Clack! The sound filled the space around the body moving in it. The sound seemed to bounce off the old theater’s walls and through the glass and crystal chandeliers hundreds of feet above the stage. Just as the sound finished vibrating throughout the theater, once again, a loud Clack! could be heard throughout the space.
As the second sound vibrated throughout the performance hall, the woman walked over to the edge of the stage. She grabbed onto her skirt as she gracefully sat down, having both her legs off to her right sides with the knees facing left as they curled around her body. She reached down to touch the soles of the toe shoes before checking the box. She then fiddled with the ribbons that winded around her ankles and lower legs as if they were satin snakes, resting delicately on top of her pink-tinted tights, almost seeming to blend into them, creating the illusion of bare skin beneath her outfit.
She then stood up as gracefully as she sat down, the same Clacks! echoing throughout once more but muted. She moved her heads up to her blond hair wrapped tightly into a bun near the back of her neck. Despite the previous movement, there didn’t seem to be a strand out of place. She then moved her hands to the front of her head, nearing her red rose crown pinned to her blond hair by a plethora of bobby pins. As she moved her hands down her body, her hands rest upon her hips. As she adjusted her hands, she felt the soft crushed velvet of her leotard. If she moved her hands down a little further, she could feel where the tulle of her black knee-length skirt met the bright red of her velvet leotard.
As she turned around, watching the skirt billow as the air came beneath it, a Clap! came from behind her, echoing more within the extensive opera stage than throughout the theater. A woman came from behind one of the curtains in the wings. She had on black heels with only an inch or two of a heel that seemed to be the source of the claps permeating through the air from behind. She had on black satin pants that were just about an inch away from the skin, creating a clean, streamlined look. She then had on a deep purple blouse that had flowy sleeves that moved with every step, even as she grasped onto the thin book clasped next to her chest. Her olive-skinned face was framed and embroidered with her hijab that seemed to match her blouse’s color as it covered her hair.
She walked behind Zhanna, crossing the stage towards the grand piano peeking out of the other red-curtained wings. Zhanna turned towards the woman and smiled, showing nearly pearly white teeth that had minor stains on them. Anisa placed her book of sheet music down onto the stand of the piano, letting out a sigh of relief, like the confidence she just projected finally felt real to her, as she turned towards Zhanna.
As she turned towards her, Anisa breathed in and let out a long “Ahhh” as she looked around the stage and the theater. “I must say I don’t think I will ever get sick of looking around this place.”
Zhanna smirked, seeming to morph her entire face to reflect the placement of her lips, replying, “Do you mean being up on the stage itself or just in the theater alone?”
“Well. I guess it’s about being up on the stage itself. There’s just so much-.” Anisa paused, seeming to take the time to let her eyes wander around the venue once more, letting her gaze sweep over the velvet seats on the loge, raising her head higher and higher until she reached the seats in the corner of her eyes up high in the balconies. The semi-circle position of the balconies creating a 180-degree image in Anissa’s head. And that work of architecture wasn’t even the most wonderous found in Teatro Alla Scala. That honor would probably go to the intricate designs sculpted and painted onto the celling who highlighted and complimented the multiple glass chandeliers dangling from it.
After taking another deep breath, Anisa started back up again. “I usually don’t get the chance to take in what this place looks like. Pianists aren’t usually allowed up here or even out there.”
Zhanna tilted her head and nodded. “It is probably likely that Maestro Padovesi isn’t allowing his orchestra to be looking up from the orchestra space during a performance.”
Anisa clasps her hands behind her back, squeezing her shoulders back to stretch out her arms and fingers, managing to groan out, “I said I usually don’t get the chance to take in the place. I never said that I never am allowed to be up here. We’re usually up here for concert performances. But usually, my mind is focused on making sure I don’t mess up rather than having the time to look around at where all of the people are.”
As Zhanna mirrored Anisa’s stretching, focusing on her arms and shoulders as well, she was able to ask her follow-up question, “So, speaking of hardasses, how is Maestro Concertatore Costa?”
Anisa then rolled her eyes, simultaneously groaning, “That man is going to work me to the bone by the time I am done, I swear. He’s just waiting for a mistake. I just hope I get all of them before he’s there.”
Zhanna lifted up her right arm, pointing her finger towards Anisa, nodding her head. “Tell me about it. It’s like I’m weighed under with two different pressures on each of my shoulder that connects via chains to weigh done my ankles as well, keeping my whole body in this sense of stiff perfectionism to not make them too loud to let people notice.”
