Ballet West – The Rise and Demise of Carabosse

 

There are moments that seem such a stretch … that they move us beyond everything familiar.
We stretch because we believe that there is something on the other side of this place that feels like an abyss.

There is something on the other side. But it is not what we have made up in our mind. And quickly it becomes clear that what was the goal … was never the goal.

I look back at that time and I question my own motives. What was I trying to prove?

Did I want to get John Hart’s approval?

Yes.

Did I want to leave a legacy behind and make my mark in the world?
Yes.

Did I believe that I would be allowed to become an ever evolvingly … complex Carabosse?

Yes.

Did I think I could change the mind of my higher self that knew that the “writing was on the wall” and that my time as a dancer was ending?

Yes.

There was still clearly enough ego left in me that I believed I could change my fate and that I could manipulate the Greek Goddesses of Fate to make the ending that I wanted!

What I believed was that my dancer was Clotho (the spinner of the threads). She was the dreamer dreaming awake the dream.
My intellect was, Lack-a-sis Lachesis (who dispensed the strings of fate). She was so smart that I believed that she could allow the string to become longer and extend my time in this magical world. If I just paid close enough attention. I had to outsmart Atropos.
And it would seem that Kali and Carabosse were going to be, Atropos. The goddess who cut the thread. They were going to determine the moment of my death … as a dancer.
It had already been determined. The scissors were in the hands of both Kali and Carabosse.
I just refused to believe it.
I learned that you can fight death.
You can manipulate death.
You can ignore death.
But death is still stalking you in your habits and patterns of this existence. It is those redundant patterns that leave tale-tell breadcrumbs that Atropos will relentlessly follow.
And she is patient, because no mere mortal will ever … escape her scissors.
Atropos (Carabosse and Kali) was known to be “inflexible” because the end … is always … the end.
The dancer in me (or Clotho) believed that her gifts gave her special dispensation and allowed her destiny to be one that gave her more control over her life and choices. She believed that talent, kindness, and genuine authentic expression would be enough to grant her special privileges.

And the level of awareness that existed in my observing mind, would be able to point out the potential pitfalls and avoid them.
If I could get them all to work together, then it might be possible to change my fate.

A part of me knew I was being silly. A part of me knew better. But a part of me had not decided to surrender, quite yet.

 

Opening night of Sleeping Beauty was filled with trepidation and excitement.

All day, I had invited Carabosse into my body. She was there, lurking in the corners, noticing things and feeling into what might be possible.

She had a plan. She just did not think that she needed to let me in on it.

Technique and talent will get everyone so far. But there is a moment, when one has to let go and allow something greater than the self into the dance.

Such moments are very special. They are …. sacred … to any dancer.
We can call to those energies of dance and ask for their help. But they do not always come.
When they do … they are a wonder.
Magic explodes and a force enters into the body, the mind is calm, and the eyes … from the inside … change.
Inside the body something settles in. It is a powerful anchor of certainty … knowing … something that is beyond confidence. It just is.

That is what happened to me that opening night of Sleeping Beauty.

The stresses of the previous week melted away. Something knew that everything would be okay.

I put on my makeup and the crazy red, green, and black wig. Fortunately, at the last moment, the fake and atrociously long fingernails were removed from the costume.
There was a fury inside … boiling and bubbling up from somewhere deep.

An ancient and old creature that had not recently been invited into the realms of humanity. I observed her taking stock of what might work and where she might expose the most truth.
She would be the darkness that exposed the delusions of the light. She would be the terror that waited in the darkness for its next victim. She was hungry and she would not be satisfied until she had had her fun.
I go out onto the stage and this force explodes out from me. She takes over the stage. She is not to be denied … her moment of glory. She is the chaos that lives within the confusion and she longs to taste the fear of mortals.
She was not tall and stately. She was like an ancient, twisted tree that had learned to bend to the weather and the adversities of life. She was gnarled and crooked. She was old and determined to take her revenge for being left out of the celebration.
She would teach these puny humans a powerful lesson. Her magic could not be denied. Her power and cunning would be her revenge. And there would be nothing that could stop her.

By the end of the performance, I was exhausted from the angles and body positions that this Crone’s energy put my body through. It would take me days to recover from the effort.

I finish the performance and I go downstairs for the dressers to unhook my dress and standing there is John Hart.

