The Mysterious Slippery Floor

      I think one of the biggest mysteries of our company, or at least as long as I've been here, has been the mystery of the slippery floor. Since I have joined the company they have completely changed the floor two or possibly three times. Each time trying a different brand or a different style of floor or something. I honestly have no idea what the actual difference is between the floors seeing as I'm not a floor expert. Or floorist? Floorologist? Anyways, there are many different conspiracy theories as to why the floor gets these slippery patches that many find to be absolutely infuriating while I find it to be mildly hilarious!
     Reason A. Socks. For some reason, someone decided, that wearing socks on the marley floor made it especially slippery. So now those dancers that used to wear socks at barre have been banned, or should I say shunned, from wearing anything other than ballet flats or pointe shoes. If the bitch stares that say, "It's all YOUR fault!" weren't terrifying enough to make you never want to wear socks again, I think a few dancers were actually asked to refrain from wearing them due to floor slipperage. Yes, slipperage. What?
     Reason B. The cleaning ladies are out to get us. Every morning there's a team of cleaning women that come in early to clean the theater. They clean it all from dressing rooms, to toilets, to studios. That's were the trouble starts. No one knows what product they use to clean the floors with, but many are convinced that its hydro-slipperage enhancer. It has to be! How else would you explain all the slipping and falling off our legs? Hydro-slipperage. Obviously!
     Reason C. For those that might be a bit skeptical about the cleaning lady hydro-slipperage conspiracy theory, I have one more for you that you are not going to believe. Weather! Yep, I remember it was after one girl slipped and fell to the ground exceptionally hard and dramatically, that someone actually suggested that it was all because of the weather and the humidity. Apparently the floor "absorbs the moisture from the air" and becomes an ice skating rink-like death zone! It's a dangerous job, but someone's gotta do it. Ballerinas and Ballerinos, putting our lives on the line everyday for the sake of the arts. No big deal.

Just blame it on the weather

     Coming from California where the weather is always beautiful and sunny, I never thought twice about how much it can affect your mood. I think it was my second or third winter in Germany that someone told me about Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). I remember thinking, "Oh my god! That's a thing? That explains everything!". So ever since then I decided to blame all of my white girl problems on the weather. "The weather makes me tired". Its not because I went out partying this weekend that I'm exhausted. No, its the rain. "It's too cold to work, my feet are frozen and my muscles aren't getting warm today". It has nothing to do with the fact that I overslept and missed class this morning, its the snows fault. "I wanted to go for a jog today, but then it started raining". Oh well, I guess I'll make some pancakes instead. "The rain is making my hair frizzy!". I should just go back to bed, my day is ruined.
     Not only do I blame the weather for my problems in winter, but summer can also be a bitch! "The heat makes my feet swollen which makes it impossible to squeeze them into pointe shoes". Im-poss-ible. "I've had a headache for the entire class, it must be from the heat. I'm obviously dehydrated". I'm obviously dehydrated, yet too lazy to go to the canteen to buy a bottle of water. "I'm not fat, I'm just really swollen today because of the weather". It has nothing to do with the pizza and bottle of wine I had last night. "It's too sunny today, its making the studios unbearably hot". Life can be so hard sometimes. "It sucks that there's nice weather today, because I kind of feel like staying home and watching a movie. But now I have to go out and make the most of it". I think I've actually said something along those lines.
     Another thing I blame the weather for is my eye color. Once someone asked me what color my eyes were and I said that they change colors depending on the weather. If its grey and raining they're usually blue but if its sunny and warm they're green. Is that even physically possible?! I think I just made it up and kept telling people that that's what happens and eventually I started to genuinely believe it! It wasn't until someone pointed out to me that I blame a lot of shit on the weather that I realized, I guess I'm just really lazy. Which I also blame on the weather.
 

That awkward moment when... (the ballet version)

That awkward moment when...
-you know your ballet shoes smell really bad but there is nothing you can do so you blame it on someone else.
-your partners sweat gets all over you and you have to pretend like your totally fine with it when deep down you're DYING for a shower.
-someone catches you "smell checking" the pits of your warm up t-shirt before you put it on.
-the principal ballerina has lipstick on her teeth but no one has the balls to tell her.
-you run into one of your ballet masters outside of the theater and you realize you have nothing to talk about so you make awkward chit chat about asparagus and how excited you are that its back in season.
-you thought rehearsal was in the upstairs studio so you waited there for half an hour before realizing no one else was showing up because they were all in the downstairs studio.
-someone has nipple sweat stains.
-someone is wearing your leotard but you don't remember lending it to them.
-people think that "casted" is a word. It's "cast".
-you hear that someone got the stomach flu and lost a bunch of weight and you're kinda jealous!
-the new girl doesn't wear deodorant.
-the fact that I just had to look up how to spell "deodorant" because "deodorent" just didn't look right.
-you accidentally glue your eye lashes together while trying to put on fake eye lashes.
-you have to ask the person sitting next to you in the changing room who's teaching class every single morning.
-you have to dance with someone that you don't really like as a partner but you have to pretend to be excited about it when the cast comes out.
-you're around 2 partners that are getting frustrated with each other and therefor start to dance really aggressively while still having to act like they are in love.
-you completely lose your balance and fall out of a turn onto the floor and people clap for you because you were so spastic.
-you realize that coming to class 15 minutes before the class begins is really late.
-you had a shitty class because you didn't like your leotard.
-you had an amazing class because you liked your leotard, and you probably felt skinny.

It's all about the bran.

     As ballet dancers we tend to be very open with one another. We pretty much call it as we see it, and we aren't afraid to say whats on our minds, at all times. Makes sense seeing as we spend so much time together, and the amount of body contact we have with each other makes us feel very comfortable with one another (See previous post titled "Vagina Lifts"). But where is the line, one might ask? It's hard to know. There are a few moments that are definitely in that grey area. For example, a very common topic of discussion on tour, and especially tours to Asia, seems to be the topic of bowel movements. It is completely normal for a group of dancers to be sitting together at breakfast discussing when was the last time they all shat, what they ate to aid in the shitting process, and how they hoped the bran cereal and black coffee combination will work its magic soon. You can always tell who is having troubles by their breakfast selection at the hotel buffet. While some swear by the black coffee and cigarette combination, non smokers will generally load up on fibrous cereals, dried prunes and Activia. After asking how a person is doing, a common, and totally normal, follow up question may be "Did you shit yet?". Then depending on the persons response you are either happy for them, or very very sorry. If someone stands up abruptly from the breakfast table and says, "I gotta go", we all know exactly what they mean and we wish them well.
     Not only are the discussions between dancers very detailed and often times overly personal, they are also very animated. We wont just tell you what's going on, we'll probably get up and mime the entire thing.  Like the time I accidentally touched my best friend's boyfriend's penis. Ok I didn't really touch it, I just thought that would be a funny way of starting a story. What actually happened was that I was trying to explain to him where exactly I had torn the psoas muscle in my hip. Forgetting that he isn't a dancer and isn't used to being touched around that area by someone that isn't his girlfriend, I went in to show him the exact spot where my injury was on his body. Which just so happened to be a bit East of his crown jewels. As I was going in for the touch, saying "It hurts right here...", he immediately jumps back in total shock before I could even register what the problem was! Oh yea, I guess it is kind of inappropriate to touch your best friend's boyfriend's penis isn't it? Sorry I'm a dancer, we don't really understand boundaries.