“And there’s no way you’re not going to get noticed. It’s just mitigating the number of stares and looks you normally look already your way, filled with all of the thoughts and feelings of them judging you.” Anisa replied as Zhanna moved around the space once more, resulting in muted Clacks! every time her feet reached the floor again.
“Don’t forget-“Zhanna paused as she turned away from Anisa, feet in motion as they were placed just right to allow Zhanna to have enough momentum to swing back away towards Anisa. “that people are always thinking you’re a- “She paused once more as she felt a rush of energy throughout her body, building as she chased her feet into a small leap in the air, finishing the leap with a swing of her left arm into the air, leaning forward. She then moved her right leg circularly around her left into the air, leaning forward. She then moved her right leg circularly around her left to face Anisa once again, “agent of chaos, designed to bring down the fall of the West. I know my training was provided by the Soviet government, but that doesn’t mean I’m automatically a spy here to collect information on the inner workings of an arts organization or a ballet company. Just because some of my roles require seductive acting doesn’t mean that I was trained in the art to be able to assassinate Italian ballet dancers or art directors.”
The shoe came down on the floor once again, this time with a heavier Clack! than the last. A heavy sigh filled the stage as Zhanna’s hands came up to the back of her neck, grasping it near her windpipe, as she dipped her head, seeming to shake the tightly placed bun and crown out of their positions.
As Zhanna felt hair against the back of her neck, she tensed. She seemed to grasp and claw her way throughout her hair, still somehow doing it delicately and gently as not to mess up any more of her hair. Her muscles started to tense and clench up as she forced herself to not start shaking as panic began to fill through her.
Anisa looked at her friend in her state and rushed off the stage into the wings, trying to not step wrong onto the heels, now making louder claps than Zhanna’s before.
Zhanna tried to control herself, remembering the lessons put upon her by her Madams back at the Bolshoi Academy. One must stay in total control. One must maintain perfectionism throughout their lives, both on and off the state. Dancers at the Bolshoi were representatives of the Soviet Union throughout the world and must act like them. All of those moments where she would have to force the shaking to stop, where she put in so much effort to look effortless, where she tried to avoid the yelling that she was weak and pathetic and stupid by her teachers. She tried to forget those moments because if she did, she didn’t think she could function as an adult in society ever again, especially here. No, the only solution is to lock that all away and hope to pretend those feelings of hurt didn’t ever happen.
“You’re doing it again,” Anisa interjected as she held onto a bottle of water. “Stop it!”
Zhanna snapped her head back up, looking sheepishly at Anisa. Anisa finished walking over to her, putting a hand on her back, gently guiding her down to the stage floor. She then moved the hand up towards Zhanna’s shoulder, wrapping the hand around it and pulling Zhanna closer. As she did so, she used her free hand to hand her the water bottle.
“Here,” Anisa said, in a gentler manner than her previous interjection. “You looked like you were on the verge of spiraling again, and I can’t let you beat yourself up. At least, I can’t let you beat yourself up without me being there. Shared self-pity and all.”
That stirred a light chuckle out of Zhanna, Anissa feeling the light shaking under her arm from it. “Well, I guess that both of our training has made us a bit messed up.” Zhanna concurred, shifting under Anisa’s arm, leaning into her and trying not to mess up her hijab’s placement on her head, neck, and shoulders.
“You feeling better?” Anisa asked, looking down at Zhanna.
“Yes,” Zhanna remarked, looking up into Anisa’s eyes. “The real question is, how are you doing?”
“Why do would you ask that?” Anisa commented, looking a little amused with the twinkle in her eyes.
“Because a friendship isn’t just a one-sided affair. Your job isn’t just to comfort me without receiving any comfort or care in return from me. I don’t want you to feel pressure or feel put on the spot when you’re right here with me. This is where you should feel safe the most.” Zhanna promised, her words being spoken as if they were as light as air, not bound down the weights befitting them here. “You don’t have to act strong, that somehow you are invincible. You know, the way that you have to be everyone else when we are not alone together. You are allowed to vent to me without my judgment.”
“Aww, that’s so sweet.” Anisa gushed, pulling Zhanna even closer to her side. She could feel the velvet of the red leotard brush up against the purple blouse that had pressed close to her torso. Anisa could feel Zhanna shaking under her. She looked at her with a concerned look. “Are you cold? You’re shivering more than usual.”
