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Lark Ascending

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MEET THE WRITERS

MEET THE WRITERS

Eric E. Wallace

The silence was exquisite. Amy loved how the expanse of virgin snow seemed to hold the air in thrall, breathless. She slowed, stopped. The slight swish of her skis ceased. Her soft exhalations grew quieter. From the side of the trail, a branch cracked, clumps of snow mule-thumped, a raven grated. Stillness again. Above the white expanse, a morning alpenglow reached out, yearning, to the horizon. The air quivered with possibilities. Amy resumed skiing, feeling perfect rhythm, perfect balance. To be a dancer, she thought, is to dance in all things, in all ways, at all times. On stage and in the studio, of course, and not just in the pieces, but in the classes, the stretching, the exercises, the repetitive slow building of the choreography, even in the tiredness, the aches. To walk, no matter where, with poise, with a lightness of step, testing gravity, always ready to loat if gravity miraculously no longer resists. And the arms, oh the arms. Consummate instruments of grace and power. Cross-country skiing made a ine counterpoint to her dancing. It was a diferent way to respect her muscles, her breathing, her bearing. A time to combine exercise with contemplation. Today she was deep into thinking about next month’s solo, a new work she was creating herself. She loved being a member of the company, blending into the whole, the luscious synchronicity of the ensemble pieces. But the solo, dancing to her own design — the choreography, her costume, the lighting, all of it — that was reaching toward heaven. Her piece was about unfulilled longing. She was thrilled with the music she’d chosen, a romance for violin and orchestra beautifully suggesting a soaring bird. It spoke to her so intimately she rarely heard it without tears emerging. The raven, the black-feathered trickster, rasped again.

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Janelle. Jet-black hair, lithe sensuality, the newest dancer in the company. When you meet someone for the irst time, occasionally there’s an immediate mutual dislike, an instinctive antipathy. That was true with Janelle. Amy couldn’t igure it out. They weren’t really rivals. They weren’t even in the same works on the program. But from the start they simply didn’t like each other. In classes and at rehearsals, when they couldn’t avoid each other, they coldshouldered, they bristled. Just thinking of Janelle now soured the morning. Amy picked up her pace, almost ready to turn around. There was a crunching in the shrubbery, an eruption of snow, a huge, lumbering brown igure emerging in front of her, smelling of rotten leaves, snorting steamy gray breath. Amy linched, twisted. One binding didn’t yield. One Achilles tendon did. Dramatically. Later she described hearing a sound like a gunshot, falling, thinking someone had ired at the moose, instead hitting her left leg. She remembered the glacial kiss of the snowbank, the savage pain, tears freezing on her cheeks, the irrational thoughts of that this was jealous subterfuge by that trickster Janelle, the solo ruined. She didn’t much remember the helpful skiers, the trip to the hospital, the imaging or the surgery. Casts, crutches, a ridiculously-ugly pneumatic walking boot and the long weeks required for therapy and healing: all meant there was no way Amy could participate in the dance concert. Beyond morose, she hobbled about as little as necessary, retreated to her apartment, was rude to her roommate, sank into herself. She did not visit the dance studio. However, many of the dancers in the company came to her, commiserating, recalling their own past injuries and how they bounded back, danced again. They tried to make Amy laugh with normally-unfunny stories of broken arms, twisted knees, perverse dislocations, burns from the looring, and, in one case, lacerations from a tumble through an unforgiving backdrop. Everyone tried not to talk about how rehearsals were proceeding without her. Amy, her recovering leg propped on a suede ottoman, didn’t inquire. She watched snowlakes drift past the window and struggled not to relive her last moments on the trail. One morning, without invitation, Janelle showed up. She removed her parka and put it on an armchair. There was very little sign of the tall, athletic

woman in dirty unitards. Today she looked like a gypsy. She wore a pufysleeved white blouse and a frilly multicolored skirt. A big copper pendant dangled from her neck. A beaded headband fought to restrain her long black hair. She was wearing a spicy perfume; Amy guessed Windsong. Dancers were supposed to avoid distracting scents in the studio. There, the joke was, it was eau de sweat. Amy craved that now. Not this sweet stuf. Janelle thrust a bouquet of lowers at her and perched on the ottoman, dangerously close to the injured leg. Amy forced a brief, wan smile and plopped the lowers indiferently on a side table. Was this maddening woman here to lord it over her? “Rehearsals are going well…” Janelle said, her voice annoyingly amiable. Amy stared at her. God, she thought, she’s breaking rule number one: don’t rub it in. Janelle went on. “…but we miss you, all of us do. They’ve had to move Sharon and Candy up to cover your place in the ensembles…”

