Crow Ballet

We fell asleep the other night to a chorus of crows bouncing on the branches of our cherry tree. They bobbed and jumped and spat their threats from the top to the tree to the bottom of that tree. Not one single crow was eating any of the now exquisitely rippened cherries. Instead, they were all posturing -- flapping wings, hopping sideways, angrily dipping their heads and narrowing their eyes. We thought sunset would silence them, but the light dimmed and their cacaphony intensified. We tried to sleep, but the black noise was deafening at times, we sat up in bed and watched the silhouetted flutter of madness.

I thought of those crows again yesterday afternoon when I went to the ballet to watch one of my students perform. It was a whole different world. The audience was filled with family members dressed to the nines all carrying flowers -- roses, carnations, tigerlilies. Camera's flashed, skinny children posed with proud fathers and grandparents, and mothers fussed with bows and ribbons, rouge and eyeliner.

Once the performance started, hundreds of children from ages 3-18 flooded the stage dressed in tights and leotards. Every girl had her hair pulled tight in a perfect bun; every boy walked a little taller their family jewels suspended vulnerably.

And they danced. Wave after wave of fluttering child swept across the stage, arms extended, heads held high, plastic smiles on their faces.

As the afternoon progressed, the dancers improved -- each new level of "class" raised the bar of poise and expectation.

My student, A., danced in two numbers. First with her level (3 A) and then in the final number, "A Midsummer Night's Dream" where the highest level of students performed. They were magnificent. They leapt higher, their backs straighter, their hands held with just the right angle of suspension. A. was magnificent as well. At 11, she was one of the youngest dancers in the final performance, leading the bugs across the stage around the Bug King.

But through it all, I was so sad and uncomfortable. It began with the first chubby girl in tights and deepened when the next chubby girl fell flat in the middle of the stage.

Ballet is cruel, I thought. What evils of our society have worked their way in me that I feel pity for such children, just knowing they are the brunt of secret criticism, silent judgment; gossip delivered through the nod of a head, the narrowing of the eyes. The fat crows.

What psychological damage was done to the chubby girl who fell in front of an audience of 3000 adoring family and friends? At what point will the teachers not advance her to the next level, cancelling her out not because of her abilities, but because she hasn't grown lean and bony; because she now has breasts large, round, and heavy? She is womanly and beautiful, but not a dancer -- doll-like and slender.

There were chubby boys, too, but throughout the performance, the boys received the loudest applause, the wildest cheers even though, just like the crows of the night before, they merely hopped and marched and scurried from one side of the stage to the other. Except for the one boy, the Bug King, the featured dancer of the final performance. He could leap. He could flutter his feet beneath him with every spring. He could spin and stretch and fly like no one else.

All the rest were crows defending their positions, establishing themeselves as the ones to watch, hoping to be like the Bug King -- able to eat his cherries effortlessly.

Survival of the fittest. Darwin's ballet. The black noise of madness.