Zhanna shifted again, her eyes turning towards her arms, noticing the many goosebumps along her skin. “Huh, I guess so. I think I kind of forgot about them. I guess my St. Petersburg genes just make me ignore anything that makes my body unwillingly react against the cold.” She then heard Anisa’s laughter as she wiggled her way out of Anisa’s shoulder. “Ha. Ha. My Soviet Union jokes are a riot, I know. Please don’t hold back your applause.” She paused as she stretched her arms to try and reach her toes, her body smoothly going forward as if she was a flimsy piece of paper. She rested in that position as she could feel Anisa shift behind her to get up from her sitting position. Anisa’s heels’ claps followed her as she seemed to walk back towards where the piano was.
After resting for about a minute in the stretch, Zhanna folded back up and scrunched up her legs to be able to get into a crouching position to be able to stand up, reaching down to grab the water bottle. She then went back off towards the wings with the water bottle in her hands as she went to get a ballet sweater to put on.
Anisa leaned over to move the piano bench, making a scraping noise on the marley placed on the stage. Before she sat down, Anisa awkwardly shook her feet one by one. She then walked around to sit on the bench, making the same scraping noise as before as she pushed the chair back in to sit closer to the piano.
She opened the cover, revealing beautifully maintained and polished piano keys almost as if the piano had just been bought, despite her maestro touting that the piano was a gift for reopening the La Scala after it was partially destroyed and in need of repairs after World War II.
After fidgeting her fingers, Anisa started to do some warm-ups, just as Zhanna had done earlier while she had been stretching. The piano’s rich sound began to fill the stage and the performance hall, with each key contributing to the harmony. Anisa’s fingers were outstretched will being tightly close to the other fingers in their respective hand, the previous fidgeting of the fingers contributing to the allegro of the sound that was being produced, almost compelling you to dance along with the music like a siren’s hypnotic singing that was both beautiful and deadly.
Playing the piano could make you forgot all of your troubles, in Anisa’s personal opinion. Heck, doing anything you enjoy can suck you into the world presented by your work that doesn’t contain the constant burdens presented in an imperfect world. Sometimes, it can be hard to do so when there is so much pressure placed upon you, whether self-inflicted or inflicted by others, whether through their body or their words. Anisa always felt like she would get stares from people because of the choices she decided to make.
Back in Tunisia, sometimes people were confused by why she spent so much time practicing music, particularly the piano. There was just something about the piano that just drew her to it, maybe how it could be found in so many different forms of music from classical to jazz to many others. The versatility of it and the beauty of its various sounds made it irresistible to her. So, every opportunity that she could get, she would find time to practice. She never understood people who complained about having to practice. Yes, it could get repetitive. But when you are invested in making something sound good, you could wave off the repetition and the pain to produce a well-received product that knew it would make all of the effort worthwhile.
She begged her parents to purchase a piano to be able to use at home to practice on when she wasn’t in music class. She knew that music is what she wanted to dedicate her life to. She had heard about all of the great composers in Europe and neighboring countries like Algeria and Egypt and wanted, first, to be able to play their music. Second, to be able to contribute to the world musical canon in her own way. She would have never thought she would be good enough to get into the Milan Conservatory to study piano and earned a diploma from there.
But, as she mentioned before, her choice to study piano and go abroad to do so put so much on her. It involved her having to be her only encourager besides the letters she would receive back home. No one seemed to want to try and help her, and more likely, they were actively looking for her to screw up, so they had a better reason to be able to yell at her more harshly than at the other more affluent students, most of them being males, had lighter skin tones, and weren’t wearing a symbol of another religion in a Catholic-dominated country, and subsequently society.
She always understood what Zhanna would say when she said she had so much pressure that it felt like she was having weights chained around areas of her body weighing her down, having to fight them as she moved without rattling them to make it seem like more effort was being shown than was allowed. With how much Zhanna discusses literature, as she always says that one must not appreciate only one form of art because understanding more forms of art allows you to find the connections between art to use in your own creativity, she wonders why Zhanna hasn’t made a reference to her description of weighted chains to the ones that tie Marley and Scrooge together through the lands of the living and the dead in A Christmas Carol. Though it probably has to do with the context in which the chain metaphor is used for her and Zhanna as a thing brought upon by others versus self-inflicted chains brought on by their own negative actions in life.
Anisa could hear Zhanna’s clasps as she walked towards her at downstage right where the grand piano was, having just been pushed barely out of where the wings are. It gave the ability to be able to be pushed throughout backstage and not have to inhibit any dancers’ movements from where they needed to be to enter the stage. She came up on Anisa’s left, closest to upstage and where it was most likely she wouldn’t fall if she moved too far away from Anisa and the piano.
