ATTITUDE ! - A new book by Katharine D Fishman

EXCERPTS FROM ATTITUDE!

The Audition

At ten minutes of ten on this first Saturday in August, 2001, the front hall at The Ailey School is totally quiet, though not uninhabited. A few teenage girls wearing large numbers on their leotards walk silently in and out of the studios that abut the hall, talking to parents who wait outside. Inside Studio Three, some fifty more numbered teenage girls are stretching on the floor and at the barre, whispering to each other, sipping from water bottles, or sitting cross-legged beside their backpacks meditating. Aside from their undisputable trimness, they vary in size and shape; their hair is short or pinned up in some sort of bun and occasionally corn-rowed. About two thirds appear African-American; the rest are everything else.

No one smiles. Though the heat hasn’t quite kicked in yet, it is going to be a scorcher, one of those heavy, humid dog-days that mark late summer in New York, and none of these studios are air-conditioned…

The auditioners range from elegant and confident to clunky, clueless, and progressively out-of-their-depth. Occasionally a good dancer stumbles, and one bursts into tears. It seems there are two classes of auditioners here: returning students – looked upon as Ailey-family members - and newcomers, who may be decently-trained or barely-trained. Finally all of them are asked to come forward and a sort of police lineup takes place: dancers standing awkward and still, panelists matching number to performance. And then the dancers are sent outside, and the panel is alone.