Brave

giuliakollmann

by giuliakollmann

Story

Every time I moved homes, even from a neighborhood to another in Rio, I felt energized to start something new. Immigration, I believe, amplifies those ambitions by thousands.

One mid-pandemic day I started to take remote ballet classes from a renowned dance school in Rio. I stopped taking contraceptive measures at around the same time. I guess I was keen on experiencing my aging body in a humbling, if not traumatizing way.

Learning ballet was similar to learning German in the type of panic it caused me from the start. Every time I turned on the screen for my online lesson, I feared it would be my last one. I would be expelled from class due to my complete lack of ability.

My body had no idea how to move in a ballet-tangent way. Hiding behind the camera helped me go on. The teacher was nice to me before and after class, and during it completely ignored me. Not a single correction or praise; my little square on her screen was invisible to her. The group, a nightmare for a movement teacher, was hybrid, some in the classroom, and the others online. When the virtual attendance format was finally canceled, she gave me the news with a smile on her face.

Facing my wildest fears, I found a ballet studio near my home. The class in Berlin, compared to the same 90 minutes online I had before, was a full-on massacre of extreme vigour, punctuality and no chit-chat. It made me perceive aging in wildly disparaging ways. In myself, it feels draining, frustrating. My body is settled in its ways and responds to challenges in screams of pain and stubbornness to make progress. At the same time, I share the room with outstanding dancers who have been doing this all their lives, for decades, either my age or much older. Next to them, I am a trembling mush. They leave me in awe of the possibilities an older body has, if only offered consistency.

I am certain I was a break to their ways of working. Having someone making a lot of mistakes can be annoying. Still, they welcomed me. At first, perhaps, they thought not for long. As I kept coming back, I earned their respect further and further. Not for being a prodigy, but for showing up. Every week they helped me keep going, doing one more repetition in spite of near exhaustion just so that I’d have someone to guide me, or just paying attention to my form when I danced as they rested, giving me later valuable corrections.

One day one of them said to me, mid-class: “Du bist Tapfer.” I didn’t know the meaning of the word, prompting my deep insecurities about both speaking German and dancing to combine. I moved my head with a smile, hoping for the conversation to die, but couldn’t fool this born-and-raised Berliner woman. She found the word in English: “Brave.”

Learning German and learning ballet are among the most excruciating things I have done to my carefully crafted high-achiever ego, and I had every opportunity to let go. But I didn’t, and I am grateful that yes, ich bin Tapfer, even if I sometimes fall apart for it.

© giuliakollmann 2023-01-19

Hashtags