I have arranged for Miss Stephan to run my dancing school. She is waiting to take up a position at the Royal Ballet School and she is wonderful, so graceful and very charming. Since she started my enrolments have gone through the roof and many young men seem to have discovered a joy of dancing I once had.
Well, I think boys should do whatever they want and this is proving they can.
Rory tells me he has always wanted to dance but his dad says that dancing is ‘girls' stuff’.
But Rory is a stubborn young man and he seems to be subtly working around his father’s objections. Ramona, his sister says she is happy to give up her class as she want to be a racing car driver.
Ramona’s dancing teacher is happy if Rory attends in place of his sister. She says he has more talent than his clumsy sister. Miss Stephan, or Anna as I have come to know her, says she would much rather teach someone who wanted to be in class than sulky Ramona who carelessly flopped about. It does not help that, although she is tall, she is also overweight.
But Rory loves to be in a room, wearing tights and tee shirt, surrounded by giggling girls who whisper behind cupped hands.
I have watched the odd class. It is sublime.
Miss Stephan steps in front of her 12 senior students, puts her feet in a perfect first and lifts her ams to a grand pose. She then slips in to an arabesque scooping her arm and head in a tidy, perfectly aligned bow.
Rory follows, lifting his body up straight and stretching his neck while softening his shoulders. The room fills with the sound of shuffling pointe shoes as they all follow.
He does a quick leap and spin with one leg winding around the other.
Miss Stephan claps. “That is perfect,” she declares and Rory grins.
He leaps and lands at her feet, two hands outstretched and on one knee, his deep brown eyes are fixed adoringly on her and she flushes an embarrassed red.
But then three other boys from the class leap past him and win her attention. She is confused and things are getting just a bit awkward.
***
Ramona taps me on the upper arm and a bead of sweat pimples my forehead.
Why am I agreeing to take this lesson when I know Rory should be behind the wheel not Ramona? I’m a bit like Rory, however. I also have discovered a love of dancing I did not know I had. And Pavlova is definitely an icon.
Ramona turns her sweet smiling face up to Mr. Baldwin, the red faced blustering Head Master. But he is unmoved.
“You should be in school, young lady.”
“But I have a driving lesson,” she explains.
I start to say that I have the wrong pupil when Mr Baldwin’s attention is whipped away by two arguing boys coming off the bus.
Comments