Today I interviewed ballerinas. I walked to a studio downtown with crusty mats and gleaming mirrors and wide hardwood staircases, and talked to the director, a girl not much older than me.
She was beautiful as dancing women always are, with curly hair and a dancer's strong body and the barest hint of her native Alabama in her a's, and she said, It is always important to do something well. She looked at me with severity in her mouth and a smile in her eyes, and I wished that she had taught me how to arch my neck, how to extend my limbs and draw them back in, how to turn these mysterious French phrases into bodysong.
I asked a girl, Why do you dance, and she looked at me wide-eyed. I don't know, she said, like she'd honestly never thought about it, the way I'd look if someone asked me why my eyes crinkled into folds when I laugh. -
The girl behind her answered instead. It frees me, she said, lifting her shoulders, the cords standing out in her powerful neck. And I believed her, because free is how she looked, with the freckles careless on her nose and her strong neck, her collarbones sharp against her chest. She was casual like strong people are, people who can lift their own weight, people who can outrun anything that might find them.
