Case 002

the case files of new york art detective

Walter Lin P.I.

Dancing in the Shadows

Photo: Ballerina silkscreen print (detail)

It started when I was five. Ballet and modern dance, taught by Susan Town at her academy in Kent. That’s where the secrets began, the ones you keep tucked deep enough no one can find them. Back then, you didn’t tell anyone, not if you had any sense. Boys didn’t do ballet, not out in the open. It would’ve been social suicide, plain and simple. Even now, I wonder if it’s changed, or if boys today still learn to move one way but hide the fact they’re moving at all.

Did I enjoy it? Maybe. But that’s the kind of question with no clean answer. The memories twist and double-back on themselves, leaving you tangled in knots you can’t untie. What I do remember is the fear. Miss Town ruled the place like a dictator in dance shoes. No misstep went unnoticed, no flaw went uncorrected. She was terrifying, and she was brilliant. She cut precision out of the air and made you match it, whether it broke you or not.

Discipline. That’s what I took from those years. Not the joy of movement, not the art. Just discipline, and the kind of physique that follows you for life. Secrets are funny like that. They don’t stay in the dark. They carve themselves into you, into your skin, your bones, until you’re carrying them everywhere, whether you want to or not.

I was awarded this book, A History of Classical Ballet by Miss Town in 1985 and it means a lot to me as a link to that part of me and period of my life.