Ballet classes.

I was in ballet when I was little and my brother Philip was in tap dancing.  We were taught by the same woman, who was known as Madame Hilliard.  I don't know Philip's memories of being a dance student, but mine are permanently etched.  

Madame Hilliard's first name was Riette and I recently found her name on a list of alumni dancers from the San Francisco Ballet, where she was listed as joining the company in 1933.  I remember seeing photos of her when she was younger and she was beautiful: slight, slender, flowing black hair.  By the time I became her student, she was ancient and tiny and skinny and she chain-smoked cigarettes using a long cigarette holder.  She always wore a beret.  Always.  And she always wore skinny black pants that were slightly flared at the bottom, black ballet slippers, and a black turtleneck under a deep-V-necked sweater.  The colour of the sweater varied, but the pants and turtleneck were always black.  She had her glasses on a long chain around her neck, along with a long necklace with a pendant.  I don't know how she held her head up with all of that around her frail little neck.

Madame Hilliard used grand, sweeping hand gestures as she explained her vision for the dance she had choreographed for us in her mind.  The classical music choked out of a small record player in the corner of the room and Madame Hilliard smoked and corrected us from her chair as a woman named Darcia, her assistant, did most of the physical part of the instruction.  Every once in a while, Madame Hilliard would need to personally demonstrate a particular step or movement and those were my favourite moments.  She was so light on her feet as she shuffled through the steps, her ballet slippers scuffing against the cold floor.  Her voice was deep and scratchy from years of smoking, which only made it more memorable when she would call us "Dah-ling".  Everyone was "Dah-ling".  And she said a personal goodbye to every child as they left the studio after class: a steady look in the eye and a kiss on the hand.  She was unlike anyone I would ever know.

When I was really small, I loved my ballet classes.  All the plies and tour-jetes and arabesques were so fun and every year the school put on a recital where we got to dance on stage with all our parents and friends watching.  It was just so exciting.  As I grew older, my interest waned and I would "forget" to go to my classes, only to have Madame Hilliard's disappointment wrack me with guilt.  It was the end of an era when she retired from teaching in 1987, when I was twelve.  And even though I had been skipping classes for awhile, I was sad when there were no more classes at all.  I remember going to the theatre for some reason about a year after Madame Hilliard had retired and walking into the studio where she had taught and it still smelled like her cigarette smoke.  Well of course it did, the woman was a chimney.  But I missed her.  

I can't remember when Madame Hilliard passed away, but I know that her smoking finally caught up with her.  By the time I heard she was gone, I was wrapped up in the engrossing nonsense of being a teenaged girl, but I paused long enough to think about her and smile and wish I could go back to her class one more time and have her demonstrate the five foot positions, her black ballet slippers pat-patting the floor, her glasses and her pendant clinking together.

To think of today's parents sending their kids to dance class where the teacher chain-smoked is pretty laughable; it just wouldn't happen.  But I'm glad I was Riette Hilliard's student.  Not only for having known her and learning some ballet, but also because being one of her students gave me a connection to the White Rock Playhouse, the theatre where the dance school was housed.  My Mom and my brother Kevin were both active in the Playhouse as well.  It also gave me experience on stage, something I really enjoyed.

Here are some photos of my brother Philip and me getting ready for dance recitals and one of me on stage:

Phil was a waiter and I was Little Miss White Rock.

Little Jack Horner and one of Mother Goose's children (I think).

I'm in the centre and Madame Hilliard is Mother Goose.