Just back from class. I was OK this morning - a bit sleepy at the barre, but looked decent-ish (I suspect this may be sheer delusion) on some of the simpler floor combinations. And glad I went, because I wasn't going to. I keep thinking about monks, partly because I've been writing recently about the BBC TV series The Monastery, and partly because there is an ascetism about the ballet class that is almost monastic. There we all are at the barre, in our private cells, making the balletic equivalent of a prayer. There's an Irish phrase ag déanamh m'anam. In translation it means literally 'making my soul', which is to say, reshaping it for its salvation.
In class one is making one's balletic body and soul. I really believe that there is something about ballet language that takes one to another place. Judith Mackrell - and I wish I could find the reference - is reminded of the stigmata by the sight of a dancer's bleeding toes, when she takes off her pointe shoes. I wouldn't want to be too precious about it - and a lot of ballet talk is gratuitously incense-laden - but dance does invite religious reflection.
It's another reason why newcomers should never be self-conscious in class: the rest of us are absorbed in the struggle with our own bodies and souls.
From Martha Graham: "Dance is the hidden language of the soul"
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