He says clearly and with surprise, “I didn’t think you had it in you dear! That was a great beginning. Now there is much work to be done to refine your character. I plan on helping you with this!”

My Carabosse was still close to the surface and I wanted to “vomit emoji” all over him.
I just said politely, “Thank you!”

And went into my dressing room.

 

When the reviews came out, I discover that Dance Magazine was there to review the performance and called me, “The Greatest New Carabosse!”

No one was more stunned than me.
Suddenly, Mr. Hart had to ask if I would be willing to do a photo shoot as Carabosse.

I said, “Yes.”
They decided to do the photos during another rehearsal, and I got a few great pictures of me in character.
Somehow, I wondered if that sudden external attention from Dance Magazine … had upset his plans for me.
I will never know what was going on in his head.

All I know is that from that point on, Mr. Hart decided to keep … messing … with my character.

 

Okay, let’s break this down a bit.

If you are an evil witch who has just pronounced in a grand way that Aurora was going to turn 16, prick her finger, and die! You would (as a character) be relishing in your moment of glory as all those in the vicinity collapsed in horror.
It would feel powerful, and she would be feeding on the fears of the other characters on stage. Thrilled at the discomfort and chaos that she had generated.

At that moment, on stage, you hear the music of the Lilac Fairy.

You can imagine that the moment that tinkling light music sounded, Carabosse would begin to feel this (to her) disgusting creature coming in to rain on her party and she would not be happy. She would react.
Not by turning towards Lilac, but by showing the icky feeling of such sweetness from her back.
After all, she would be too proud to turn to face Lilac as an equal. But the body mannerisms and postures would show her resentment and irritation that this piddly little purple fairy … would even try to take her limelight in that moment.
To her, goodness was distasteful and revolting.

As I am in this next rehearsal, John Hart starts screaming at me, “Carabosse! Stop moving you are upstaging Lilac! Don’t move! You are taking the moment away from Lilac!”

I think to myself, “Of course I am doing that! I want to have all the power, all the attention, all the glory! Carabosse does not want to share anything in that moment. She wants Lilac to go away. She is sickened by the sweetness and kindness of the other fairies but especially Lilac. They are enemies. Carabosse is the dark … to Lilac’s light.

The entire story is about the power game between these two fairies.

Mr. Hart wants me to freeze and not react. That makes no sense! That is not what this distorted creature would naturally do.
My Carabosse is not some caricature for a making everyone comfortable in the audience. Evil will fight against the good and the light. And evil does not ever play fair!

My Carabosse would show (with the tinkling of the music) her loathing and hatred of this purple fairy. She would gesture that such goodness made her skin crawl. Her head would turn slightly towards the direction that Lilac was entering, but never really want to look at her.
That would be because the light that Lilac carried would be too bright and like a dark forest plant, Carabosse would shrink from the light, curling away to protect her own darkness.

But Mr. Hart would have none of it.

He systematically stripped my character down, whittling her away to get the power and greatness that was the pure evil that I came to embody … to instead become just a cartoon witch, which is what he had always wanted in the first place.

Each performance became more and more painful as I tried to keep the purity of my soul in the heart of a character … that was now becoming more like a clown.

The day after the performance, Mr. Hart came up to me and said upsettingly, “We have had hundreds of phone calls from parents because your character frightened their children and that those children had nightmares last night! This is unacceptable and it much change!”
I could not help but feel my internal Carabosse and Kali … smile! They both said clearly in my head, “Good!”

That was exactly what they wanted.

They are the dark forces that manifest in real life. There will always be evil trying to destroy the good in the world.
To pretend that evil is a cartoon with no teeth and no power … does a terrible disservice to children.
Fairy tales were created to teach children about the struggles in life. The truth is … that the good does not always win over evil.

But there is a deeper truth that these characters were trying to teach. And that was that when the darkness inside is denied, that is when evil gains a stronger foothold in a soul.
The danger is in the distortion and faith that the light holds all the answers.
When it is in the darkness that true power waits for a soul to become whole by facing that which we fear the most.

I could see the darkness in Mr. Hart and how he was inappropriate with certain women that he wanted to … cultivate. Subtle distortion is still distortion.
The harder such energy is to detect … the more hidden the source.

I could also see that he was going to eventually take the dancers out that were older and more confident in their artistic expression.
It was clear that … such women were not … moldable.

