What is a pig's favorite ballet?

Answer: Swine Lake

When I think of ballet, I think of pink, tutus, and grace, but then I saw a preview for Black Swan. My previously positive views of ballet are now clouded by the creepy eyes and suspenseful music from the short 30 second trailer for the Golden Globe nominated movie. After watching the trailer, my mind was flooded with the horrors of my own ballerina days.

I was four years and doing a tap dance at the annual Christmas dance recital for Dotty's Dance Company. Everything was going smoothly until my kick ball change resulted in a stumble. Just as the cameraman zoomed in on me, I slipped onto my knee. With fierce determination, I got up off that floor and kept dancing while holding my injured knee. Flash-forward to third grade and I was struck by yet another dance catastrophe. While dancing to "We Got the Beat," I was on cloud nine. I was front row center and couldn't wait to show off my toe touch. Then, it happened. I didn't do my toe touch; I just jumped straight up. Tears welled in my eyes as I finished the dance with a look of sheer hatred on my face. It's a wonder that I made it through that.

Looking past the horrid memories of my life as a ballerina, I remember some happier memories. In second grade, my art class was given the assignment of drawing a ballerina imitating the Impressionist painter Edgar Degas. To do so, the class needed a model, and I was honored to be chosen as the model for my class. Standing on the table frozen in a tendu, I became obsessed with Degas and his paintings of ballerinas.

Ten years later, I was able to view one of Degas' ballerina paintings in person. A few dedicated Art History students and I ventured to the Frist Center to hear a lecture and to view their latest exhibit, The Birth of Impressionism. One of Degas' famous paintings of his beloved ballerinas is "Ballet Rehearsal on the Set." The ballerinas are not posed or at the center of the composition; Degas arranged them in a seemingly random manner. The center is in fact void of any figures. The informal composition shows Degas' interest in capturing fleeting moments. Like other Impressionist painters, Degas did not focus on depicting minute details--the faces of the ballerinas are painted with little detail--, but rather on the effects of light and reproducing a single moment. The different poses of the ballerinas show that Degas was also intrigued by showing the moving human body in different positions.

Even with blurred lines, the random positioning of the dancers makes the painting look realistic. I recall many Tuesday nights at the barre practicing for hours, though we weren't allowed to wear big fun tutus in our rehearsals. Degas will always hold a special place in my heart for giving me the chance to be the center of attention in my second grade art class.