Preface to my book, “Dancing For My Life”

 

Being a dancer, I always saw myself as a storyteller. But that process was more about feeling the character on the inside, allowing that expression to generate movement, and let the joy of that expression take me over in the dance. I preferred to tell the story with my body and to do that I had to take a feeling from deep inside and rather than expressing it verbally, I was to find a way to powerfully become the embodiment of that story so fully that I could take an audience for a ride through the beautifully elongated and powerful expressions of ballet.

Dance to me was the process of knowing how to transmute the complex panoply of human emotion into a form that was not spoken but experienced deep inside the observer. I wanted to take them inside of me and show them the great joy that comes from allowing the full expression of emotions through the entire body. I wanted to show them the beauty that they too possessed inside if they would just be courageous enough to follow my dance into their unknown selves.

Nothing in my life impacted me the way dance did. I felt compelled to show a side of life that is often very secretive and private. Dancers are after all, very internally focused individuals. Our outlet is the stage. That is where we can completely open and cut loose. That is where we feel the most alive. Everything we go through from the bloody feet to the injuries, to the constant criticism, to the starving our body for a particular look, is all about those very precious moments that happen on a stage.

There is something very magical about a stage. It is a portal that allows one to become more than the self and reach beyond the physical form into the ethereal connections that are possible. As a dancer we are the vehicle to connect the density and beauty of humanity with the spirit, hope, and dreams that have inspired countless artists throughout history. Ballet is a living art. Something special happens when we are allowed to feel the heart and soul of an audience and move their feelings into us and allow them to inspire our movements in ways that are more magnificent that we could personally do in the ballet studios.

A stage is a place of magic and mayhem. Often those extremes happen within the same performance. Mistakes happen on stages and can often happen dramatically. But also, something else can happen where we become more than who we know ourselves to be. We can embody a character so fully that for a brief moment, that character becomes alive. Something from the ethers moves and blends with us in such a way that we become captivated in a perfect moment in time. In such moments we are fully alive, completely in our body, celebrating what it is to be human, and riding a wave of energy that has a life and purpose of its own. Such moments are highly addictive and difficult to explain to anyone who has not experienced it. The euphoria of life itself takes us over and we are one with the universe. In sync with life itself and completely at peace. Those moments are so special that any dancer will then seek to have that experience again and be willing to give up anything and everything to feel it and touch the divine inside and outside once again.

That is the beauty and the danger that others can take advantage of. Dancers need to dance. Because of that we will do it for very little money, ridiculously long hours standing in point shoes, put up with many forms of emotional and psychological abuse, and battle with our body as we relentlessly try to attain an idealized form of perfection.

I knew that the world I lived in was unique. I knew that the souls that manage to make it to the big stages of the world are a rare breed. I could also see that in the United States that we were almost a dying breed. That was because (in general) the arts are not respected, honored, or supported by our government or our culture. That is where other countries are once again ahead of us and have been consistently gaining ground over us for the past 50 years.

In Europe, the arts are subsidized by the government. They are considered so essential as an expression of their culture that they are a fully integrated part of any European’s daily lives. Everyone in Europe goes to the many theater productions, symphonies, operas, and ballets. Europe has a vast history around art and all you have to do is look around to see the many museums, magnificent old buildings, statuesque parks, and fairy tale castles to know that this culture prides itself on the art that they have generated over the centuries.

America (by comparison) is a very young country and so our forms of artistic expression show up as movies, and concerts. All very wonderful and beautiful in their own right but there are vast number of souls (like me) that wanted to become something so much more than what we saw in our daily world in America.

Meeting Rudolf Nureyev in Berlin during the Cold War, and getting to know him in my limited ways, allowed me to feel a kindred spirit that loved to haunt museums and spend countless hours staring at paintings and exploring the beauty and nuances of architecture. Living in Europe opened my eyes in almost every way possible. I saw the horror and scars of war and I saw the beauty in the music, opera, dance, and the theater that probably saved many lives by giving a silent voice and permission for the people to feel everything that was pent up inside. It was through these art forms that the people were allowed to express what they felt deep down on the inside.

