the lilac fairy

As I may or may not have mentioned before (I am too tamad to check), we're (my dad's school is) doing The Sleeping Beauty for our annual recital in December. Last minute changes, though: Daddy decided we give the title role of Princess Aurora to Sol, currently my Daddy's oldest student, as she deserves to be the lead for a change, after all this time. Sol danced with us since she was a baby, was awarded a lifetime full scholarship when she was a teenager and pretty much became the fifth Jacinto kid, outlasting all the generations of students who had been through our doors. When Daddy choreographed Magdaragat for PBT in 1997, Sol was brought in to lead the corps de ballet and to help restage their steps (Daddy's choreography is so complex that he has a hard time remembering what he wants exactly).

Of course, since we Jacinto kids are always the most senior of the students, compounded by the fact that we're the children of the owners, whenever we restage a full length ballet for our recital, we're always cast in the lead. LIke, I've been the Sugarplum Fairy (The Nutcracker), Giselle (from the ballet of the same name), Odette the first two Swan Lakes and Odile for the third, the Lilac Fairy (The Sleeping Beauty). Jacqui has been Clara (when she was young and tiny enough) and Spanish Chocolate (The Nutcracker), Myrtha (Giselle), Odette and Odile, Princess Aurora. Sol on the other hand has never had a real lead role except for Odile in the second Swan Lake; she mostly gets the soloist roles such as Arabian Coffee (The Nutcracker), Peasant Pas de Deux girl (Giselle), Pas de Trois girl and Princess in the first and third Swan Lakes, Fairy of Passion and Bluebird (The Sleeping Beauty).

Sol actually doesn't want to be Aurora; I know she has always blanched at the prospect of dancing the lead because she doesn't think she's good enough. She's not like me, who's so "Of course, I can do that!" She has to be convinced that she can do it; like she was so reluctant to do the Black Swan pas de deux that she even wanted to switch on the night of the recital. Last Sunday, while I was teaching her the Aurora dances, I could tell she still had reservations. Jacqui and I are easing her into it, though.

So what are we dancing? Jacqui will take Sol's roles as Fairy of Passion and Bluebird. I will do Lilac Fairy again. For this production originally, Jacqui and I had switched our former dances, I would be Aurora and she would be Lilac Fairy. My dad is more interested in seeing Jacqui as the Bluebird so I'm doing Lilac again. I don't mind. The Lilac Fairy's variation in the Prologue will always be one of my favorite solos in the world, partly because everytime I perform it, it comes out perfect.

Jacqui and I had a tiny tiff over this variation. Well, not this variation exactly, but I had mentioned that I was having a hard time restaging Jacqui's dances as the Lilac Fairy because she was uncooperative and she got mad at me for saying that because she never showed me she was uncooperative. When I said she had at the very least been negative about it, she said it wasn't a picnic for me to nitpick over the Prologue variation and that my saying "Why can't you do that?" was annoying showing-off. I wasn't aware that I was showing off, I was sincerely confused why she was having a hard time getting her pirouettes in.

Since we're on the subject, it grated that when I objected, my mom overruled it with, "You are a show off. Even that foreign choreographer said so (before we disappeared from MB; the substory is I was doing double arabesque turns while the others wanted to do a single and he said, "Oh, don't worry about it if you want to do singles. Joelle's just showing off."). You show off because that's you." I'm still trying to decide if I should aspire for more humility or embrace my show-offiness. I mean, okay, I'll come off as vain and self-posessed, but honestly, what harm can that do?

Back to the Lilac Fairy. She has always been one of my favorite characters in ballet because she's the only benign being who's really in charge. Sure, Myrtha and Odile are powerful and command attention but they're driven by hate and malice. The Sugar Plum Fairy is benign, but her main function is to welcome the Nutcracker and Clara into the Kingdom of the Sweets and all she really does is dance the big number. All the other main characters are victims - Aurora, Giselle, Odette, Juliet. The Lilac Fairy can alter a fatal spell, she can make the bad fairy leave, she can put an entire kingdom to sleep so that its princess can wake up to friends. I even read an essay in college about the Sugar Plum Fairy being the only true feminist and the only true empowered woman in the classical ballet universe.

I would have wanted to dance Aurora for a change, but when we rehearsed the new line-up last Sunday, doing the Prologue variation felt like it was choreographed a century ago specifically for me to dance. Especially when, as I unfolded my left leg to the side and balance it en pointe in the first part of the solo, I heard my students whisper to each other, "Tingnan mo, o, nag-stay!" It's tuwa of another kind.

Pardon the showing off.