Friday, April 12, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.
One hopes there's no shred of autobiography in the story Jenny Ballard tells:
It concerns two sisters, both insane, both raised in an asylum; one suffers from multiple-personality syndrome, the other is sexually neurotic. One kills the other, but only after they twirl on their toes.
Hmm, funny -- the story is autobiographical: Ballard is the surviving psycho sister and ... hey, what're you doing with that knife, Jenny? Oh my God! Aaaghgh!
Good thing Ballard has a fine sense of humor. For the record, she's not really psychotic, has never killed a sister and has -- at least until reading this -- refrained from waving knives at mischievous feature writers. In fact, she's feeling extra cheery these days, thanks to the two mad sisters.
They are the sad heart, bent soul and sore feet of "Siblings," a "modern-classical pointe duet" choreographed by Ballard and set to appear April 18-27 in "Ballet Builders '96," a new-dance showcase at New York's Lincoln Center.
"Siblings" has everything you want in a ballet duet -- Vivaldi's impassioned "Four Seasons" music, a gripping narrative, two talented dancers performing demanding steps in toe shoes and straitjackets ...
Whoa, stop, rest those toes a minute. Ballet in straitjackets? Why, that's crazy! Uh, exactly.
"It's hard to describe," Ballard understates. The former "Bare Essence" principal dancer is parked on a folding chair in her donated studio space. Nearby sits Sharon Halstead, secretary of Ballard's year-old Ballard Cafe Dance Company.
Hard to describe but easy to explain. "I was driving down the street, and the title 'Siblings' came into my head," Ballard says. It was January 1995. "I liked the sound of it, knew it would look good on paper, I knew it would attract attention.
"So I started asking myself, 'What could I do that's totally abstract and unusual.' It immediately hit my head -- two insane sisters! I said to Sharon, 'Wouldn't it be neat?'"
You can imagine her proposing this to dancers Sue White and Sue MacNamara: Wouldn't it be neat to dance with your arms strapped tightly to your sides?
It's a daunting technical challenge; imagine hopping around on your toes without using your arms for balance. Imagine the bruised and swollen face that would result. But Ballard says the two Sues responded admirably. "They're just amazing. They're godsends. They mean the world to me." They were also a big help in working out the choreography of "Siblings."
As she began plotting the steps that January, "I met with them (over and over) to find out what they have to give that was special. That took about a month." Then she tailored the piece to the dancers' strengths. "We worked on it for about five months. Those two worked their asses off for me."
And now, a few words from one of the godsends:
"It was very frustrating, totally frustrating," Sue White says of her straitjacket. "We had to learn to dance all over again for five months. When she took away our arms, we felt like we were 6 years old, like we didn't know how to dance."
The foot-stomping music has taken its toll, too. "Jenny's ruined my feet!" White teases. "The music is stressful -- it reeks of stress. And I have to express lots of stress and anger at my sibling, so there's lots of pounding of my feet.
"It's exciting, but I'm living on 10 Advil a day."
Pain in the feet and all, says White (who dances the sibling who dies), this has been the "most enjoyable" production in her 13 years of local concert work, thanks to Ballard's deep-immersion choreography.
"She gets so deeply into the characters," White says, noting that Ballard carefully researched the siblings' conditions. "More than anyone else, she's into the characters.
"It's very fulfilling to your soul, and at the same time she beats the crap out of you." Can there be a more stirring personal testimonial than that?
"Siblings" debuted last August at the Clark County Library, along with several other pieces by the Ballard Cafe Dance Company.
"By a fluke, I saw a notice (for "Ballet Builders '96") in Dance magazine," Ballard says. "I thought, you know, I'll just send them the video and nothing will happen. Two weeks later they were on the phone."
Ballard is one of seven choreographers selected from hundreds of nationwide applicants, and one of only two women. She's happy and excited, but deflects the kudos. "It's a great reward for those girls," she insists.
And a great expense. Among the arts, perhaps only poetry pays less than modern-classical ballet dancing in straitjackets. "There's no monetary reward for this," Halstead says. "They're paying their own way to New York."
The costs mount quickly; aside from the usual logistical expenses of a trip to New York, there are costs specific to dancing.
"One of the dancers is taking four pairs of pointe shoes," Halstead says. "They're $50 a pair, plus she's paying another $100 to have suede put on the soles (to accommodate the dance surface at Lincoln Center). So that's $300 out of her pocket." Still, they're jazzed about going -- after all, it's Lincoln Center.
Ballard and Co. have raised funds as best they can. The Nevada State Council on the Arts kicked in a $900 grant, although that's akin to throwing a bucket of dirt into the Grand Canyon. Checked the price of plane tickets to New York lately?
But every little bit helps, and the council was happy to chip in. "Siblings" caught the council's eye because of its unusual content and artistic quality.
"A modern-classical pointe piece danced in straitjackets -- that was intriguing," says Cheryl Miglioretto, grants analyst. She reads aloud the grant reviewer's comment about "Siblings": good, sound choreography. "Artistic quality is the benchmark and that's what we go by (in handing out the grants)," she says.
So it's $900 down, much more to go. That's life in the cash-strapped world of dance, as Ballard knows all too well. Now in her mid-20s, she's been a dance professional since she 17, when she lit out for Italy and a dance job in Rome. She's since performed all over -- Greece, Tahoe, Vegas, with Gladys Knight -- but formed Ballard Cafe Dance in February '95 when she decided to focus more on teaching and choreography.
"It's how bad you love the work," Ballard says. "Because the monetary aspects of it will never be what you want." But if it were, wouldn't it be neat?
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