That’s right, turn the screw… “But then there’s your solo…” The black hair danced on its own. “Yeah, well that’s done now, isn’t it?” Amy tried not to snarl. She wasn’t entirely successful. Janelle smiled awkwardly. “I’ve been thinking about that, and I’ve been wondering if — ” “ — you hardly need my permission, do you?” Amy glared at the ceiling. “The solo’s up for grabs. Take it.” She paused. “Thanks for coming.” She shifted her foot. It bumped Janelle’s thigh. Janelle slid quickly sideways, stood. “Sorry. Well then…” She turned and began rustling into her parka. Another gust of perfume. Amy wrinkled her nose. She closed her eyes. A long silence. She heard the parka drop back onto the chair. More silence. She looked up. Janelle was studying her. “I don’t know why it’s this way between us, Amy” she said softly. She pushed back her errant hair. “There’s no reason is there?” Amy shrugged. “None I can think of.” Janelle sighed and shook her head resignedly. “I know somehow we got of on the wrong foot, but…” She stopped, stricken. “Oh jeez, I’m sorry. I didn’t think…” She bit her lower lip. “…on the wrong foot?” Amy started to laugh.

Janelle snorted. Amy choked and sneezed. They laughed loudly together. When the mirth settled, Janelle sank back onto the ottoman, reached for Amy’s hand. “I have a plan,” she said. She explained. Amy listened, asked questions, nodded, smiled. There wasn’t much time, but it just might be possible if they worked on it during every free moment. Three weeks later, at the company’s winter concert, a sellout audience applauded bravura ensemble works, trios and a quartet. But it was a seven-minute piece, a ‘solo for two,’ which people were still talking about as they bundled up and shivered out into the cold, star-illed night. The program notes said one of the dancers, injured in a skiing accident, had insisted the show must go on. The work was titled Amy’s Dream. Complete darkness. A narrow spotlight beam faded up on a front corner of the stage. A young woman, dressed in street clothes, dozed in a wheelchair, her left leg elevated and bandaged below the knee. Low orchestral chords, soft, tentative. The woman, her eyes still closed, raised her head, dreamt. A single violin began a long, ethereal lutter, rising, falling, seeking. The lighting brightened. A black-haired woman in a lowing white gown shimmered into view, circled the wheelchair, leaned tenderly towards the dreamer, whirled away in bigger and bigger ovals. She slowed, claimed the stage and seemingly the very air above it, moving with contemplative grace and lyricism. And longing. The tempo of the music increased. In a kinetic tour de force, the dreamdancer leapt, battled with gravity, ran against imaginary walls, fell, rose, spun, reached high, lung herself low. She rose again, approached the wheelchair, hesitated, pirouetted into darkness. The orchestra murmured introspectively. The violin melody soared higher and higher. The dreamer in the wheelchair shuddered, opened her eyes. Her arms lifted, wove languid shapes in the air. Her head and torso swayed. Her hands stole to the bandage, unwound a ribbon of white, spiraled it out and upwards, rippling it in slow, sensual movements. At the melody’s ecstatic peak, her arms rose joyfully above her head. In a burst of light, the dream-self reemerged, danced around the wheelchair,

gestured lovingly at the dreamer, glided backwards, turned, led, ran higher and higher up a long ramp, leapt forward, vanished. The high, sweet notes thinned, faded away. The ribbon fell. The single spotlight beam narrowed. The young woman in the wheelchair slowly lowered her arms, smiled inwardly and closed her eyes. Darkness. A storm of applause. Janelle stood beside the wheelchair as she and Amy acknowledged the standing ovation. “Friends?” she whispered. Amy reached up and took Janelle’s hand. “Friends.”

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