Some of us were born to dance.  Some of us were briefly led to believe we could be dancers, once we grew up.

We were a ragtag group of children, girls whose mothers (no doubt) believed their daughter was going to be the newest child prodigy admitted to the American Ballet Company.

Our mothers’ dancing ambitions for us began small; take a little tap, take a little ballet.  Of course none of us had a real choice at the age of three or four.

Saturday mornings In the small Hayward California dance studio where I was taking my lessons I have definite memories, all which I find hard to believe were anything about dancing, and much more about discipline.  It was just playtime for us, an excuse to dress up like ballerinas and spin.  Little girls love to spin you know.

“Ok tine-e-e dancers, line up at zee barré.  Nanzee, where are your ballet shoes?”  Miss Bernadette, the Ballet Mistress asked in her song-song voice while looking disapprovingly down at the little bare feet.  Nancy just pointed to a corner of the room.  “Vell, you can’t dance veets-out zem.”

This began another Saturday as Miss Bernadette tried to whip us into some sort of cohesive group.  Clap. Clap.  “Hurry up!”  She was not a classic beauty, her nose seemed too big for her face, but her body was lithe, tall and rigid.  Her makeup always included some kind of dark  Khol rimming her large, brown eyes making them recede and appear as though they could bore a hole into you, especially if your feet were out her required placements...which was often.  Her massive curls of brown hair gone wild only added to our fear and for some of us awe.

The nine of us scrambled; giggling and bumping into each other until finally Nancy’s mother grabbed her hand and walked her over to join us at the barré.  The first exercises were always at the bar.

 I am fourth from the left. 

We stood there doing our best to copy Miss Bernadette’s movements as she would issue commands in  her high-pitched accent rolling her r’s, “Plié, one, two, three...F-r-r-ancis ar-m-ms up...” 

The piano player, Miss Grace, sat there week after week stopping and starting her piece according to Miss Burnadette’s admonitions, was a former ballerina.  Thin, with a jet-black bun severely restrained by a pink velvet ribbon, she  wore the same black wool sweater over her own long dancer’s skirt week after week.  She pounded out the march, ”dum-da-dum-dum-dum...”

Sometimes, while the teacher adjusted our bodies into the pose she wanted, Miss Grace seemed less in control and she would throw her head back, lean her body forward, her eyes pinched closed, her ruby colored lips pursed, lost in her own dance of youth.  It was not hard too imagine her in a fluffy tutu of tulle, spinning en point, then being lifted high into the air by an impossibly handsome foreigner wearing those embarrassingly clingy tights.  But, most of the time she just pounded out the rhythm we girls bobbed up and down to, in an effort to get us prepared for the “Recital”. 

The promise, like a cupcake held in front of us each week...”You must do zee ver-r-ry best you can, soon you will have zee audience.  You vill dahnce be-e-autifully for zee people.”  The teacher said just before she would break out in a broad smile, one which actually appeared to make her a little less scary.

After an excruciating half hour of being told to hold the positions, and don’t talk or touch the girl ahead of us at the bar, we were given a half-hour break .  I loved the breaks, because that is when my mother would take me to the drugstore across the street where we would sit, just the two of us in a red booth and get a Coke.  It was my reward for not complaining too much about having to go.  This is when we had our mother-daughter time.  

As soon as we finished mother would pay at the cashier and taking hold of my hand we would cross the street, back to the Dance Academy for a half an hour of tap dancing lessons.  Those were more fun, but always seemed meaningless in the overall scheme of things.  Why did a ballet dancer need to clickety-clack with those shiny black tap shoes?

It seemed all we did was the same thing over and over, a ritual of little arms held in front of us, almost as if we had them in mufflers, rotating hand over hand as we clickety-clacked in a conga line in front of the mirror.

All of our mothers knew how to sew, and Miss Burnadette has specific plans for our costumes.  They were to be peasant style, and we needed tambourines.  My mother knew how to sew very well, and she was very proud of how my recital dress turned out, a white muslim dress with multi-colored ribbons around the neckline, on the puffy sleeves and encircling the skirt perfectly.  The wider ribbon, cinching belt was in a bright blue.

Only for “The Recital” were we permitted to wear lipstick and some rouge.  It was necessary, and I remember my mother hoisting me up to sit on the sink so I could examine my face and perfectly coiffed hair in the mirror, close-up. 

 Each of us took our places on the stage, in front of the curtain for our group photographs before our dances began.  Little hands gripping tambourines, brave little Gypsie Dancing Girls.

I am third from the left. 

We danced our little hearts and feet off that night, yet only the curtsies afterward to the sounds of polite clapping from our parents and whomever they had convinced to attend would remain...that and the photo memorializing the dance careers that never were to happen. For one night, we really thought we could dance!