Typical Day
Angelina Pirouette hooks her ankle on the wooden practice bar and stretches. You can do this, she tells herself. You have to. Tonight is the night. Don't be afraid. It won't happen again.
Six months ago, she'd caught what seemed like her lucky break: performing with Skinned Calf, an experimental modern dance company downtown. She'd thought the company's name was kinda gross, and they didn't pay much; after three years of fruitless auditioning post-college, however, Angelina wasn't about to say no.
Sometimes you have to know when to say no, thinks Angelina as she stretches out her other leg on the bar. Gotta focus. Tonight is the night. It will not happen again.
Dancing with Skinned Calf seemed worth it for the exposure—even though she had to dance in front of a fountain of fake blood that, to the choreographer, symbolized the horrors of the meat industry, or was it the horrors of war? It sorta changed depending on what the choreographer had watched on MSNBC that morning. Whatever it symbolized, that blood fountain had turned Angelina's lucky break into a very unlucky break indeed.
Slipping in a pool of fake blood, thinks Angelina. Breaking my leg in two places, because the stage manger put the pressure too high in the blood fountain.
As she does a split of the floor, she can't quite get the terrible images out of her head, red tinted corn syrup spewing everywhere just as she went into a leap, the awful feeling of her leg sliding away from her, the pop pop of her bone breaking.
"Good this morning? Yes?" says Ivo Vanderbaaken in his thick Danish accent.
"What? Oh, fine, Ivo," mutters Angelina, startled to see her current choreographer unexpectedly standing over her.
Really, Angelina had been incredibly lucky. Some dancers get an injury and they can never dance again. Not only had Angelina been able to recover, but none other than Ivo Vanderbaaken had been watching the whole thing from the audience. Ivo was a mega-star choreographer in the European dance/theatre scene. His recent piece about talking mushrooms had been the sensation of a festival in Vienna.
"I like your dancing. And I like the way you handle pain," Ivo had said, after he'd tracked her down at the hospital that night. "Your pain is beautiful. You will be perfect tortured mushroom when I bring piece to NY next year."
"Man, Europeans are freaky," thinks Angelina as she looks up at Ivo, his shaggy blond hair framed by a mushroom hat that he wore for general inspiration. Even though she thinks he's kooky, Angelina loves Ivo. Having a paid gig with an internationally renowned choreographer is a lifelong dream. Coming off of an injury with a guaranteed gig is the gift of a lifetime.
"We rehearse now, yes?" Ivo cries to the room. Angelina and all the other dancers who'd been warming up snap to attention.
Ivo might be kind of a loopy dude, but he takes his work very seriously. He doesn't think anything of cutting dancers who aren't bringing their A game. Just last week he'd dismissed Antwayn yelling, "You are not sexy mushroom! You are sloppy mushroom! Out! Out of my studio!"
The music begins and Angelina goes into the routine, her body weaving seamlessly with the other dancers. God, I love this, she thinks as she rolls over another dancer's back and goes into a twirl. Angelina is never happier than when she's dancing. For a few minutes, the stress of world drops away. Ivo's choreography is gorgeous, innovative, and challenging in all the right ways. She's in the moment, in sync with music, her body, the Universe itself. It's beautiful...it's magical...it's—
A body slams against Angelina's leg. She falls in slow motion thinking, No! No! Not again! Her body collides with the floor, and she hears the music stop. The faces of the other dancers crowd around her.
Ivo's face bursts through the crowd. "You hurt, Angelina?"
"No," says Angelina, hoping that it's actually true. She slowly rises to her feet and breathes a deep sigh of relief to find that everything feels okay.
"What is this, Angelina? You fall in someone else's show, I think is beautiful. You fall in my show, you never work for me again."
"It wasn't her fault," pipes in Eva. "Marissa missed her mark...."
"At least I don't look fat in my leotard," snaps Marissa.
"I heard that," pipes Pablo.
"Ivo, I'm sorry," Angelina tries to say.
"Silence!" bellows Ivo. "Are you little kindergartener mushrooms? Or are you professional dancer mushrooms? Tonight, is my NY debut. If you are not all the perfect mushrooms I have choreographed, I will devour you. I will eat you like the truffles I put on my cornflakes."
Later that night, Angelina can barely contain her nervousness. Her stomach turns over and over again. This isn't a case of butterflies. It's a case of caterpillars. Like those big hairy caterpillars that sting you. The murmur of the audience fills the backstage area, and Angelina is convinced that she's going to puke. I'm going to hurl. I'm going to hurl big hairy caterpillars all over this weird mushroom costume.
The music begins.
The lights come up.
She steps out on stage, and then...
As if suddenly teleported, Angelina finds herself blinking in front of an audience that's roaring appreciation. She can barely remember the performance, but she knows it went flawlessly. She's never in her entire life felt so completely happy.
Ivo hops on stage, beaming and doffing his mushroom hat to the crowd. He joins hands with Angelina and the girl next her to take a bow with a company.
"Sorry if I was big jerk this morning," he whispers in Angelina's ear.
"No problem," she whispers back. "One question though...."
"What is it?"
"Do you seriously put truffles on your Cornflakes?"