I had to do the "Queen" wave to 54,000 people.

As someone else.

And then I fell not once, not twice, but eleven times on stage. But I’ll get to that in a minute.

Credit: iStock by master1305 Author: this is not me, but I did kinda look like that.

Lo these many moons ago, when I was a young ballet dancer, I was hired by the National Ballet of Mexico, which was a big deal. When I won the position, I was a lowly corps de ballet dancer, but I had dreams of one day reaching soloist level. It was my first job in a ballet company, I’d just (nearly) completed my final two years of training at the school connected with the Stuttgart Ballet in Germany. Fresh off the griddle, ready for anything.

I spent the first six months having absolutely no idea what anyone was saying to me, other than extrapolating meaning here and there based on the French I’d taken in school (because French is literally the lingua franca of the ballet world). Thank God ballet is a silent art. I remember the day someone asked me a question and I understood the entire sentence! Learning the way babies do, I had unconsciously absorbed the language. Well, some of it. Most of it still sticks.

The Queen wave came about because I went to see an extravaganza at Azteca stadium in Mexico City that included friends of ours from the Ballet Folklorico. My friend and I were for some odd reason seated in the press box. A very famous Mexican Ranchero singer/actor named Antonio Aguilar rode up to the press box on his horse, microphone in hand, as he told 54,000 people that a special guest had come to see today’s performance.

Me.

Meaning not me, but someone he had mistaken me for. Alicia Alonso, one of the 20th century’s greatest prima ballerinas, a Prima Ballerina Assoluta. She was, in fact, in the city, coaching our company as part of a cultural exchange program between Mexico and Cuba at the time. But she was not at this event.

I was.

And so, Sr. Aguilar trots up on his stallion, and says to the crowd “TODAY WE HAVE A SPECIAL GUEST! PLEASE WELCOME THE PRIMA BALLERINA FROM THE BALLET NACIONALE DE CUBA , ALICIA ALONSO!!” and gestures to me.

I lean forward and say quietly “I’m not Alicia Alonso”. He says “I don’t care who you are, stand up and wave”. And so, like a good girl I stand up, summoning my best HRH Elizabeth Regina wave, as my friend stares at me horrified, mouthing “You are so dead”. Flashes go off. I see my career crumble, completely sure I will be fired and kicked out of the country the next day.

Somehow, the news never got back to the director that this had happened. Or the press realized I was not actually Alicia Alonso, and so decided not to run the story or the pictures. I lived in sick fear for weeks.

Time heals all, or so I thought. Many months rolled by and I finally got my big chance - to learn and perform the Big Swan duet with a wonderful dancer named Jacqueline Fuller, a South African with a fantastic sense of humor and leg extensions I envied. We rehearsed for weeks and finally the premiere came.

As fate would have it, the first performance happened at the Polytechnic Institute in Mexico City. A midsize theater with a round stage that could rotate. Two features of that stage proved my undoing. The first was that, since the machinery to turn the stage was underneath it, of necessity there was a giant hollow space underneath it. An effective echo chamber.

The second downfall was that, prior to that night’s performance, some thoughtful soul had laboriously waxed the stage to perfection. You could practically see yourself in it.

Photo by Donald Giannatti on Unsplash Note: these are USED (read marginally safe) pointe shoes.

I turned out to be the only person that evening with brand new pointe shoes. For the uninitiated, pointe shoes are beautiful pink instruments of torture, and they come out of the box extremely hard and unforgiving. The only way to subdue them is to pound the hell out of them mercilessly on the pavement for quite some time, in order to soften them up. And also to make them as silent as possible when dancing. I didn’t have time to whack the piss out of them before the curtain went up.

Together, stage and shoes enabled the horror that was to come.

Our duet began and we entered the stage from opposite wings. As I proceeded to move through the steps, about fifteen seconds in I went on pointe in an arabesque, and immediately front body slammed onto the ground. The sound was biblical, drowning out the music and reverberating through the theater.

Drawn gasps - sharp, loud and unbidden. As I was face down at the moment, I couldn’t see peoples’ expressions, but the sound said it all. I think some believed I had died. But no, I popped up like toast out of a toaster and kept going.

What was running through my mind at that point was actually relief, because I thought “WELL. The worst has happened - I’ve gotten that out of the way, and now the rest should be easy.” And, strange little me, I actually thought it was kind of funny.

Oh no. Just ten to fifteen seconds later, another move resulted in another face plant, full body contact with the floor, and a thunderous BOOM that shattered the moment. Gasps erupted again, only slightly quieter this time.

And again. And again. And again. I began to imagine I’d fallen into the event horizon of a black hole, that this would never, ever end. I would spend eternity greeting the floor every few seconds.

By the ninth fall, people were no longer gasping in alarm, but gasping for air due to their inability to stop laughing. It had become a Vaudeville act. I could unfortunately see the company director and one of the principal dancers from the Cuban National Ballet, Josefina Méndez, in the front row, doubled over in laughter.

Ten. Eleven.

The duet ended. I was still somehow standing, but my body was numb from the multiple impacts I had endured. The moment felt completely unreal by that point, so I think I was spared the worst of the humiliation. I felt an odd satisfaction of having survived. Jackie and I took our bows to thunderous applause and a standing ovation. Genuine appreciation for a sight few have ever witnessed.

Exiting the stage, I ran to the dressing room, not so much crying as intensely angry. I ripped off my pointe shoes as Ms. Méndez came in, and told her that I was done with ballet, and would attempt to join the modern dance company next door, Ballet Independiente, the next day.

I have to hand to Ms. Méndez, she was quite kind, though I’m pretty sure she’d never seen anything like that on stage. She told me I could be away from ballet for one year only, but after that, it would be impossible to get back on pointe, and my ballet days would be over.

I joined the modern dance troupe - a very strange experience going from ballet to Martha Graham, but I did it. A few years later, I re-entered the ballet world and after a stint in NYC (see The Magical Uptown Cab Ride) won a contract with Colorado Ballet. After a year, I hung up my pointe shoes for good and moved to Los Angeles to pursue music. Buh bye…love ya, mean it.*

I still have them. Little buggers. I keep them to remind me that I never, ever have to put them on again.

*I love all forms of dance, but I have issues with what ballet in particular does to peoples’ bodies. Only a lucky few are physically built to handle it without sustaining lasting injuries.