Le pas de deux - Scene II
Title: Le pas de deux
Author:kototyph
Beta:angelmaple
Summary: For ksadvent2011. Original prompt: “Ballet AU: It's Nutcracker time for The Federation's "Enterprise Ballet Company". Young, bold, and rakish Jim Kirk is brought in to ramp up the Company's end of year performances, after a not so great season earlier in the year. Spock, the lead Principal dancer is not pleased, but cannot help but be attracted to the charismatic Jim. Bonus points for: Christmas eve, drinking hot cocoa together backstage/dressing room/in the wings, and finally Jim talking Spock into dancing with him on stage. Curtain's magically opening to a live audience...or its already open, and just the two of them, either would be great.”
Le pas de deux - Scene II
8:43pm, October 30th, 2011
The Enterprise Ballet Company is ostensibly the world's premiere ballet company, and as such only the crème de la crème of the dance world are represented in its ranks. The men and women of the troupe are all étoiles in their own right, all prima ballerinas, danseurs and danseuses of the utmost dedication and professionalism.
"Make him go awa-ay," Gaila whines into Pike's shoulder, slumped over him where he lies prone in the hospital bed.
This does not prevent, and in fact supports, their acting like badly spoiled children.
A smile creases Pike's grey, tired face. "My dear," he sighs, reaching up to pat her head, "You realize I have as much control over who the board chooses as you do?"
"But you have some influence," Nyota points out, most of her attention devoted to peeling an apple. "You vetoed the one before this."
Pike threw his hands up. "All you've said is that Morrow's boring! I can't bring my official objection to the board because a man's boring."
"The hell you can't!" Sulu exclaims, grabbing the newspaper out of Chekov's hands. "Look at this! Culpepper called us the blandest thing onstage this season."
Spock has read the article. It goes on to attack Enterprise for 'technically flawless but complete flat' performances, and the controlling board for setting up a rotating system of interim directors that have managed to produce some of the worst flops in the company's short history. There's some question, now, as to whether Enterprise will be able to continue without Christopher Pike, its first and best director. The knowledge is heavy in all their minds.
"Well, if you all feel that strongly about it," Pike drawls, glancing in Spock's direction. Spock inclines his head. Although Henry Morrow is a highly respected director and choreographer, he'd proved to be a bad match for Enterprise- inflexible, stubborn, and too self-important to take advice or help when it was offered.
"Then it behooves me to inform you the board has, in fact, spoken to me," Pike says with a bit of the old twinkle in his eye. "Morrow is out."
Gaila gasps in outrage. "You are a very bad man, Mr. Pike."
"Ha!" Sulu punches the air.
"But it's almost November," Nyota interjects. "The only thing we have left this year is-"
"-the Nutcracker," Pike finishes. "Yes."
"Why even bother?" she asks, and Spock looks to Pike; he's interested in the answer as well. The first time the board had asked them to perform Tchaikovsky's Nutckcracker, Pike had stormed around calling it a trite piece of mainstream garbage, tacked on to the end of the fall season as a crass moneymaker they should be ashamed of producing. Morrow would have been a perfect fit.
Pike shifts up a little in bed, careful of the IV lines in the crook of his arm and the back of his hand. "I'm hoping we'll get to keep this next director around for the spring production too, if not permanently."
"They're that good?" Nyota muses.
"Henry Morrow was good," Pike points out. "Jim has the potential to be great."
"Jim?"
"James Tiberius Kirk," Pike says, looking directly at Spock.
"Jim Kirk!" Gaila squeals. "Christopher, I take it back. You are a wonderful, wonderful man."
"I thought you said Kirk was an ass," Sulu says, looking askance at her.
Nyota snorts. "Oh, he is."
Gaila twists to face the rest of them. "He's an enormous ass. The whole world knows that, and most of the world hasn't had the benefit of sleeping with him like I have."
"You've slept with everyone," Sulu says admiringly.
Gaila leans over to pat his cheek. "Yes, I have, and you'd best remember. But Anna Karenina! And Don Juan Triumphant! The man is a genius ass."
Nyota makes a moue of distaste. "Too modern for my tastes."
Sulu pulls his own face. "Shostakovich is too modern for your tastes."
The three of them carry on bickering, and Chekov ventures to the room at large, "I'm sorry, I haven't heard this name. Who is Kirk?"
