These Are Our Confessions

In my March editor’s letter (if you haven’t received the new issue, you will soon—it’s our Ballet Issue and the cover is to-die-for!), I spill one of my great dance confessions: I used to hate ballet. 

I wasn’t disciplined enough to get through a long series of pliés, I wasn’t quick enough to master petit allegro and I cared more about the number of pirouettes I could do on pointe than how my technique was getting through them.

Sometimes, I shamelessly admit, I would skip my ballet class entirely and I’d scoot off to Subway for a meatball sub. (Maybe I also lacked the disciplined diet many ballerinas embody…oops.)

But I don’t want to be the only one confessing here! So I got the Dance Spirit editors to chime in with their own slightly embarrassing tales. (And I hope you’ll share yours, too! You can leave ’em here in the comments or Tweet us with the hashtag #mydanceconfession. Fess up—we won’t tell!)

From Rachel Zar, managing editor:

• I’ve never seen the classic dance movie The Red Shoes, but when it comes up in conversation with other dancers I pretend like I have so they don’t judge me.

From Margaret Fuhrer, associate editor:

• I’ve accidentally lost the following items onstage: a full wig, a tiara, a pointe shoe, both false eyelashes, one of the Nutcracker’s arms and my top (yikes).

From Michael Anne Bailey, assistant editor, fashion:

• I love performing, but I hate choreographing. I created routines for several high school drill teams while I was in college because I needed the money, but I always wished I were dancing with them instead.

And another one from yours truly:
When I was a sprightly young DS intern, I was talking to one of the editors about a dancer in the corps de ballet at some company. Only instead of pronouncing it correctly—like “core”—I said this girl was in the “corpse” de ballet. Horrifying…