The Cranes Dance (2 page)

So here we are in the Village Green of Wherever filled with people who like to greet each other maniacally every ten seconds and then in walks Prince Siegfried, Prince of the realm of Wherever. Siegfried is greeted by his best buddy, “Ivor” (sometimes he has a different name and sometimes he’s like a court jester, but in our version he’s Ivor, Friend to the Prince). Ivor gets the Prince interested in some of these wonderful Maypole high jinks, the crowning moment of which is a big pas de trois Ivor dances with two local girls. The Act I pas de trois is a nice featured part, and getting to dance one of the two girls in it is a sign that things are going well for you in the company and you might not have to spend your whole career as third bird from the left.

Swan Lake
floats in and out of our repertoire, so it was two years after my debut before we did it again, this time on tour, and I was cast as one of the pas de trois girls. And even though Gwen had only been in the company for about five seconds at that point, she was cast as the other girl. Our parents came to Chicago to see us, along with our brother, Keith.

“So, are you sisters in the ballet?” he asked. “Is that like part of it?”

“We’re maidens,” I said. “Nameless maidens.”

“Everybody says we look like twins!” Gwen said. “But you’ll be able to tell us apart. The one dancing better will be Kate.”

Okay, so after the pas de trois between Ivor and the nameless maidens, Prince Siegfried dances a solo where he expresses (much jumping) his desire to find True Love. Then we have the appearance of the Prince’s mother, the Queen. Lots of fanfare
and aggressive pointing by all the villagers: “Look, it’s the Queen! Hey, did you see? The Queen!” She’s usually played by some old-timer—a ballet mistress or a teacher. Galina Sukonova is our Queen, and possesses a whole repertoire of animatronic facial expressions. It’s a frightening thing up close, but good for those who can only afford seats in the top tiers. The Queen reminds Siegfried with some incomprehensible ballet mime that tomorrow is his twenty-first birthday and he’s got obligations, like choosing a bride and getting married. The Prince sulks a bit at this, and makes the gesture for True Love: one hand to the breast, the other held aloft with the first two fingers extended. (You’re gonna want to scootch down and get that program for the explanatory notes on this action, because otherwise you might think that the Queen is telling her son that he needs to get a manicure and that Siegfried is responding by trying to hail a cab, or test current wind conditions.)

Siegfried cheers up when the Queen presents him with a nifty-looking crossbow as a birthday present. Siegfried really loves his crossbow. He runs around stage with it, showing it to everybody Stage Left, and Stage Right, and then Stage Left again, just in case anybody Stage Left had their eyes closed. Basically eating up some music. Siegfried indicates to Ivor that he wants to go hunting RIGHT NOW, and Ivor indicates that night is falling and now’s not a great time for him. Siegfried impulsively decides to go anyway, and Ivor reluctantly follows him. End of Act I.

Act II finds the Prince by the same mysterious lake we saw in the Prelude. He sends Ivor off and dances around in a melancholy sort of way with his crossbow. That’s another thing I’d change if I were Marius. The Prince needs a really serious-looking
crossbow, and I’d get some kind of arms expert to come in and demonstrate how to actually hold the thing. Our current crossbow looks like a toy, and Siegfried might as well be onstage playing with a Tonka truck. Anyway, the Prince suddenly sees something offstage that at first confuses and then terrifies him. After peering around his hand and then holding it up like, “Oh. God. No!” Siegfried hightails it off Stage Right. Enter the swan corps.

This moment is actually very beautiful. One girl after another snakes onto the stage doing the same pattern of steps until all twenty-four girls are on, and then they form rows and there is something powerful and strange and, well, wonderful about it. The symmetry, the music, everyone alike and in unison, and it’s serious, private in a way, because the dancers are not smiling at the audience, or acknowledging them or even each other at all. It does feel like a spell, a little. It’s hammered into you from the first rehearsal: dance every step at your highest individual level while still maintaining integrity with the Group. And this works. You dance your fool head off, no matter what you feel like, no matter if you’re in the back row. You can’t help it. And when everyone lands from a jump you can hear it because it’s twenty-four pairs of feet in pointe shoes, and when you’re onstage you feel connected by that sound, by your position in line.

