war-torn mood. I slept soundly, and wake refreshed and ready to shine bright.
I get to the theater and to my shock, I am suddenly in a room with over a hundred girls preparing to audition. I was stunned! I did not expect this type of crowd in Zurich. Maybe in New York City but not here.
I put on my shoes and start warming up. I have my head shots, resume, and ballet photos. An administrator comes by to take them and gives us numbers that are recorded on our paperwork, and I pin the number on my leotard.
The audition begins and I am feeling confident. Quickly they start cutting girls. A ballet class usually lasts for an hour and a half. This class lasted over 3 hours.
If that sounds exhausting, you would be right! After the 3 hours we are down to about 25 girls. I am one of the chosen few. That is when they ask us to put on point shoes as we are going to do variations.
I think, “What? Variations? Are they serious?
They were very serious. The Swiss are probably more stoic than the Germans and that is saying something. Their faces give away nothing.
The time keeps ticking away and I realize that I have a plane to catch. I did not expect an audition to last all day. We started at 9 am and I had a flight at 7 pm. It was now 3 pm and we still had variations to do. And I did not know how long that was expected to go.
The whittling away continues and eventually we are left with 3 girls. A Swiss girl who was amazing! Another American and myself.
Patricia Neary told all of us, “Ladies! All of you are amazing and I would be happy to bring each of you into the company. However, I only have one available spot. So know that you all did really well and I am going to let you know my decision through the mail. Thank you for coming. It was lovely to get to know all of you.”
And that was that!
I rush to the airport and I am off back home to Berlin.
A week later, I get the letter in the mail and quickly tear it open. Unfortunately, she chose the Swiss girl. She explained in the letter that she was required by the Swiss government to hire a Swiss dancer if that dancer was as skilled as any other dancers. Honestly, that Swiss dancer was better than both of us (the Americans) I knew it. While I was bummed, I did understand her reasoning.
Now, I am back to the dismal reality of my current existence with no possibility for early parole from the occupied territory of West Berlin.
I continue looking for an apartment but it is a completely demoralizing process. First of all, I am not speaking the language well or really at all effectively. I call and in my poor German ask about the apartment, only to have the owner say, “Ich nehme keine Ausländer!” (or I take no foreigners) and hang up on me.
I would never even get to explain that I worked at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. They were not interested in renting to anyone other than Germans.
I began to think this entire idea was a bad one. Perhaps my father was right!
Frustrated and depressed, I decided to make a long-distance call to my teachers back in Dallas, I got Ann and Bill on the phone and explained everything about being here, not dancing, not getting an apartment, the misery of this dismal and dark city, feeling depressed, and the Zurich audition. I asked if they had any suggestions.
That was when they gave me the lecture. They said, “You need to stay at least two years. Breaking into any company is hard and it is especially hard when you are in another country. But you don’t want to look like a crazy discontented artist constantly changing ballet companies. It makes you look emotionally unstable and no company wants to put a lot of energy and time into developing you only for you to get upset at something small and then quit. You have to show that you are a dancer that can take the pressure. Not a dancer that quits when things are not going their way. They told me to grow up and realize that this was a career that requires sacrifices.”
Appropriately chastised and put back in my place and agreed and said that regardless of what was going on here I would stay for the two years.
Almost immediately after the Zurich audition and call to my old teachers, I was cast in Giselle. Not as anything important. I was a Lady in Waiting for the prince and his entourage in Act I.
Let me be clear. It is not a dancing part. It is an acting and walking part. Not much is being asked of me. I just walk on with the hunting party and have conversations about how quaint the local peasants are, watch them dance for the prince and the lords and ladies, and then exit when Giselle begins to go insane.
My first performance as a professional dancer would be in Giselle. Little did I know how instrumental this ballet would be in my career. In that moment, all I knew was that I was getting a chance to be on the Berlin stage. I would be on a stage with Vladmir Gelvin and Eva Evdokimova. And that was enough in that moment.
I was going to be the best Lady in the Court … ever.
I had to tell the nuns that I was going to be in after curfew because of the performance. I let the Mother Superior know and she said that one of the nuns would wait up for me.
That night I was not nervous. I was excited to be doing anything! My gown was lovely, and the hair ladies introduced themselves and I got the experience of having professional wigmakers and costumers make me into royalty. It was very fun.
On stage I felt graceful and special. It was fun even doing such a small part. In this character, I just needed to look like a rich woman on a hunt with her man, enjoying the countryside and being entertained by the local peasants.

Regardless, it was wonderful to just put on stage makeup and be on a live stage in front of an audience.
After the show, I took the subway home and was grateful for the nun waiting for me. I tried to tell her all about it in my broken German. She smiled and nodded in approval.
I opened the wooden doorway to my room and fell into bed. Satisfied for the moment that I had done something.
After that, things started to pick up.
I had more rehearsals and things to do. I wondered if Patricia Neary called Gert Reinholm to get information about me. I suspect that she did. The ballet world is small. Much smaller in my day than now. Perhaps it made him realize that I was doing nothing and that he better at least try to put me into something, or I would leave.
I will never know. But I am pretty sure that I am right.
At least I finally had work that kept me learning and my mind occupied.

Shortly after that, I finally got my first apartment directly across the street from the Theater. While it was very tiny, it was next door to another dancer and her husband.
I got the apartment because the old man who lived there had died and his exwife was trying to get rid of the apartment and all his belongings. This apartment was 21 quadrate meters, which translates to 226 sq feet. It was a studio with a bed, corner table and chairs, two sets of dishes and place settings, two pots, two cups, you get the idea. It was very small with a refrigerator that is under a cabinet in the tiny kitchen with two burners and no oven. I had to wash my clothes in the bathtub by hand. But it was home, and it was mine. I had my first apartment to myself.
So, it was beginning to feel like a more normal life.
I had so much more to learn. And I was only at the beginning of a cycle that would be so difficult that there were many moments when it could have taken my very life.

The next 4 years in Berlin, I had some of the hardest moments of my life. What was to come … were going to be so difficult that everything else in my life would be measured by them and compared to them for the rest of my life.

I would come to know that if I could survive four years in Berlin during the Cold War with the Wall still up … that I could weather anything.
~Suzanne Wagner~