To pointe or not to pointe?

That… is the question.

Nutcracker auditions are coming up in a couple weeks. The informational flyer was passed out last week with general show info and audition details.

The audition process sounds pretty much identical to what we did for the summer ballet, but here’s where the difference lies: the summer audition times were broken out purely by age. Thus I went to the adult time. For this… it’s broken out by age except for this one small caveat: the age 13-18 group is amended with “Pointe Audition”, i.e. if you are over 18 and wish to audition en pointe, show up for this one, not the adult audition.

Uh oh. ‘Cause, see, I know what we did in the adult audition and I know that I could’ve easily done that en pointe. But I am suddenly terror-stricken at the prospect of auditioning with the teens (and the adults who are far more proficient en pointe than I). It’s not that the teens are mean — in fact, they’re quite a darling group — just that auditions are scary and I’m only just starting to build confidence en pointe. I don’t want to make a doofus of myself.

Cue the Jeopardy theme. What to do, what to do? Henny Penny Rori says, “The sky is falling, the sky is falling!” stick with the adults and save the pointe aspirations for 2012! But then one of my fellow adults (who has danced at the studio for a while and whose opinion I respect) asked me on Saturday if I was planning to audition en pointe and said that she thought I should consider it, that I would be able to do at least one of the pointe pieces. So maybe I should just stop clucking around like a chicken and give it a shot. What’s the worst that happens? I don’t get cast in a pointe piece. Right? I mean, not the end of the world or anything. (Actually, the worst that could happen is me breaking an ankle in the audition… but let’s pretend that’s an impossibility for the sake of sanity.)

I had a great idea to ask the director what she thinks I’m ready for. But she’s heading out of the country, not coming back until the audition, so I’m not sure if I’ll actually be able to chat before then.

I think about who else will be in that group auditioning en pointe. Will the younger teens who have only been en pointe a couple years be auditioning? Because I’ve seen them and my technique is at least on par with theirs. What I’m lacking is simply hours. As adults we get one 30-minute class per week (which usually ends up being closer to 20 minutes by the time we get our shoes on after technique class). It’s fun, but not enough to make much progress. I need to find a way to log more hours with the pointe shoes and build some more strength and confidence.

So, my thought is this… for the next two weeks I’ll do at least the barre section of one of my technique classes en pointe. When I was in college we did technique classes en pointe most of the time and I think it went a long way in getting over the mental hurdle of OMGPOINTE!!!! See how that and the regular pointe classes go and base my decision on that. My heart really wants to pointe! My brain, however, wants rational proof that this is truly a Good Idea.