Maybe this is how people feel when they are in the military and performing drills. Or what it’s like to be a nun, walking and chanting in Vespers.

There must have been a girl on tonight wearing my old corps tutu. Perhaps the indelible ink printing of “K. Crane” is still there inside the bodice, or half there. Like those messages on
the signs outside of motels where crucial letters have fallen off and travelers are invited to sample the “HEAT D SWIMM NG POO.”

Where are we? Oh yes, well, after the swan corps dances, Siegfried gets his balls back and comes running onstage to take a closer look at these creatures, and that’s when Odette—now Queen of the Swans—appears and Siegfried is all, “Who’s that?” but Odette is elusive and runs offstage. More swans run in—four Big Swans and four Little Swans—and they form a kind of defensive cluster, and Siegfried is standing there with his crossbow looking like, “Um, seriously?” when Odette runs in again and stands bravely in front of all the swans like, “Don’t you dare point that ridiculous toy at my girls.”

So Siegfried puts down his bow and tries to get Odette to dance with him. She is shy, and otherworldly, and beautiful, and of course he falls in love with her. They dance, and the corps dances, and the Big Swans dance and the Little Swans do the linked-arm thing you are familiar with, and Odette dances and Siegfried dances and they dance together again, and Odette explains the whole curse thing in ballet mime obfuscated even more than usual by the fact that whoever is dancing Odette is totally exhausted by that point.

The deal with the curse is that it
can
be broken, by True Love, but if True Love is promised and then betrayed, the swans will lose their human souls forever and only be birds. You might think this would be a relief, that there would be at least one member of the flock who was sick of being divided in two like that and willing to forgo humanity for the quiet life, but I guess we all cling to sanity no matter how painful it is.

We cling to humanity, I mean. Not sanity. Although you can
cling to sanity. It’s a matter of willpower. This is an argument I’ve been waging with Gwen for a long time. It’s not that I think she fakes her losses of reason, but I do think she indulges them. My position on this matter might be one of the reasons she is refusing to speak to me.

Back to the
Lake
. Smitten Prince Siegfried has almost managed to overcome Odette’s objections (it was a man who got her into this mess, so she’s understandably a little suspicious) and the Prince is about to promise True Love when evil Von Rothbart appears! Boo! Siegfried grabs his crossbow and aims for Von Rothbart, but dawn is breaking and Odette is back under the magician’s power so she stands in front of him. The Prince, unable to get a clear shot, vows to return the next night and free Odette. End of Act II. Intermission. The mezzanine bathroom is going to be pretty full so I’d try the second balcony one if I were you. Step outside, have a cigarette on me, then come on back.

Act III is the Prince’s Birthday Ball, so we’re at his castle. The guests of the ball behave in pretty much the same fashion as the peasants from Act I (they’re the same dancers, after all), and so there’s more milling about and greeting each other and gesturing to Center Stage and admiring each other’s nearly identical outfits. Four Princesses are brought in to meet Siegfried, who’s totally not into them although he condescends to dance a little with each one. Then the Princesses all dance a solo from their native land: a Hungarian dance, a Spanish dance, a Neapolitan dance, and—you guessed it!—a Polish dance. The Queen takes Siegfried aside to ask who he’s going to choose to propose to, and Siegfried looks bummed about the selection when suddenly a New Guest arrives—a mysterious stranger wearing a mask and a cape (Von Rothbart, in
disguise)—and with him he has a beautiful woman who looks EXACTLY like Odette, only instead of wearing all white she is wearing all black. This is Odile, the Black Swan. (The program notes will tell you she is Von Rothbart’s daughter, magicked up to look like Odette.)

Odette and Odile are always danced by the same ballerina. It’s why the role is so difficult. Not because you have to be lyrical and romantic and vulnerable as the White Swan and fiery and über-strong and confident as the Black one. That’s not a huge problem, you get a different costume and different choreography and tempi and these are really all you need to change your personality when you’re a dancer. We do it several times a day. The hard part in dancing Odette/Odile is the stamina and concentration involved.

