Costume Room

The parent info for Ballet West encourages us to come to costume fittings.  "The Ballet West costume room is unlike anywhere else you've ever been, and it's closed to the public. This is your one chance to see it." I had to go.

The basement really was cool, with all these crates in the hall, full of BW stuff.  Peeking into the side rooms, we saw male and female dancers in massage chairs, warming up, walking along like regular folks.  I walked right by Beckanne Sisk, principal ballerina! Freestone and I knew we were privy to the inner workings, and it was exciting.

The costume room, while huge and full of tulle, ribbon and bolt upon bolt of fabric, was maybe less than the most incredible place I've ever been.  Aside from the sheer number of giant spools of thread hanging on the walls, I have, in fact, been in many places just like the BW costume room.  In every basement of every theater.  I felt jaded, like I had become immune to the magic from playing in so many orchestra pits and being backstage at so many productions.

 It was still fun to be with Freestone.  All 4 Nephews and all 4 Fritzs were there, and only one other mom.  I guess all the other boy moms have been through this.  Freestone is the only one of the 8 who isn't a BW Academy kid.  Some of the other boys are homeschooled so they can do ballet all day.  How do you compete against that? We went through this whole "I'm in love with ballet and I want to be a professional" with Golda, and we simply couldn't afford the classes.  That hasn't changed.  Golda lamented the fact that her parents weren't rich New Yorkers who had only one child and sent her to ABT pre-ballet.  Now I feel like Freestone is in the same position. 

So for now, we will embrace the magic and count our blessings that our dancer was included among the company boys, and that he gets to have these experiences.  The thing I love about boys is that Freestone isn't intimidated about being the outsider, and the other boys aren't the least bit snobby about it.  They all seemed to mesh just fine, bonding over dumb jokes and seeing who had the best point.  (Freestone.  His feet are unnaturally built to point. They almost fold in half.)  It's a beautiful thing to see these young men be purely themselves, with all the awkwardness and puppy-dog immaturity, in a way that adolescent girls are just never un-self-conscious enough to be.  I love this phase of boy development.

As I left Freestone behind for class, after the costume fitting, I felt slightly underwhelmed.  I had basically stood in a basement closet and watched 8 boys try on top hats and embroidered vests for an hour.  Big whoop.  When I picked up Freestone after class, though, I didn't say anything.  I'm glad, because he did.  He said, "Mom, that was so cool.  All those crates.  Did you see those pictures of the dancers?  That was amazing."  And he kept talking.  If there was any magic I had missed, Freestone had noticed it.  Driving home in the dark, my son spun a picture for me that was very similar to the costume fitting I had just experienced with him.  Only his version had a scrim of delicious, new, shiny wonder overlayed on top.

The magic isn't in the costume room.  It's in the boy.