My Wild and Wooly Ways with the Dynamic Petrus Bosman – Ballet Master

 

 

Ballet is full of characters. Some that are wilder than others. Petrus Bosman arrived on the scene in Ballet West, and nothing was ever the same again.
And that was a very good thing.

Some people just bring a smile to your face and their personality is infectious.
Special souls can change the energy in a room just by entering it.
He was one of those special people.
Most of the time the best ballet teachers have often not been the principal dancers but the soloists.
One of the exceptions to this interesting rule, was Petrus Boseman.

A native South African, he rose through the ranks and was so talented that he leaped from the London Festival Ballet to the Royal Ballet as a soloist without ever having gone through the Royal Ballet School. Something not done back in that day.
From there … he rapidly became a principal dancer with the Royal Ballet.

Great talent is something that (to a certain degree) … one is born with. Some dancers have a type of muscle and nerve coordination that is organic and natural. Some talented souls have an inner sense of what will work, and they seem to do it effortlessly.
Petrus was that … and much more.

Petrus was a breath of fresh air in the strict and stuffy world that ballet can sometimes be.
He could change my attitude with his humor and audacity.
He could give corrections that would make you smile, and make you try harder.
He was always a stylishly dressed gentlemen, except in the classroom … where he was famous for his collection of sweatpants.
He was an unapologetic gay man that clearly accepted who he was and had a great sense of humor. Especially for himself.
Some teachers generate a type of power and mystique. Petrus was approachable. In his heart he was always one of us. He was a dancer and that would never change. He just now needed to share his wisdom with those that were inspired to listen and were willing to work hard.
He wore a horrible toupee that was obviously ancient and yet he was never without it.

Until that one … particular day.
We were on tour and when dancers get out and about, sometimes we get a little … silly!
Touring is its own type of stress and schedules get twisted around. Being in new towns brings out the adventurous spirit in many of us.

Dancers can play hard and get (at times) a bit crazy.

I remember, skinny dipping in the hotel’s pools late at night.
All of us trying to be quiet, as we did not want to wake up the other hotel quests.
Or get in trouble.
Or caught!

But giggling and loud whispers only are a part of the energy that young rambunctious dancers have that can draw attention to themselves.

I remember one particular hotel that had a central pool area.
After a show, dancers are revved up and we need to let steam off. Adrenaline is a very real drug in the system, and it is hard to calm down after a show.
I was notorious for going dancing at the clubs after a performance. (My favorite was the “Kicker Bar” in the bayou, just outside St. Charles, Louisiana). Being raised in Texas, I just love a Cowboy energy in a man.
It was not uncommon for the dancers to blow off steam so we would be able to sleep.
This particular hotel with the central pool was just too tempting to not try to sneak in and have a quick dip.

As my fellow cohorts are stripping down and getting into the cool water, I cannot help but psychically feel some guests, peeking out their windows at the lovely “after hours” performance of the dancing water nymphs.
It made me smile. I could feel them watching from behind the darkened rooms and curtains. I could feel them marveling at their good fortune.
I commended those that were smart enough to notice and clever enough to not turn on their lights so we would see them.
But something eventually spooked us (as it always did) and we ran off to our rooms to hang out and share crazy ideas.
Hotel staff or our Ballet West Staff always seemed smart enough to put us all on the same floor so we did not interrupt the other guests.
As some of the female dancers are in one room, someone gets a hairbrained idea to take our clothes off, put on only our robes and point shoes and go down to Petrus’s room and crash into his room when he opened the door.
Then we were going to drop our robes and start dancing naked in his room.

The instigator of this event was … I believe Rhonda … but the whole trip is a whirlwind in my mind. What started this nighttime impulse was the fact that we were in a small town, and someone had offered us a pianist to play for our morning class.

It is a lovely offer and one that we do not always have.
Normally, in small towns, we just would have Petrus loudly counting the pattern and rhythm during class if we did not have a pianist.

But it was very kind of this theater to give us a musically inclined person to make the morning ritual of all dancers more fun and less tedious.

That was … until the poor woman started playing.

She was clearly out of her league and had never played for a ballet class.
In fact, there seemed to be a question if she really could play at all.

The reason I say that is because, the entire class … all she played was one rhythm…… DA .. dit dit …DA…dit dit DA.

She played it in one monotonous never-ending tone with occasionally changing the scale.

Dancers are incredibly forgiving and generous by nature, but it was hard to listen to for an hour and a half. Even Petrus tried to help her shift the rhythm, but he only succeeded in making her more nervous.
It was so bad that everyone (including Petrus) decided to stop giving feedback to the woman. But by three-quarters of the way through the class, the giggling began, and our steps became exaggerated reflections of this music that was being drummed into our ears.
Forward pace … to after that evening’s performance and our “skinny dipping” moment.
We are in one hotel room, and we are all laughing and dreading class the following morning if we have that same pianist.

So, Rhonda comes up with the idea that we run down the hall in our robes and point shoes, knock on Petrus’s door … maybe we could see if we can catch him … without his toupee on.
After all, it is late, and Petrus was the only teacher … ever … that we would have attempted to pull this stunt on.
That was because he had a fabulous sense of humor and would completely understand our moment of … temporary insanity.

