I fell in love with ballet as a girl – now it keeps me active in the eighties Ballet

Wwhen I was a young girl living in London in the early 1960s, I was looking for ways to find happiness. The first time my mother took me to the London Festival Ballet (now English National Ballet), I felt a rapture when I realized that the body could say things words could not.

I was longing for more, and that night at the Royal Festival Hall, I saw the glitter of the world outside waiting for me. As I watched the dancers, I felt something change in me. It was like I had found a new language, which I wanted to speak as soon as possible.

Twice a year later, we traveled by train from Wimbledon to the South Bank. I began to see the ironwork of Hungerford Bridge as a way from one world to another. From our usual seats on the balcony, I saw dancers singing The Nutcracker, Swan Lake, Les Sylphides, Giselle. I liked to wait; the excitement of the audience and the arrival of the musicians when they settled down. That’s how out of the darkness came light, color, sound and movement.

Most of the time, when mine parents were out, I could play the LP that bought our new recording album: the Ballet Melodies album by Mantovani and His Orchestra. Hearing the opening bars of Tchaikovsky’s Waltz of the Flowers from The Nutcracker, I found my body responding to the rise and fall of the music, the call and response of the music. I remember being surprised: it felt natural, as if I was driving something that was inside me, waiting to come out. It was liberating. I was shy, but dancing alone in the living room made me feel alone.

As a girl, dance became a way to express my inner world, the restlessness and longing that comes with growing up. I had taken ballet and tap lessons when I was younger, but now I was enjoying a new sense of independence. In my teenage years, that’s how I felt free, dancing to jazz and rock music in clubs. Later, as a mother, it was something I shared at home with my children. In the 50s, I started a dance group for women over 50, where we can express ourselves through movement without feeling sorry for ourselves.

Now, in my eighth year, dancing is how I return to myself: me as I have been, unchanged throughout the years. Every few weeks, I would sing and dance alone in my living room, just like I used to do back then. It is one of my pleasures, the best thing I know about my mind and body.

Recently, as I began to reflect on the impact football has had on my life, I pulled out that old LP for the first time in years. The veil – straight feet in pink ballet shoes – is torn now, but after putting the needle down and hearing the first few notes, I respond with my usual gestures and movements. It was like remembering a language.

Even though I don’t jump or skip anymore, when I listen and move to the music, I feel something rising – like spring water, a desire for life. I feel the energy of the girl, shaking, stretching and jumping in my parents’ room, realizing what it means to be alive in my body.

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