Like many California municipalities, Mesa Grove was 99 percent suburb and one percent ’urb. Sunlight, glare, and golf were the words most often associated with the place, which in its early life was a backwater resort with hotels for tourists and vacation homes for people who lived in other parts of the country.
At the bottom of the town’s economic scale were trailer park dwellers, mostly retirees but with a sprinkling of working class folks. At the top of the money-coated totem pole was a monstrous megabuck movie star’s home that was larger than most airport terminals.
Eventually, a real city emerged, with all that implies, including tract houses filled with upwardly mobile families who wanted their progeny to get college degrees. This meant that the College of the Palms could attract and hire a young teacher, Giselle Mains, to institute a program of ballet and modern dance.
Spirited, dedicated, and talented, Giselle was able to take a ragtag conglomeration of not-quite-adults and mold them into a company of performers who acted like true professionals. Because of her leadership, each semester’s class displayed energy, excitement, and that essential part of any dance troupe, esprit de corps.
A story in the college newspaper described Giselle in this manner: “Hers is a small job: all she has to do is assess the ability of every student; cast all roles in the dances; prepare and oversee a rehearsal schedule; choreograph the dances to accommodate the capabilities of each cast member; work with the stage crew in the design of sets and lighting; advise on costumes, publicity, and marketing; produce and direct the show; and supervise a few dozen more things that are not readily apparent to the casual viewer.” A small job, indeed.
Her most recent recital explored the universality of emotion and desire. The primary dance, entitled “Cerebral Sentries,” was serious, moody, and eerie, but ultimately uplifting.
Opening night was a rousing success, but in the early hours of the next morning, the lead dancer in “Cerebral Sentries” fell violently ill. There was some discussion of dropping that number from next evening’s show but a former student who had been at the opening performance asked if she could step into the role. The woman, Riesa Tulser, learned the choreography in a day-long session working with Giselle.
Since most of the performers in this piece were often creating stage pictures that led the viewer’s eye to the lead dancer, success depended on Riesa finding the proper stage locations at the right moments. “Hitting your marks,” it’s called.
Everyone expected Riesa to simply glide through the choreography and strike the appropriate poses. Just learning the positions and hitting them on time would be accomplishment enough. To hope for fluid movement and dynamic tension in her execution of the dance would be demanding too much. But Riesa decided to give a complete performance.
Members of the dance and theater arts departments crowded into the wings of the theater to watch the dance. Was this a train-wreck in the making? About halfway into the piece, Riesa made a turn on one foot and didn’t complete the move. In the parlance of dancers, she “fell off” the turn. Now what? Would doubt intrude on her? If she lost her confidence, would the rest of the presentation be disrupted?
And then an extraordinary thing happened. Riesa seemed to draw power from within herself and was able to dispatch this dynamism to every muscle and sinew in her body, and then to radiate it to every person sitting in the auditorium. Her movements were sharp and clearly defined. She hit her marks bang-on with confidence and pride.
Riesa gained intensity as she moved through the dance. She went beyond merely making pretty images on the stage and seemed to become one of the intellectual sentinels of the title. It was a performance that truly deserved the term “breathtaking.” Choreographer and dancers had combined to produce a work that burned with white-hot splendor.
At its conclusion, the whoops of joy from Riesa’s fellow performers matched the thunder of adulation and admiration from the audience.
After the curtain calls, a beaming Giselle threw her arms around Riesa and both had tears in their eyes. “You were amazing,” Giselle told her and then turned to the swirling mass of people on stage to say, “The whole company came up with performances that were bigger and grander than ever! Everyone was magnificent, and Riesa was astonishing!”
As the cast hugged family members and friends who congregated with them backstage, people couldn’t help noticing that the dancers’ costumes were spattered with red droplets. With a shock, they realized it was blood.
The reason Riesa had fallen off the turn was that her rehearsal routine had resulted in the formation of blood blisters on her feet and they popped during her movements. Somehow she fought past the pain to create a beautiful performance, even as each successive spin sent more blood flying across the stage.
Riesa was a primary focus of attention in the exuberant post-show celebration. At first glance, she appeared drained by her recent outpouring of energy. A closer look revealed her to be in her own world, serene, reserved, and protected by a cloak of inner resolve. As dancers and audience members streamed past her, she politely acknowledged the stunning success she had achieved.
“I just hope I didn’t ruin the costumes,” she said while her feet were being bandaged.
On the floor nearby were her once-white shoes, now stained a color somewhere between Burgundy and Bordeaux.
Excerpted from the collection, Your Panties are Broadcasting on my Frequency.