Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina (19 page)

But my big sister, Erica, would soon be giving birth to her first child, a baby girl whom she already planned to name Mariah. And Mommy and I were spending time together, loving each other, enjoying each other, living in a comfortable apartment all our own with my little sister Lindsey, at last. I didn’t want to leave them to be all alone in the big city. Not yet.

“I want to finish high school back home,” I finally told Kevin and John. “I hope you still want me next year.”

They nodded and smiled.

AS A PARTING GIFT,
ABT awarded me a Coca-Cola Scholarship, money that would pay for my pointe shoes and training back in Southern California. They later confirmed that I would
have a guaranteed spot with the Studio Company when I finished high school.

I returned home excited about my career and eager to finish high school. The months whizzed by. I socialized more with the girls at the Lauridsen Ballet Centre than those at San Pedro High, but when the senior prom appeared on the horizon, Mommy insisted that I go.

Most of my friends at school were Asian, and on Fridays, when they went to meetings of the Mabuhay Club, I would sit at a table on campus alone, except for when Lindsey, now a ninth grader, had time to join me.

I had two potential prom dates, a Korean American friend, and an African American boy who had also asked. I went with my Korean American friend because he had asked me first, still shocked that anyone had asked me at all. I was so shy, the thought of dating left me petrified, and I’d never been out with a boy. I’m not sure I would have even gone to the movies with Justin Timberlake if he’d asked, and I thought he was absolutely adorable.

On prom night, I flat-ironed my hair and put on a long red dress with a slit nearly as long as me. The party was in a ballroom at the Intercontinental Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. I was miserable the whole evening. The nadir came when my date tried to kiss me at the after-party held at one of our classmates’ homes. I backed away in disgust. I had never kissed a boy. I had never even held one’s hand, unless he was my
pas de deux
partner, lifting and whirling me across a stage.

That June, I graduated, and I couldn’t get out of my cap and gown quick enough so that I could pack my bags. I was headed to New York City for good.

This summer intensive program would be a bit different from the one before. By now, I was folded more deeply into the fabric and community of ABT.

Instead of the convent in Greenwich Village, I would stay with Isabel Brown. Little did I know when I took a cab to her brownstone on Manhattan’s Upper West Side that her home would also be mine for the next two years.

In the ballet world, Isabel Brown is a legend, part of what is known as the Brown Dynasty. Isabel danced with the company when it was founded decades before She met her husband Kelly Brown, also a dancer, through ABT. Their son Ethan became a soloist and daughter Leslie went on to be a principal with the company. In fact, Leslie coached me through both of my summer intensive programs, and Ethan was still dancing as a soloist when I joined ABT.

I found out during my senior year that Isabel had extended an offer to host me in her home when I returned to New York. It was an extreme honor. She was regal, elegant, and her home was like an abode plucked from the upper-crust environs of
The Philadelphia Story.
There were antiques tucked in the corners and tables made of glistening mahogany.

I would rummage through her bookshelves, fingering ABT programs that dated back to the start of the company. The movie
The Turning Pointe,
starring Mikhail Baryshnikov, Shirley MacLaine, and Anne Bancroft was based on the Brown family, and Leslie had a prominent role.

Cindy had been right. I
was
dining with royalty.

THOUGH WE NO LONGER
lived together, Ashley was also back at ABT for the summer, and we again won all of the leading roles for the final performance. For the first time I was able to work with legendary choreographer Twyla Tharp, in whose works I would often dance the lead once I joined ABT’s main company.

During the summer intensive program, my time with Twyla was fleeting. What I remember most was her complimenting my fluidity and technique. Twyla coached Ashley and me, along with her protégé Elaine Kudo, for our performance of her seminal work
Push Comes to Shove,
a ballet first staged in 1976 in which Elaine and Baryshnikov starred. I’ve always had a tie to Twyla. When I was still at Cindy’s and would watch old videos of Misha and Gelsey and Natalia Makarova, Elaine Kudo was one of the dancers I adored. I must have been fourteen or fifteen the first time I saw
Push Comes to Shove,
and now I was dancing Elaine’s part for Twyla herself! Having her set her wonderful choreography on me was a dream.

