Many years ago, I was preparing for a performance of Swan Lake and having a helluva tough time with the White Swan variation, particularly the very first step.

My director and coaches tried to help. Their “help" always boiled down to the importance of “brushing through the first position” before springing up into the rond de jamb, developé. Some days I managed to nail it but, more often than not, I looked like a drunken sailor in pointe shoes.

One day, I had a rehearsal with my dance partner, Bill Pizzuto, a former principal with the Boston Ballet. Bill watched me struggle with that first step. He’d rewind the tape and I’d try again. Things went from bad to worse. Eventually, Bill turned off the music and walked over to me. I was tense and frustrated. He put his hand on my arm and met my gaze.

“Karen,” he said gently, “you are the White Swan. The whole audience has been waiting for you to appear. They’ve waited through a raucous street scene and a fluffy dance from the corps de ballet and now the stage is empty and a hush falls on the audience. You enter in silence and set yourself up center stage. The conductor raises the baton. Everyone is on-edge waiting for you to do this bugger-of-a-step. And what do you do? You brush through your first position.” 

At this, Bill bent forward and pointed to his heels as he brushed and stopped in first position. “This,” he said pointing to the exact point of contact between his two feet, “is the miracle! This is what you’ve trained your whole life to be able to do and now you’re offering it to your audience. This will carry you through the step.”

As Bill talked, I felt the goose bumps rise on my arms and somehow I knew I’d never have a problem with that step again. I couldn’t wait for that private/public moment when I brushed through my first position. I always made a point of feeling my heels come perfectly together as I said silently to my audience, “This is the miracle folks and I’m giving it to you with all the love and sweat that ever poured out of me.” 

“Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing, there is a field. I'll meet you there.”

– Rumi

Bill helped me see that technique — the school of right-doing and wrong-doing — is important only as a means of meeting the public in the field beyond. Technique is the school; artistry is the field. They are your wings, reaching in opposite directions so you can lift yourself and everybody up. The wings are not the bird and they are not you, but they are essential to your flight and your one-of-a-kind gift to the world.

Swan Lake 2001 (partnered with Bill Pizzuto)
Photo: Stuart Nudelman