She Was Just Standing There
Not Dancing
Two years ago, I attended a dance performance called Mrs. Robinson at the San Francisco Ballet. I am writing this memory because I left enchanted by one unexpected scene — a ballerina standing in a pensive, thoughtfully curated pose shortly after her lover betrayed her. It is as if when she lived, she danced, and then life stopped, and so did her dance.
I watched her dance without dancing as she pierced the audience with her stare, burning down the walls and the entire Earth with sadness and grief. Other dancers contrasted her icy silhouette — living, laughing, loving. They were the same people she would have typically awed, impressed, and won over with her poise, wit, and playfulness. But in that scene, she looked right through them. I swear I could hear her thoughts.
She no longer wanted to turn back time. All that was the point of the previous Act when she was still dancing. She stood there, crushed lifeless by her misfortune that pushed her into an entirely new space dimension. She tenderly held on to this world by the tail end of her fleeting romance. It was the only thing left in common with her beloved Benjamin. Only, unlike her, he was still dancing. Unlike her, he easily moved on to someone else. Unlike her, he did not lack any explanation or feel the need to set the record straight.
To say that he betrayed her would not be entirely fair and is beside the point. The point is that she felt betrayed, which is not unimportant. It’s never just his or her fault, and her pain was not just about the breakup. It was that there wasn’t anything to break. As it turned out, it was just a season that ended to let the next season take its place.
Mrs. Robinson is a femme fatale. She is intelligent, observant, beautiful, and considerably older than Benjamin, oozing an aura of being fluid in her relationships with men, even if it were not completely true. But every woman reaches a point where she meets someone she can’t let go, whether it is rational or not. Mrs. Robinson appeared profoundly humbled, conquered, and defeated by her feelings. If it were love, it seemed she didn’t appreciate it as such during the romance. Regardless, the feelings lingered and ate greedily at her soul right before my eyes.
When they stopped their feast, I watched her freeze into a lonesome iceberg. No, I did not get butterflies, but nausea in response to that. The kind of nausea that would not let you console her with a friendly hug; she would hate that. There was something in that moment that hit me as a woman watching another woman suffer like that. The closest word I can think of is “comradery.” I suddenly felt everything she felt, that talented actress and ballerina.
Every relationship, even a wrecked one like Mrs. Robinson’s, craves a constant refill of tenderness and mutual respect. Adding that ointment to the breakup was on her. That handsome boy, who was not yet a man, could not afford that courtesy; he only knew how to save himself.
And so, she was just standing there. Not dancing.
The production of Mrs. Robinson was part of the San Francisco Ballet 2022 Season, choreographed by Cathy Marston and inspired by a novella called The Graduate by Charles Webb. Sarah Van Patten danced the part of Mrs. Robinson.
© 2024 Jill Blinick. All Rights Reserved.