Besides, he was gay, and we were safe.
To him it would be funny … not an invitation to an orgy.
The idea was to run down with nothing on under our robes but point shoes.

Knock loudly on the door till he opened it.

Then rush into the room and drop our robes in a dramatic flair and then start singing that horrible monotonous tone (DA .. dit dit …DA…dit dit DA ..dit dit … DA!) while dancing around the room naked, giggling like the silly young women that we were. Then bow, grab our robes, and run out the door back to our original room.

I remember being so nervous, thinking, “Will he let us in? Will we be able to catch him without his toupee on? Will he be mad? Will we have the guts to do it?”

So, we gather our courage, strip down, put on our point shoes, and run down the hall giggling the whole way to his door.

There we pound on his door … but there is no answer!

We look at each other, trying to figure out if he is in there or not.

We pound the door again … Now we hear a grumbling and rustling inside the room.

Now we have our hands over our mouths trying to not giggle and give the surprise away.

We knock one more time and the door slowly opens to the peering face of Petrus sleepily staring at us slight irritated, with his toupee askew and a look somewhere between concern and irritation.

The moment the door opens, we barge in the door and in the dark room illuminated by the light of the television that is on, we drop our robes and begin singing DA .. dit dit …DA…dit dit DA ..dit dit … DA!

We are laughing while singing and we can barely stand straight because we are almost doubled over from laughing so hard.

Petrus immediately starts, clapping his hands to the rhythm like he was doing in class and trying to correct us as he would in class.
Saying in his South African accent, “Dears, you are a bit off your legs, your hips are too far back! You must stand straighter and tuck those tukus’s in and give those titties a lift. Come on girls! Titties UP!”

All the while clapping his hands to the horrible rhythm.
We are all laughing hysterically and finally grab our robes and run out the door to head towards our rooms.

Just as we get out the door and slightly down the hall, we hear him call … “Girls?”
We turn around smiling from our head to toe shoes, to see him lift the toupee off his head to reveal his shiny bald head … as he says, “Thank you so much for the dance!”
We were all stunned! We cannot stop laughing and run back to our rooms completely proud of our audacity and ingenuity.

It was a lovely moment of youthful mischievousness that none of us will ever forget.

The next day in class, fortunately … that pianist did not return.
But as we come in to warm up for class, clearly the word had gotten out about our midnight escapade, and I remember the straight men were in a bunch talking and looking at us.
Finally, Robert Arbogast said with his boyish charm, “Let me get this straight? All of you ladies went over to Petrus’s room and danced naked but with point shoes on … in the light of the television?”

And we all smiled and nodded.

He said, “Why did you go to his room and not mine?”
And we all said, “Because his room was safe and yours probably would not have been!”

I will never forget Robert’s exasperated response, “Why do all the gay guys get to have all the fun?”

But he knew why!

My other fond memory of Petrus was when a photographer wanted to do nude photos of both Petrus and me out in the remote areas of Tooele, Utah.

Petrus was in his 50’s but had a body on him of a much younger man. Petrus and I both agreed, and we went out to this area outside Tooele, by the lake. There was an interesting landscape there where the trees had been drowned by the encroaching lake. The dead trees laid in the water with their bleached trunks laying in interesting directions and we waded out to them and then became a part of the landscape with our skin being so pale and twisting our bodies into positions that aligned with the curves of the trees.

The photographer was doing all black and white photos. They were amazing and I still have some of them in my photo albums.

I have some amazing shots with both Petrus and me that I treasure.
In the lens of the black and white images, we almost seem the same age. Petrus had a muscled body still vibrant and alive under those sweatpants and the shots were powerful and I enjoy them to this day.

In one particular shot, the photographer had a very long piece of red chiffon that he wrapped around my body, and then Petrus was holding it so that the wind would catch it … as it wafted behind me.
I was to take a pose like a victory symbol or the figurehead on the bow at the front of a ship.
I was standing there waiting for the wind to be just right so that Petrus could let go of the chiffon and the wind would hold it in the air … when a train came by.
I hear the train coming and I know that it is going to pass right by me.

I am thinking, “Wow! This engineer is going to think about this moment for the rest of his life!”
That was when the engineer, hits the train whistle. And I hear it go, “Woo Woooooooo!”
I start smiling. Petrus lets go of the chiffon and the trains wind is enough to catch the chiffon blowing out behind me.

I had that shot for years and I wish I still had it. I cannot seem to find it anymore. Especially after all my moves.
That is sad because it was such a special moment that lives in my mind still.

I am forever connected to Petrus for his gentle spirit, his great kindness to me and so many others, and for those easy moments where we were up to our knees in mud, climbing on these trees out in the middle of the lake, naked in the sun, laughing with life, enjoying being alive, and participating in the creation of more art.
He died in 2008 from a heart attack and I remember hearing the news.

With my heart aching for the loss of such a great man, I went home, pulled out those old photos that I still have … and smiled.
I know he is dancing and laughing in the wind and is with me now as I remember those special moments that are personal, precious, and that allowed me to be who I really was.
Thank you, Petrus Boseman. Rest in peace!
~Suzanne Wagner~