“Don’t lean yourself onto the piano,” Anisa drawled, as she sat up straight from her hunched position over the piano keys.
“Don’t worry. I won’t. I’m already given enough crap for apparently insulting things when I never intended to.” Zhanna joked, a smile coming over her face as she spoke. The black ballet sweater, more of a wrap, really, was ‘wrapped’ around the upper half of Zhanna’s torso, matching the color and the material of her dance skirt. The wrap fitted itself against Zhanna’s arms, looking like the same material as gauzy black stockings that one would wear under a dress or a skirt when going out for a upscale night on the town when it is a chilly night or when one hasn’t shaven their legs in a while and just don’t want to put in that effort as of that moment.
Zhanna placed her hand onto Anisa’s shoulder, causing her to turn and look up towards the dancer. She smiled as she got a look at her friend once more. “You all warmed up and ready to go?” she asked, determination present in her voice with the way her the tone of her voice dropped.
Anisa looked down at the hand and looked up, nodding. “Let’s give this a go!” she affirmed, her voice’s volume rising, almost as if to not be swallowed by the depth of the theater. She turned back towards the piano, placing her fingers over the key, anticipating the first few movements of her fingers hitting the keys.
She stole a quick glance as Zhanna got into position. Zhanna moved her closely together onto demi pointe, not fully going onto the balls of the pointe shoes. Her hands were above her head, crossed together. Before Anisa even got to start playing the piece, she quickly swept her arms back as she came down from releve into a sort of fourth position with her left foot forward and her right foot back, both flat on the floor. She leaned towards an invisible person, almost as if the Prince was right in front of her. And, then she was off as Anisa began to play.
As the music started in a crescendo, she brought her legs together, stepping forward as her torso straightened back up, almost rolling her hips, and sweeping her arms and body in the process. Then, she stepped backwards in the same sweeping motion before she rose up on one foot to turn. The dance was modeled after the flamenco, so each step was smooth and fluid and thankfully it allowed for more of a range of movement than other dances. After every turn, she was able to lean back, sweeping her body and arms in motion as she did so. The good thing about ballet is that repetition is key to a variation, so most of the movements were performed more than once, most likely performed once on each side.
She was stamping her feet, turning about as to allow the dance skirt to open up around her. But just as she was about to repeat the turn once more, her feet caught on the step, tripping her up as they tangled around her each other trying to move to the next step. She gestured her arms in a pronounced way as to get the attention of Anisa. The piano music stopped abruptly as Anisa turned her head to look at Zhanna.
“Sorry,” Zhanna said, looking a bit embarrassed that she messed up on a simple transition. “Start again?”
Anisa nodded, “Of course”. She turned back around, allowing Zhanna to move back to her position just a little bit stage right of center and a little bit downstage as to allow for other dancers to be behind her, as they would if the rest of the dancers in the variation were here.
Zhanna nodded as she moved into position, quickly going through her pre-solo arm movement before the pronounced vibration of the piano started up once more. The dancer had to flow between sharp and flowing movements throughout the dance as they would be right next to each other in the sequence. A sharp turn followed by the smooth opening of the body before one must spring into the next turn this time in the opposite direction.
The breather came as the rhythm behind the music become hearable, allowing the dancer to stomp onto the floor in time with the music. During those moments is when Anisa and Zhanna felt most in sync with each other, even if Zhanna wasn’t hearing all of the instruments necessary to play this particular musical piece. Normally, one would hear the mix of classical orchestral instruments such as violins and flutes along with Spanish folk instruments like castanets to accompany the performance. The rich tones of the string instruments allowed for one to hear what could almost be called “sensual” music, not just in its sound but in the movement it invokes, particularly invoking flamenco-like moves as Zhanna was doing.
But, Anisa had to try and compensate for all of those sounds that made it sound like a flamenco-style ballet variation all using one instrument, one that is traditionally used for accompaniment unless with ballet choreography set to piano solos. The only reasons she thinks she is succeeding is because Zhanna is probably hearing the rest of the instrumentation in her head, such as the castanets when it comes to the circular stomps and because Zhanna’s mind is trying to balance two different things in her head: which movements come next and how she is able to transition between them, and how to make it so she is performing, not just going through the motions of the steps without the artistry accompanying it.