I saw that where something has great power, it attracts games of politics, money, and power. While dancers are put on a pedestal and given great acclaim, they are also one of the toughest groups of people I have ever met. One must have a certain level of mental stability to navigate the relentless drive for perfection that ballet requires.

Ballet is an art form that can break you in a myriad of ways. Your body can break from not being able to handle the punishment that the strict regime of ballet requires. Your mind can break from the stress and the constant realization that there will always be dancers better than you. Your heart can break by allowing internal criticism to dominate the mind so that you feel as if you are never going to be good enough. Your heart can break by not feeling as if you will ever get a chance to do something really unique on the stage.

Through it all, the soul has to be so very certain that this is the pathway that will give one the tools and skills to become something more than this human self. In ballet, we know in our core that we are a spiritual being having a human experience. And we want to find the keys in those doors that allow that soul out of the body and give it the freedom to fly. We know that we are here to remind audiences that they are so much more than they realize and to give them the ideas that such a possibility could also happen to them.

Everything in ballet is about learning to overcome something. Those things are deeply personal and different for each person. For me. I had to overcome being 5 ft 10 in tall. Which was very tall for a ballerina. Most men were under 6 ft tall during my generation and on point I was 6 ft 4 in. So, finding partners that could handle my long and gangly self was a real challenge. It put me into the position that I was to be more of a soloist. Someone who could dance onstage by myself. That required me to have to be stronger than even some principal dancers as I did not have anyone holding me up. I had to sacrifice my country and go to Europe to even get a job because of my height. I had to eat, sleep, and breathe ballet because that was what this artform demanded of us.

Ballet often meant that we had to sacrifice our families, our connections on an intimate level with others such as boyfriends and sexual connections. Honestly, most of us just did not have the time or the band width to navigate another person’s emotions when we were demanding so much of ourselves.

But what we gained was worth it. Ballet companies are like a giant dysfunctional family. We are literally a band of brothers and sisters because ballet is a war zone that takes our full concentration and focus, devotion, talent, and energy.

All the dancers that I danced with are my spiritual family. The nature of ballet allows those dancers to see us in very raw and real states of being. We are more vulnerable with other dancers than we could possibly figure out how to be with “regular” or “normal” people. Because of this, we are often crazy, irreverent, comedic, and wild. We are a very fun group of people to be around when we all get together.

The relationships we have with each other are timeless and eternal. And after ballet we will never find anything to replace this tempestuously magnificent torture chamber.

When anything tests you on a daily basis, demanding your best in every moment, you cannot help but love it and hate it. It is so real in ballet that one cannot deny those feelings and because of that we learn to embrace all that we feel. And that is very rare as we are in a world filled with pretense and photoshopped images.

Ballet dancers project perfection but we know that such a feeling is fleeting. Dancers long to reach impossible heights but just one breathe of that air makes us addicted to this artform for eternity.

So welcome to my wonderfully wacky and tremendously beautiful world of ballet. This is my story, but it is the story of every dancer who ever felt the magic from a stage touch them even briefly. I know that many of you wondered about what it is like to be a professional ballet dancer. I hope this book gives you a glimpse into our world.

As I have been writing this book, I shared parts on social media, and I was so very grateful that so many dancers responded so positively. The overall comment was, “Thank you for having the skill to express in words what ballet feels like in my body. I never could find those words to express the beauty and pain that attracted me to this artform. You do it in a way that I am once again, young, filled with hopeful enthusiasm and joy, and flying across a stage being my best and most beautiful self!”

I hope you discover that part of you also as you read my book. I believe in every person there is a secret dancer. I give him or her permission to let go and fly with me.

Let’s dance!

~Suzanne Wagner~