Netflix Review: "Restless Creature. Wendy Whelan." Learning about Loss.
Girls gymnastics is bad.
But Ballet is the worst.
Wendy Whelan was a dancer
At NYC Ballet for thirty years.
In the Chorus, Soloist and Principal.
The works.
I wouldn’t wish that career path on anyone’s daughter.
I lived in the South End of Boston
Where everyone (almost)
was gay
Or a Ballet dancer (or both).
You couldn’t help but date a ballet dancer in Boston.
I asked one girl
how she got to Boston Ballet
And she said
she was known for great balance
And I thought that was the coolest.
(It’s like speed. You can’t teach it.)
This was the mid 90’s
when Wendy Whelan’s
Long Figure was already a decade
on the New York Stage.
This girl was a long one too.
Here’s why Ballet is the worst:
Because you take this group of girls when they are 3
And by the time they are 5
It’s clear who’s the best.
This one is different.
So she practices and competes
for 15 years or so.
And she has roughly always
been the best
In any given group.
She’s trained everyday. Really.
Everyday for 15 years.
And there are 30 of these girls for a call.
At Boston Ballet.
Invite only.
And they line up.
And the director walks down the line.
Quickly.
Saying “Yes,” to a dozen girls.
And the rest go home.
Before they even dance a step.
Wrong body type.
Might just be a hair off.
But you don’t even get to dance.
And that was your shot.
Ballet is the worst
(may as well be a model...
seems like more of a fair shake).
__________________
You could pick a ballet dancer out
From across the Boston Commons
Or in a crowd.
I don’t know if it’s still the case,
But at the time
Girls walked as close to first position
as they could.
Very much duck-like.
Exaggerated duck-like.
And what happens over time
(my friend explained to me)
Was that the muscles develop
in this sideways to the hip position.
First position.
She was small. Just muscle.
She was the first woman
I ever knew who you could pick up
By her buttocks.
The girls reminded me
of Chinese women
Who bound feet.
Some of the girls had athletic feet.
Banged up and muscular.
The hairline was an issue too.
The girls pull their hair back
So tightly
For so many years.
It breaks and thins at the hairline.
Such as it is.
I sat at a party with a soloist.
She was the first person I met
Who couldn’t tell anyone her last name
Because her father
had too much money.
Because where she came from
in Latin America
She’d get kidnapped.
She wasn’t bragging.
It was how she lived.
She wore the smallest bikini
I’d ever seen.
Probably to date,
the smallest bikini ever worn
On a stony New Hampshire beach
(and she’d borrowed it from her mother).
Everyone in the company
roughly hated her.
She smoked what she wanted
(they all smoked).
Ate what she wanted
Did what she wanted.
She was European in her manner.
Confident. Given over.
And always in tune.
Natural.
She liked the sound of Formula One
on Sundays
and never even thought
of starving herself.
It seemed like she was handed Everything?
She had a black sports car
Out front of her apartment
With a zillion orange tickets on it
from an old boyfriend.
We cut cocaine with his credit card.
Ballet is tough.
The managing an eating disorder
part of it.
That takes a toll.
The film didn’t touch on that
Except for one little scene
towards the end.
The movie also avoided the obvious
Exchange for greatness in Ballet.
The only remedy for which is adoption.
The movie was lovely.
And captured the Humanity.
I’d recommend it.
I wish Wendy Whelan the best.
The glory you achieve
Is equal to the risks you’ve taken
And the agony you’ve suffered.
And that which you have,
Is relative to that which you don’t.
And we all “gonna learn about loss.”
Restless Creature: Now Available on Netflix.
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