At the advanced age for a ballerina anyway of 50, the dazzling Sylvie Guillem has announced shes to retire. It would be nice to wake up and be able to walk to the bathroom, she said in a 2008 interview, referring to her extreme muscle stiffness each morning. She was 42 at the time and I, only a few years older and a long-time scoliosis sufferer, felt an instant even glamorous solidarity.
Sadly, the similarity ends there. But it could have been so different because, long ago, before I grew too tall (the already enormous feet were a clue) and discovered I had no talent whatsoever, all I wanted to do was dance. Theres something about ballet the clean curve of those lines, the arched elegance of a foot en pointe that is as close to sublime as any human ever achieves. Its the same as the tennis ball that drives weightlessly off the very centre of your racquet, the dive that barely ruffles the water. Or the line on the page, shaped and turned and ached over for hours, that manages somehow to convey both daring and truth by the most alive and direct route. Id like to think that Guillem will now be able to jump out of bed and bound into the bathroom, but the price that ballet exacts is a bloody one, and somehow I doubt it.
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