Anyway, it’s no surprise to anyone that the Prince is immediately taken with this fabulous Odile, and since she looks exactly like Odette he convinces himself that she
is
Odette even though she’s got a totally different personality. There is a lot of bravura dancing—including the famous thirty-two fouetté turns Odile rips off—and dazzled by the pyrotechnics, Siegfried pledges True Love to the Black Swan. Just for a moment, before this happens, we catch a glimpse of Odette far upstage on a platform thing (it’s not actually Odette, of course, since she’s onstage as Odile at that point, but the stand-in Odette is far enough away that the audience can’t see her face and she’s got the Odette costume on). This is meant to show us that off at the lake, Odette has a sense that she is being betrayed and is trying to warn the Prince, but of course this doesn’t work. We are in Days of Yore, and it’s not like she can text him or anything:
Odile not 4 real. C U at Lake 2nite. xoxo
:)
Odette
.

Once Siegfried has pledged True Love to Odile, Von Rothbart throws off his cape, reveals Mein Von Goblin Wear, and claims paternity of the Black Swan. Siegfried realizes with horror what he has done. He runs offstage to go find Odette. End of Act III.

We’ve got another intermission here. Maybe for this one you just want to stand up in the aisle rather than trying to jimmy your way up to the bar. Or you could amuse yourself by strolling past the standing-room banister aisle at the back of the orchestra section where the super-fans and students have lolled through three acts. Walk slowly, and you’ll catch them showing off their insider knowledge by using the abbreviated versions of our first names, or debating the merits of various casts. “Is it just me or is ’Sandro looking a little tired tonight? Of course, it’s been a very heavy season for him.” “Emmy last Saturday? She freaking
nailed
it. I was like, You better work, girl. Work it OUT.”

Now settle in because Act IV is very tragic and moving. A distraught Siegfried returns to the lake to explain the whole clusterfuck to a brokenhearted Odette. The swan corps weaves in and out. Von Rothbart shows up to polish off the curse and condemn Odette and all the rest of the girls to lives as waterfowl.

Odette decides to kill herself. Siegfried, who refuses to be separated from his True Love, swears he will join her. The two of them die together, the lights indicating that they drown themselves in the lake, clasping each other. This act of love is so powerful that it kills Von Rothbart and frees all the swans. We end on a final image of Siegfried and Odette locked together, their souls entwined for all eternity against the backdrop of a rising sun.

And that’s
Swan Lake
.

I didn’t mean to tell it in such a smartass way. It’s an incredible ballet, even if it is a dusty old warhorse in many ways. People cry at the end, I’m told.

But I didn’t throw my neck out in the middle of
Swan Lake
tonight because I got all emotional. There we were in Act III and just as I was doing my first promenade around the stage with my little retinue of Polish minions it occurred to me, sort of in a flash, that the Polish Princess was actually a person. That yes, she was a character, a role, whatever, but she could also be said to be a human being.

It’s funny because I’m known for being this skilled “actress,” but I just think of things in, you know, general terms. Joy. Sorrow. Desire. Jealousy. So I got all tripped out thinking about the Polish Princess as an actual separate and complete human being. Because, if that were true, then she would have an opinion about things and even about being at this ball. And maybe she doesn’t really want to be at the ball. Maybe she doesn’t want to marry this Prince Siegfried person either. Maybe the whole time she is being promenaded around and smiling and looking so bright and charming she’s just wondering where the hell the bar is and wanting to take off her stupid headpiece. All during the bits with the Prince I kept adding things to her character. Like maybe she has a slight astigmatism, and this makes her prone to migraines. She had an affair with one of her minions during a particularly bleak winter back in Warsaw. She suffers from social anxiety. She plays the tambourine.

Unfortunately, none of these attributes was at all useful for what I actually had to
dance
. But I became … attached to these ideas, and they sort of felt more real than everything else.
I could have passed a lie detector test about who I was, that’s how real it all felt. And it occurred to me that this is the kind of thing that happens in Gwen’s head all the time. And yes, it did feel a little out of my control. And I wasn’t sure what to cling to.

That’s what I was thinking about when I started the turns on the diagonal, and right at the first one, just as I turned my head, I felt something in my neck implode and pain shot down my right arm all the way to my hand. It felt like someone had hit me with a wrench and then set my arm on fire. For a second, I actually thought I might have … you know … died.