Day in the Life of a Ballerina
6:30 AM - My eyes spring open at the first ring of my alarm. I put on my light pink tights, slick my hair back into a tight bun, and throw my 5 pairs of ballet shoes into my bag as I have done every day for the past 15 years. As I leave my house, I wonder why I sacrifice my sleep for such an irrelevant artform.
7:30 AM - I get to the studio and start warming up with the rest of the girls who couldn’t find anything better to do with their lives. We spend an hour doing pliés, tendus, and développés. These moves are almost half a century old and so unimportant that nobody has cared to translate what they mean.
8:30 AM - Pointe class begins. Two whole hours dedicated to hoisting my full body weight onto ten tiny toes. My teacher scolds me because my shoulders are 2 millimeters too high when I turn across the studio. Neck isn’t high enough, hips aren’t turned out enough, core isn’t engaged till you can’t breathe. With each adjustment, I grow more confused; why does my teacher keep telling me how to improve? What is even the point? After all, nobody cares about ballet anymore.
11:00 AM - We are momentarily free from wasting our time doing antiquated movements to grab a quick lunch. On the way to the nearest salad bar, I walked past a Miu Miu storefront. A gaggle of mannequins is decked out in pastel pink tulle with ballet flats on their plastic feet. Am I seeing this right? How could such an unimportant craft have any influence on fashion???
4:00 PM - The box office says that tickets to tonight’s show are sold out. Funny joke! Time to get ready for my performance! I slap on cakey makeup and stab my scalp with a thousand bobby pins. I feel like a whole clown getting ready for the circus, choosing to do this for a living instead of a real job.
6:30PM - I dance the variation I’ve practiced at least 10 times a day. Turns out the box office was not joking! Why are there so many people watching me? Did they accidentally get tickets to the wrong show? Did they mean to go see Timothee Chalamet in Marty Supreme instead?
8:00PM - The curtain has called. The show is over and there are people standing up in rapturous applause. These crazies are throwing flowers on stage and refusing to leave.
Oh well, there must be a logical explanation to all of this, because ballet is irrelevant after all. I guess the standing ovation must’ve been an accident.