It was later, when I became a member of the corps de ballet, that I truly got to know Twyla. With her silver bob and baggy pants and blouses, she had the appearance and physique of an adolescent boy. But unlike some dancers, who deprived themselves to remain tiny and thin, Twyla was always armed with snacks. One of her quirks is nibbling on lunch meat straight out of the plastic Oscar Mayer packaging. She works her dancers into the ground—by the time you get onstage to perform one of her works, you’ve practiced it so often that there’s no element of surprise, just perfect, confident movement. You’re almost sick of the choreography by that point, and performances can feel less spontaneous and free because of it.
Still, it’s always amazing to watch, and being part of creating pieces with her is an opportunity I never could have imagined I’d have. She is a firecracker with a feral energy and style of movement that I’d never seen before. She especially loved the men in ABT, literally running full speed and jumping on top of them as she choreographed and created. Whenever she showed up to a rehearsal, the boys would strip off their shirts and dance with bare chests glistening, just because they knew that Twyla loved it. She is aggressive, fearless.

In the midst of the summer program, John reiterated how glad he was that I would be joining ABT’s junior company. Though my spot had been assured it was still a wonderful relief to hear he continued to believe in me. Then, at the end of the summer, when we finished our final performance and the lights fell, Kevin called me back to the stage, where he still stood. He told me that before joining the Studio Company officially, I would apprentice with the main company and travel with it to China.

I recorded it all in my journal:

Kevin said congratulations on the performance and congratulations on having a contract. I was in shock. . . . He told me that I was special and they would keep an eye on me. He said that he couldn’t believe how strong my contemporary work was and how I was so grounded within it, yet so uplifting and strong in classical. It was a great surprise.

Mommy, who hadn’t been able to get the time off the previous summer to come to my show, flew out this time to see me
in
Push Comes to Shove.
She stayed on to help me prepare for the next act of my life, as a professional ballerina in New York City.

“Do you have a passport?” Kevin asked.

I didn’t—no one in my family did—but I would have slept on the sidewalk in front of the passport office to get one, if I had to. I was over the moon. Dancing with the main company at age seventeen, before I’d even completed the Studio Company program, was more than I’d ever dreamed of. Mommy went with me to a local passport office the next day. I was about to turn eighteen, and this would be my first trip out of the country.

WE WERE GONE FOR
two weeks, dancing in Shanghai and Taipei, and we also took a side trip to Singapore. As an apprentice, I had a limited contract, performing as a member of the corps de ballet behind the company’s soloists and principals. It was an incredible honor to be in that position when I had no professional experience. I performed in
La Bayadère,
as one of the girls in the waltz sequence, and as a flower girl alongside a friend named Leyla. When we weren’t rehearsing or performing, Leyla and I went sightseeing, visiting Bihai Jinsha Water Park and Chenghuang Temple.

When I returned home, I officially took my place as a member of ABT’s Studio Company. My ascension up the company ladder had begun.

THE STUDIO COMPANY CONSISTED
of six girls and six boys who rehearsed, trained, and performed together for a year to prepare to join the main company. We traveled mostly within the States, to a school in Buffalo, to a small theater in Cape Cod. But we also went to Bermuda, shifting our sore feet through the white sand and turquoise surf. The whole experience was like being in paradise. Most of us had danced together in ABT’s summer program, and so we had the familiarity and affection of brothers and sisters.

Often, after shows, the dancers would do outreach, speaking to young people who’d been in the audience. To this day, I am teased by many of the dancers who participated in those talks because the students usually directed their questions to me, having seen me on the news during the drama over whether or not I would become an emancipated minor.

“Are you that girl that was on the
Leeza
show?” someone would inevitably ask.

“Yes, but everything’s great,” I’d respond in a rush, a tight grin plastered across my face. “I went back home to my mom, and there’re no hard feelings. Next question?” I was working on putting the past behind me, but I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised that the controversy continued to find its way into my life. Even in Bermuda, I was racked with fear that my lingering stress migraines would get in the way of my Studio Company schedule.

With the Studio Company, I performed the
pas de deux
from
Sleeping Beauty
in almost every show. It was an honor to be Aurora, the lead. I danced it with both David Hallberg, now an ABT principal, and Craig Salstein, currently an ABT soloist.

They loved me in the Studio Company, and I reveled in
its embrace. I was starting to find my individuality. And my voice—hushed through most of my childhood, freed when I was with Cindy, and silenced again as I tried to recover from the trauma of the court battle—was once again emerging.