The Audition

I walked down the narrow hallway and turned into the brightly lit room with my resume held tightly against my chest and my dance bag hanging off of my left shoulder. There were three walls lined with ballet barres and one wall covered in floor-to-ceiling mirrors. I walked to the closest corner, placed down my bag, pulled out my Ipod and headphones, and plugged away the empty sound of the room with my music. I looked up and saw five other dancers also sitting silently beside their bags, looking down at their Ipods. I checked the contents of my bag for the third time that morning – pointe shoes, pointe shoe padding, ballet shoes – then put on my heavy socks and legwarmers to warm up.

It was the Maryland Ballet audition – the first audition of the season. I had spent months preparing for this four-month season, with the hopes of  being offered a spot to dance with a company when I graduated from college. I had started auditioning when I was thirteen, and after eight years of receiving more rejection letters than acceptances and spending numerous car rides home in tears, I had finally grasped how to survive the auditions somewhat unscathed.

I flew into Maryland early that morning and took a cab straight to the studio, about an hour before registration time. Arriving early gave me time to go through my many pre-audition rituals: listening to my set music playlist, doing a series of crunches, spending thirty minutes practicing at the barre, and stretching. The worst thing to do before an audition is to acknowledge the other dancers – especially those who intentionally stand in the center of the room, pulling their legs to their ears, hoping to intimidate their competition –  which is why my eyes remained down, playing music at a high volume through my headphones, until it was time for registration. 

At eleven o’clock a woman came into the dance room, now packed with dancers, and announced that registration had begun. I picked up my resume but didn’t rush to the door; it’s best not to be the first to register. Having any numbers between “1” and “8” on your chest during an audition is a mistake – especially if the auditioner teaches the dance combinations quickly. It’s best to be numbers 10, 11, or 12. Dancers are always lined up in number-order during auditions, and those numbers always guarantee a spot in the second dance group and, very often, a spot in the front line. This always gave me more time to perfect the dance steps, yet still perform them early enough so that the judges hadn’t seen too many dancers before me.  

I counted the number of dancers walking to the door, and slipped behind the ninth girl. I followed them quietly down the hallway, turned in my resume, and pinned a piece of paper with the number “10” on my black leotard.

The audition started an hour later, and by that time all of us looked exactly the same; pink tights, black leotards with numbers pinned on them, hair pulled back in slick buns, and pointe shoes on our feet. I scanned the room for the highest number and saw one woman wearing the number “102.” We were led to the main dance room  – all one hundred and two of us – and were told to stand at the ballet barre in number order. Once we all had a spot at the barre, we were packed so tightly that I barely had enough room to open my arms to the side. 

Three women sat at the front of the room, one older woman and two fairly younger ones, behind a large table with our resumes piled in the center. I stood with my feet turned out and hands clasped behind my back, waiting for the director – a tall, thin man with glasses – to speak.

“Welcome to the Maryland Ballet audition,” he said, “I’m Robert Creed, the Artistic Director. We’ll be looking at you one at a time, so please be still and silent while you wait.”

Though no dancer spoke at these words – no one would ever dare to speak during an audition – I could sense from the energy in the room that everyone else hated these pre-audition protocols just as much as I did. The older woman stood from the table with a clipboard in her hand and walked with Mr. Creed to the dancer wearing number “1” on her chest. I looked away immediately. My heart started to race, and I could feel sweat accumulating on my forehead. I hated watching them do this to dancers – sometimes it was worse watching it than actually experiencing it. I took several deep breaths, keeping my eyes to the floor, until it was my turn.

“Stand in first position,” said Mr. Creed.

I turned out my feet as much as I could, opening my chest and pressing my shoulders down so my neck looked longer. I stared forward as the woman walked around me, writing notes on her clipboard about my body type, musculature, and proportions. 

“Tendu á la seconde,” he said. 

I followed his instructions, opening my right leg, then my arms to the side and shaping my fingers carefully, with my thumb and middle fingers curved slightly more than the others. The woman wrote for a moment, then nodded. The director walked toward me, lifted my leg and stretched it, pushing it closer and closer to my ear until it couldn’t go any farther, then released it.

“Next,” Mr. Creed said as he moved on to number 11.

After what felt like another forty-five minutes of standing, the individual evaluations had finished. Mr. Creed took the clipboard from the woman, walked to the front of the room, and cleared his throat. 

“Thank you all for coming today,” he said quickly, “as you know, there are many of you here – so I would like numbers 5, 27, 32, 34, 58 and 80 to stay. Everyone else may go.”

By this point in my dance career, I had experienced too many rejections to let myself feel upset for too long. Instead, I nodded my head and joined ninety-six other women toward the hallway and into the waiting room. All together – in perfect unison – we pulled out our phones from our dance bags and called our cabs to the airport. 

When I got to the Martin State Airport I did the same thing I had done many times before, when I had six hours to spare at a terminal during audition season. I found the nicest restaurant in the airport, ordered lunch and a glass of Sprite, bought a book, and didn’t stop reading until it was time to board my plane and go home.