Smeared eyeliner, stubbornly resisting my hurried post-performance attempts of removal, coupled with a newly acquired turtleneck jumper, was making me – on reflection – a giant bull’s-eye. Saturday night’s Sandringham train, departing Flinders Street Station, always displayed an unpredictable cross-section of Melbourne’s citizens, willing to engage easy targets with their loud Victorian-Bitter-bathed conversation:
“Is that make-up on your face, mate?”
Oh boy, here we go. Naïvely I admitted to just finishing a performance, encouraging the loaded question: “Which performance?” Needless to say my answer (in retrospect I should have lied), Swan Lake, drew an exaggerated laugh. My interlocuter snorted the news to his drinking buddies, and they performed a ballerina music-box imitation for the carriage of trapped passengers.
I had a similar, yet dissimilar, experience in the UK. Saturday nights on West Midlands' trains are colourful football fan affairs. Being, as I am, a magnet for unwanted attention, a seemingly crude assortment of Tottenham Hotsper supporters, sheltering their brown paper bags, plonked adjacent. Conversation inevitably led to the question – “What do you do?” – and, surprise, no condescending reaction. Coincidently his former schoolmate was a ballet dancer and he professed unexpected admiration.
Admittedly, on this occasion, I struck lucky. Yet these were not isolated events. Which brings me to a begrudging, anglophile supposition: In comparison, are the English – particularly the men – more comfortably associated with ballet and male dancers than us? . . .
This article is an extract from a feature by Matthew Lawrence in the current Oct/Nov issue of Dance Australia. To read the rest of this article and others buy your copy from your favourite retail outlet or download our free app to purchase a copy HERE.