With ballet making headlines at the Oscars, and Natalie Portman's portrayal of a half-delusional ballerina in Black Swan seen as a strong contender for the Best Actress award, Anjana Vaswani drops in on a Wednesday evening class at Mumbai's only ballet school to find absolutely no room for mistakes
With ballet making headlines at the Oscars, and Natalie Portman's portrayal of a half-delusional ballerina in Black Swan seen as a strong contender for the Best Actress award, Anjana Vaswani drops in on a Wednesday evening class at Mumbai's only ballet school to find absolutely no room for mistakes
It's her third birthday and she is surrounded by presents, some of which dwarf her tiny form. But it's the little wooden jewellery box her grandparents gifted her that captures her attention.
Every few seconds she tosses the lid open, her bright eyes widening with amazement as a delicate little ballerina resumes her graceful performance to Tchaikovsky's Waltz of the Flowers. Instantly, she is hooked.
"Typically, students train with us from age six," says Tushna Dallas, the woman behind Mumbai's only ballet school. Almost 50 children are accepted into her class every year following rigorous auditions, but Dallas admits, "About 10 to 15 drop out by the end of the year. 
Around two leave before the end of the first month."u00a0 Those who stay on thoughu00a0-- actresses Perizaad Zorabian Irani and Ayesha Dharker have been among themu00a0-- usually make it to the finish line, which, at the Dallas' School of Classical Ballet and Western Dance, is marked by passing Classical Ballet, Modern and Latin American Dance exams conducted by an examiner assigned by London's Royal Academy of Dance or the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing.
Certifying talent
Mahafreen Sarkari appeared for several such exams through seven years of training at the school. Now, she's part of the faculty. With her gaze fixed squarely on the kids practicing their routine, Sarkari remembers, "I was nine when I signed up... a bit older than I should have been." She doesn't say more.
Annual school examinations are around the corner. There must be no distractions. Every now and again, the group freezes in position. Sarkari meanders between them, pausing when necessary to adjust the curve of a palm, the tilt of a chin. She is teaching nine to 17 year-olds 'character dance,' an essential component of education in classical ballet.
Ashrafi Ginwalla (20) is an instructor at Tushna Dallas' school.u00a0
Senior students Shagun Varma (13) and Kayanush Patel (15)
at Dallas' Hughes Road class. Pics/Atul Kamble
During a break, she suddenly breaks into a smile. "When I auditioned for Tushna's class back in the '90s, I was one of three boys and two girls out of 50 applicants who made the cut."
Far fewer boys sign up now. Eleven year-old Kahan Taraporevala, a student at Bombay International School, is positioned in the centre of the group Sarkari is guiding. He's the only boy hereu00a0-- their very own Billy Elliot, perhaps, who hesitantly admits, "At first, the boys in school used to tease me. But not anymore."
Tight and tutus won't cut it
In different ways, ballet can be demanding on all its students, regardless of gender. As Dallas explains, ballet dancers are deceptively strong. In a vocational ballet school, auditions routinely include an assessment by physiotherapists. "If the arch of your ankle is over-developed, for instance, you cannot get in."
"With limited support and insufficient infrastructure in India, the top is certainly capped. At some point, aspiring prima-ballerinas would need to further their education overseas," says Dallas, the daughter of a graduate from London's Royal Academy of Dance.
Despite having merited scholarships at age 14, Dallas' mother Khushcheher turned down the chance to take up the dance professionally. "I felt it would be too gruelling," she admits. By the time she changed her mind, she found she had crossed the ideal age limit. "With academic pressure being what it is here, ballet is often limited to being a hobby," Khushcheher says. 
A 15 year-old student of JB Petit High School for Girls, Kayanush Patel is one of the few senior students who still reports for ballet class despite the approaching ICSE exams. Owing to her previous training in Bangkok, Aditya Birla World Academy student Shagun Varma (13) is also part of this group but she's not here to be a professional ballerinau00a0-- she just loves dancing.
Of the older girls, Ashrafi Ginwalla (20) teaches at the school and Annabelle Haydon Venkat (21) independently teaches little girls the basics of ballet. Venkat has been training with Dallas since age eight and takes the dance-form very seriously. She even sticks to "a no-wheat, no-dairy vegan diet that's designed by dietician Vijaya Venkat to boost energy levels."
The Ex-Files
Karene Mody (25), one of Dallas' ex-students, now runs Dance Essentials, a store where you'd find ballet supplies, leotards, jazz pants and shoes for modern dance (karene@danceessentials.in). Mody used to assist at Dallas' school but decided to start the dance-supplies firm when she observed, "Parents found it very hard to source proper uniforms in time for exams."
Mody, of course, had once dreamt of being a ballerina. She started training at age five, and quit Dallas' class at 16 to further her ballet education in the US. Eventually, her ambition succumbed to Mumbai's limited infrastructure. "There are no ballet companies or proper studios here," she says, admitting that she found that people her age, overseas, had progressed far more than she had.
"If you want to take up ballet as a profession be prepared to practice for a minimum of four hours a day, six days a week, from age 10. In a vocational school, your diet will come under the scanner. You'd also have to perfect other dance-forms and you'd be taken to professional ballet performances so you can absorb the techniques of experts."
Audrey threw in the towel too
Mody is not alone. Despite her determination and natural grace, even actress Audrey Hepburn abandoned her dream of becoming a prima ballerina. Through her family's struggles during the Nazi-occupation of Arnhem (The Netherlands), Hepburn persisted with her ballet training, first at the Arnhem School of Music, then with Sonia Gaskell in Amsterdam and later with Marie Rambert.
In The Audrey Hepburn Movie, it is this last instructor, who, after all of Hepburn's determined efforts, informs her, "I have been watching you very closely, Audrey. And I regret to inform you that you have neither the stature nor the talent to achieve success as a prima ballerina."
Ballet's Oscar connection
Nominated for five Oscars (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Cinematography and Best Film Editing), Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan (releasing in India on March 4) is this year's big psychological thriller. The movie that's centred on the famous ballet, Swan Lake, shows Natalie Portman (Nina) and Mila Kunis (Lily) as fiercely competitive colleagues in a New York Ballet Company.
Both actresses spent six months toning their muscles to get the right 'look' for their roles as professional ballet dancers. Speaking of her rushed ballet training, Kunis, who described it as, "Ballet on Crack," admitted to having shed over nine kilos due to the workout and diet regime she had to follow.
Portman ended up dislocating a rib during the training sessions. And though both actresses had a double for the complex dance scenes, Portman, who had taken ballet classes as a little girl, signed up for intensified ballet training with Mary Helen Bowers (a former city ballet dancer) a whole year prior to filming.
Through the year, no matter where she was shooting or for which movie, Portman trained for five hours a day, often starting off at 5 am and fitting in barre-workouts between takes of scenes at shoots of other movies. All of this was Bowers' way to develop what she felt were crucial physical markers of ballet dancers.
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