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Dancer prepares for graceful exit |
BY KRISTA RAMSEY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Tami Alesson |
One moment she is a pretty but saucy child, swaying her shoulders, swinging her hips and elevating her nose. The next, the shoulders are squared and she's marching like the quintessential toy soldier.
She is human putty, taking whatever form her young dancers need in order to model their parts for the Cincinnati Ballet's Nutcracker.
For 17 years, Ms. Alesson has performed with the company, the longest span of any dancer in its history. After nearly 1,000 performances plus teaching, she is not only persevering, but loyal, eager and - especially this year - intense.
For the Dec. 28 matinee Nutcracker is to be her swan song.
The 34-year-old dancer has actually been a swan. And a cat. A flower, floozie, zombie, owl, virgin. Fairies, both good and evil. And she does snow particularly well.
''I like the fact that the company thought I was versatile enough to do a lot of things, a lot of characters,'' she says. ''I was never the person who wanted to be the Sugar Plum Fairy. I wanted to be Drosselmeyer.''
The mysterious and slightly sinister figure who conjures up the nutcracker is, of course, more appealing to a dancer who prefers ''the meaty roles, the blood and guts.''
She has seen her share of both, as an unusually long participant in this art that is part poetry, part triathlon.
Delicious illusion
There have been moments of panic - an elastic strap ripping just as she came off stage, and the seamstress having 16 counts to fix it before Ms. Alesson re-entered.And there have been moments of pure pain. Like many dancers, Ms. Alesson knows the ''pop'' of a calf muscle torn while launching a jump. She has heard bones shatter.
This is the not-so-pretty part, the price for the delicious illusion of flying weightlessly across the stage, floating down from one's partner's arms like a leaf from a tree. Dancers pay their dues in bone spurs, knee surgeries, nerve damage, exhaustion.
To deal with burning muscles, the ballerina tells herself stories or catches the eye of a fellow dancer. ''We exchange just a little look. If the music is a little off-key, that's it. We crack up. It's history,'' she says.
Dancers pass messages back and forth by a highly polished brand of ventriloquism. ''Where are you going after the show?'' Ms. Alesson says in demonstration. Her wide stage smile stays perfectly intact.
The talent came in handy the day Pete Rose beat Ty Cobb's batting record. The company was performing Swan Lake - and checking out the game on monitors backstage. ''I was on stage and we heard this commotion. The next swan behind me said, ''What do you think is going on?''
Still, Ms. Alesson's favorite place has always been on stage.
Leaving a friend
It is hard for her to explain, this love of it. It brought her here from Wilkes-Barre, Pa., a 17-year-old who knew not a soul in Cincinnati. It seduced her out of a medical career.The best moments have gone beyond costume, partner, role. They have transcended indifferent audiences, awkward choreography, resistant characters. They are, at heart, the rush of transcending reality.
On Dec. 28, at ''curtain down,'' it will be a very hard thing to leave. Ms. Alesson decided it was time to retire.
''The ballet has been my best friend,'' she says. ''We've had moments when we hated each other, and times when we loved each other. I can't imagine doing anything else.''
So she will not move far away. She'll continue as the ballet's in-school educational manager and try to learn to love being in the audience.
But her toes will tap out the count, and her shoulders will sway slightly. And, in her heart, she will still take part in the dance.
Krista Ramsey's column appears on Saturdays. Write her at 312 Elm Street, Cincinnati 45202.