Myself and my friend Mary Ann both detected that energy, and we could see that if we did not leave of our own accord, we would be eventually fired. Which is what Mr. Hart did after we both left.

I think nothing is worse than being a dancer who has worked her way up to a position that they believed would keep them safe only to discover that the confidence they cultivated … would end up working against them in this situation.

Yes, Mr. Hart would try to put me into an administrative position and instantly I knew that it was not for me.

Mary Ann Lind and I would leave the same year.
We could feel what was coming down the pipe.
Nureyev taught me a lot about retiring gracefully and when one is at the top.

He taught me that because he could never do that. His ego needed the acclaim and the audience.

I understood all too well the addictive quality of performing.
I watched him, dance to the point that it was painful to watch him struggle against his aging body, his injuries, and his HIV. I saw what a terrible legacy that left behind … even though I am eternally grateful for learning through him and having my minor connection to him.
As the curtain began to close in this dance chapter of my life, there are so many small details that just seemed to be required to oddly show up.

Once again, the choice is a simple thing. Exit gracefully or make a scene.

I have always tried to exit gracefully.

I remember, the last show that I did as Carabosse. It was a matinee in Ogden, UT. A small town north of Salt Lake City.

I wanted more than anything to just do my Monica Mason Carabosse for that last show. What could they do to me? I knew I would be leaving. I had my own exit plan. And I was putting all the pieces into place.

I had learned through Berlin, that it was best to have a plan and a backup plan.

Honestly, in that moment. I chickened out!
It is probably my only regret from my dancing days. It seemed too hard to enroll the costume designer to do a totally new costume for me. I considered snipping away the offending parts of my costume but then thought better of it.
I found in the end it probably didn’t matter anyway. Because my Carabosse and Kali had fallen back asleep in my deep subconscious. They were no longer interested in playing with so many creative restrictions and overt denial of the true power of their authentic character.

The performance was a shallow ending to a wanning darkness that had taught me what I needed to know and that … was enough.

The next year, we were to do Sleeping Beauty in Washington, D.C.

The thought causes me great anxiety. I did not want to do Carabosse.

Then as luck would have it (for me … not my friend), Mary Ann tore her ACL and dislocated her fibula from her knee. She was out!

That meant that Pam Robinson had to do Lilac every show. And that meant that I needed to do the Enchanted Forest Fairy the whole run.

That left Bene to do Carabosse every night.

I was incredibly relieved to not have to find a way to cajole both my Carabosse and Kali back out from the shadows.

So I am in Washington, DC at the Kennedy Center and Bene comes up to me backstage.

And she wants to have a serious conversation with me, a bit before I was to go on stage.

I turned to her, me in my fairy costume and her in her hag costume with the crazy wig and accentuated makeup.
And she says to me, (with great care and kindness in her intent), “Suzanne, If Mr. Hart ever gives you the opportunity to do Carabosse again, I would like to help you with the character. Because it seems that you really never understood …what this character was about. You clearly have not done the research or studied the history of this ballet or where this character comes from. I wish to offer my services, wisdom, and insight to help you move past your selfish and insincere character construction and help you have the necessary depth and clarity of character that this role requires. It is a character that needs a type of … maturity that I am sure over time will make more sense to you.”

I smiled, like a lion tolerating an insignificant creature and said with total sincerity in my tone and body language, because I knew her own ego needed and wanted it.

I said, Bene! That is so kind of you to offer. I am grateful for your amazing insight and skills in creating such an historically accurate rendition of this character. I have watched you work and your great care to reenact such a wicked character that has been so inviting to our audiences. I commend you for your effort. And I thank you for your offer!”

I watched her smile with a sense of satisfaction. That was what she wanted to hear. Praise!

 

But as I watched her walk away, I could see that the level of awareness that she carried was not from the deep, penetrating place of a seeker. But the acclaim and power desired by someone who had not yet owned her own shadow. And I knew that this shadow would unknowingly inflict itself on others in her desire for self-importance.

 

That is when Carabosse left me with her final message for that cycle. She said in my head.

 

Deny the darkness and it will eat others for a time.

Deny the fear and miss the doorway of this lifetime.

Deny the truth that hides in the dark.

And you will lose the opportunity to ignite a spark.

That spark was not for your own glory and gain.

That spark was to allow others to obtain.

The greatest that they carry inside, has nothing to do with you.

That is how one can transcend this world and finally breakthrough.
~Suzanne Wagner~