After repeating the pique turns and arm sweeps, Zhanna came once more to the stomps, seeming to imitate the type of sound she made earlier during her confession about the pressure that both of them feel. Just as the music crescendoed after the lulling rhythm accompanying the stomps, Zhanna once again returned to a turn, but this one required to spin into a lunge, immediately moving her front foot into two small leaps to shift the directions of her hips, all the while her arms continue to move up sharply and come down at a much slower pace.
She moved with confidence and grace, alternating between walking and galloping as she moved. Occasionally, she turned around herself, allowing the skirt to billow beneath her once more. Once back in her original position, she repeated that contrast once more, sharpness followed by more playful leaps.
The last few notes were played by Anisa as the piece finally ended. She didn’t know if she had ever played that intensely ever before. But, she knew that it worth it for both herself and for Zhanna if it had gone well. It felt like her spirit and mind had finally returned into her body after those nearly three long minutes of pure concentration. The only sensations that she had felt were her fingers reaching and pressing down upon the keys. But, the rest of her body’s aches and pains seemed to finally come back to her as if her brain finally reconnected to the rest of her nerves.
While Anisa had felt sensations as her fingers came down upon the piano, the rest of the sensations had seemed to be cut off to her. The aches throughout her bones and muscles came upon her almost suddenly, filling her brain with the idea that maybe she needs to stretch those out now. She could start to feel the sweat all over her skin, coming from between her fingers, uncomfortably beneath her blouse, pants, and hijab, and sweating down from underneath her hijab to gather on her forehead before dripping down to the rest of her face and body.
She didn’t understand how she’s sweating so much when she has only been sitting down for the past ten minutes compared to Zhanna’s frequent movements. But, she guesses that she was frantically moving her upper body around as to match and keep up with the movements of her friend. As the pianist and the main instrumentist for Zhanna’s dancing, she was just as responsible for setting up the pace of Zhanna’s dancing through her use of tempo. The way of the dancer and the musician is one of being mutual towards each other. The movements of one directly affects the music of the other as each tries to match up with their partner. If one goes slow, then the other follows.
While each piece of music has an expected tempo on the sheet, it can be ultimately decided by the pianist and the dancer which tempo they want to choose. And that can be even more true when outside forces don’t try to press atop on and sever the relationship for their own perceived visions of how this type of pair should operate. The relationship is a symbiotic one and when outside, unnatural forces get in the way of that relationship, those forces are their own self-destruction when the people in that relationship respond with seemingly irrational words and feelings towards them.
If you remove all the flowers from a field, why should one be shocked when the honeybees and the rest of the pollinators cause what could only be unnatural chaos for the removal of that staple of their natural order?
When one encourages this relationship, they should be working on strengthening the already-existing bond, as the mutualistic benefits come through to all parties impacted by the dancer and the pianist, one the star on the stage and the other the backbone behind the scenes, even more than the percussion section can be. But somehow, the ones in power seem to disregard these backbones as replaceable pieces as something that is easily replicated by others put upon with the same, required relationship.
Zhanna always speaks on this in those mantras she says to herself, the ones that the Bolshoi Academy has placed in her head. They don’t seem to care about the damage they have brought upon her and if they notice that damage, they will say that she is the truly faulty one when they are the source of her mental pain. They are the source of her anxiety and her soon-to-be-possible depression. The thing that they have, the one that is viewed as replaceable, is born solely because of the mental pain and anguish that the ones around them have wrought on them. Not so much their families as indicated by how happy Zhanna is everytime she gets to call them, or she gets a letter from them.
But, their mental pain and anguish is viewed as a steppingstone to be the ‘greats’ as their teachers or superiors keep reiterating. Why are they the ones who have to keep suffering? They say that they have to suffer to be greats. But, their lives are full of hardships, not just because that’s what life does, but because of who they are.
While Zhanna was in her element when she was learning with people with similar life experiences to her, which doesn’t negate what could be seen as brainwashing, it’s not the same hardships as her life being trained her in Milan. Being trained in a country that is not far from one that turned her now independent country into their own colonial protectorate. The fear of what she has on her head and what that represents to them. All she wants to do is learn, to pursue her passion, to become what she believes to be her best version of herself.
But, she has to not show weakness to people that she should be allowed to because she is the one who is judged more harshly. That sentiment is what her and Zhanna have clasped onto here in Italy as outsiders, as foreigners. If Zhanna ever messed up a step like she did earlier in front of her ballet mistress, she would have been yelled at, somehow the scolding being seem as helpful and not as harmful as it is to her. It’s almost as if they are pushing at them to quit and if they ultimately do, they will fake it as not being their fault, despite everything that is shown to Anisa to have been their fault in that matter.
