Free Various Positions by Martha Schabas Page A

on the end of his chin as we arranged ourselves at the barres. I yearned for invisibility. I would watch him stare at the girls, observe exactly where his eyes went, figure out what went on in his mind.
    We completed the first exercise. “That was awful.” Roderick shook his head. “Terrible.” He turned his body toward the piano, as though too repulsed to look our way.
    My head dropped to my feet. I wasn’t individually responsible for this assessment, but I felt the shame of it intensely.
    But when Roderick turned around again he was smiling. “Disgusting. Do it again.”
    I adjusted my leotard strap. Molly, in front of me, did too. Something about his nastiness was irresistible. It was like when someone teases you, and you’re charmed against your will. We repeated the exercise. I channeled pure power into my muscles, could picture the energy, hot and white. I had never wanted to be so perfect before. When we finished, Roderick pushed himself off the piano and walked slowly across the studio floor. I could only see the side of his face, but I was desperate to read his expression. Was he pleased with our work this time?
    “Let’s do center.”
    We moved away from the barres to begin the center portion of the class. Roderick didn’t demonstrate the exercises. Instead he talked us through them, occasionally lifting a hand to symbolize a jump or a turn. We were divided into three groups to perform the exercises. This meant I could watch two-thirds of the class dancing, and I did, greedily. Veronica was in the first group. She was an athletic dancer with high jumps and quick turns. Her footwork was what teachers called clean . She moved with an edginess that made her body seem two-dimensional, cut from paper and easy to fold. Molly danced beside her. Her legs were long and bendy, and her arms undulated as if they had no bones. When she paused in a développé à la seconde, I measured the distance between her head and foot. She was more flexible than I was, not by much, but by just enough for it to bother me. Sixty was in this group too. Her legs pierced the floor like spikes.
    My attention went back to Roderick. Did he prefer the fluidity of Molly’s body, the strength in Sixty’s balances, or Veronica’s speedy turns? A perfect pirouette was wasted if he hadn’t turned his head to see it. Veronica stepped into a first arabesque , stole a glance at him as she rolled through her foot. Molly did this too, sneaking a peek toward the mirror as she aligned herself for a sequence of turns. The girls spun around each other, vying for his interest.
    When it was my turn, I felt a thirst right in my gut. I needed to have him watch me. I pushed myself through the steps, my mind storming with instructions: pull up, turn out, lift from beneath your arm. I caught a glimpse of Chantal in the mirror. She was beside me and I saw immediately how good she was, even though she was chubbier than everyone. Her flexibility was second nature, but she had muscles too, the strength to hold her legs high and propel her body upward. She moved ethereally through everything, a quality that rarely coexisted with such steady athleticism. I forced myself to look away. A low panic flapped in my chest. We finished the exercise and I looked at Roderick. He was leaning against the mirror now, eyes on Chantal. His expression was unsettled, as though he hadn’t quite made sense of things. But the approval in his eyes was clear.
    “Don’t forget”—he pushed his body off the glass, took a step toward us—“that I’m not interested in good students . I’m interested in good dancers . If you don’t understand the difference instinctively, then it’s something you’ll need to figure out.” He scanned our faces one last time and started to walk out of the room. “Let me just suggest that a student brings her emotions into the studio. Her feelings are hurt when she receives a harsh correction or embarrasses herself by falling out of a turn. A