KNITTERS GO TO THE BALLET (7/7/97)

[I wrote this article for City Purls, the newsletter of the BAKG - and thought y'all might enjoy it.]

33 Knitters at the ballet?

One has visions of leg warmers dancing in one's head. 33 women placidly clicking away as the dancers on stage comport and contort themselves. Some attention was paid to knitting, to be sure, but it seemed that more was paid to the beautiful dancing going on before us on Sunday, June 29 at New York City Ballet.

The idea of gathering a group of knitters to go to the ballet seemed natural to me. I've been dancing since 1981, and knitting since 1989. I lived in Boise, Idaho, and danced professionally with American Festival Ballet, returning home and moving from dancing to choreography and founding my own small company, Dance as Ever, in 1993. I learned to knit because of dance, wanting something to do in the endless tour bus rides I was taking through the inland northwest. I knitted leg warmers as the bus inched up Galena Summit and snow fell soundlessly but ominously, knitted vulture puppet booties as we crossed the amber Palouse. I even knitted when one of the girls barfed in the back of the bus and we were four hours from the nearest town. What else was to be done? When I was furious at the director because he let the dancers go without stage rehearsals and warm-ups because he was fiddling with the lighting, I should have spoken up, but because I felt I could not, I knitted. So it has been with me through all my dancing career, through triumphs and sadness, as diversion and as solace. Making one of my first sweaters (an allover lattice cable on a seed stitch background designed by Margaret Bruzelius) as I struggled to make nine sleepy little girls dressed in what looked like orange shower curtains look like dancers and not like Halloween pumpkins, I showed the bottom of it (knit at a chain mail gauge) to friends and exclaimed "This is my tension expressed in knots!"

I met our Treasurer, Renee Katz, through dancing when she came to see a performance of my company and asked me to join BAKG. Two years later, I finally found the time. The Guild and the Knit List (an internet e- mail list) have been a wonderful thing for me, a place to be creative and joyful about my knitting, my dancing and art in general. The trip was a way to return the favor and make the worlds meet.

I put a brief note on the Knit List asking if anyone might be interested, and was overwhelmed by the response. So was New York City Ballet, which gave us a very good deal on tickets. I also found a suitable spot for a brunch beforehand right opposite the stage door, and tried to plan a few surprises for my guests.

About 20 of us met for brunch, and we had just begun ordering when my dear friend Amy Rodgers rushed in breathlessly bearing a pair of pointe shoes. Amy has danced with Washington Ballet and Atlanta Ballet, and I've been fortunate to have made a baker's dozen ballets on her. She graciously answered our questions on training and on how women dance en pointe, and how the pointe shoe is made. Just about when she had finished, James Fayette, newly promoted to soloist at New York City Ballet, stopped by (I owe him a beer!) He explained something about how the men train, and told us he'd be dancing that day and hoped we enjoyed the performance.

Once lunch was done, I gathered everyone up and gave them a thumbnail tour of the Lincoln Center complex. I told folks what I knew of the buildings and art work, and whatever facts I was unsure of, I simply made up. I feel proud to know there is a crowd of knitters with all that misinformation about Lincoln Center crammed into their heads.

I chose A Midsummer Night's Dream by George Balanchine for our outing because I knew it would be the perfect way to introduce people to the ballet. It has a familiar story in the first act, and the second act consists entirely of dances forming the wedding celebration, so people get to see the pure dance for which Balanchine was so famous. I'm afraid I can't tell you much about that performance, I was in sheepdog mode; worrying about the one extra ticket and who had not gotten it, hoping everyone was enjoying themselves, seeing a flashbulb go off near me and thinking, "I forgot! I forgot not to tell them NOT TO TAKE FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY!!! Please let it not be one of my group!" (It wasn't.)

When I was able to stop being angst ridden, I marveled at the beautiful music by Mendelssohn. (Some of the pieces in the first act were written when he was sixteen, some in the second when he was twelve. When I was twelve, I was still trying to learn not to wear plaids with stripes.) James and the dancers danced beautifully, and it was a special occasion as it was the last performance of the season.

A good time was had by all. I think the comments that pleased me most were the people who said, "I've always wanted to go, but I've never wanted to go alone." Both ballet and knitting have done so much for my life. It was a pleasure to serve both in this small way and I hope to make this a regular event.

If you'd be interested in knowing about the next "Knitters go to the Ballet" gathering, you can e-mail me.

Hope you can join us!

LAW