Fire and air, Spock remembers, and immediately suppresses the thought.
Pike smiles at Chekov, their youngest troupe member and a recent transplant from Kirov company. "Jim's a former danseur. More recently he's gotten a lot of attention for his small-scale projects for the New York and Boston companies. I think you'll like him, Pavel. If nothing else he'll certainly be a change."
It's true. Kirk's Anna Karenina was all the ballet world could talk for months, a strange mixture of contemporary expressive dance and classical ballet that critics either fell in love with or hated. Enterprise had been performing out of the country for the length of its run, but even if he'd had the opportunity, Spock is unsure if he'd have taken it. There is something about Kirk that still… gives him pause, for lack of a better phrase.
"And if his flight gets in on time, you'll meet him tomorrow," Pike is saying.
Three years, Spock recalls suddenly. Kirk is a bit overdue, but it looks like he'll be joining Enterprise after all.
Spock dreams of Aelita's burning palace and wakes in a sour mood. Experience has taught him that some nights, his mind will not settle, and so he makes a strengthening tea and sets out across San Francisco on foot. He arrives at the studio just as dawn is lightening the unrelieved grey dome of the sky. Winter in San Francisco is cold and damp, and fills him with longing for the endless dry summers of Shi'Kahr.
To think of Shi'Kahr is to think of his father, and that abruptly ends his homesickness. To say that Sarek does not approve of Spock's career choice is to understate both the entrenched character and bitterness of the conflict. Spock was, as a child, a mathematical prodigy. His father had hopes that Spock might be the next Gauss or Euler, but after graduating from MIT at age fourteen he found that the mental pursuits he had so delighted in seemed tedious and inconsequential. Spock sought something different, and was attracted to ballet by its highly structured and demanding nature. After all, it was Gauss who wrote, "It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, which grants the greatest enjoyment. When I have clarified and exhausted a subject, then I turn away from it, in order to go into darkness again."
Nevertheless, Spock remains more his father's son than Amanda's in many ways. The habits of diligence instilled by years of conservatory education have yet to fade, and he uses these early mornings and late nights when his troupe-mates are sleeping to practice, endlessly practice. He recites with his body as he remembers reciting formulas and geometric proofs.
To be alone, too, is soothing. Enterprise rivals the Bolshoi in size at nearly two hundred members, and dancers tend to be highly emotional. Long days surrounded by the drama and intrigue of the troupe are tiring. Having the huge, echoing salles and empty barre to himself helps him center and focus his mind before the onslaught of the day.
Which is why, when Spock rounds the corner and sees Jim Kirk is sitting on the steps to the back door, he briefly entertains the urge to turn and flee.
The man has a duffel bag over his shoulder and a day's growth of stubble; his face is illuminated by the iPhone he's flicking through. He's dressed to dance, skintight shirt over loose pants and sneakers and a sweatband holding back truly unruly bedhead. Square black frames perch on the bridge of his nose.
While Spock is still taking him in, Kirk glances up and blinks owlishly at him from behind the lenses.
"Oh. Good morning- hey, wait. S'chn T'gai Spock, right?" he says, sounding honestly excited. He doesn't even have the decency to mispronounce it.
"Yes. You are James Kirk," Spock acknowledges, and is the recipient of a blinding grin.
Kirk swings easily to his feet. "Chris said you came in early, but this is a little over the top, isn't it? It's only five thirty."
"And yet, here you yourself are," Spock points out.
Kirk shrugs. "I got in a little earlier than I'd thought, decided to wait."
There is an awkward pause, as the man looks expectantly at Spock and Spock wonders what it is that he wants.
"D'you think we could, you know, go inside?" he says finally. "It's cold as hell."
Spock covers his embarrassment with a gruff, "Yes, of course," and climbs the steps towards him. He is acutely aware of Kirk's weight pressed close to him on the narrow landing, and fumbles the key in the lock once before sliding back the bolt and opening the door.
The studio is nothing much out of the ordinary, a converted brick warehouse that happened to be behind the behind the theater. There are several salles, with dizzying forty-foot ceilings and literal miles of mirrors. The costume and prop storage rooms are on the second floor, with interior windows looking out into the practice rooms.
Jim whistles as they walk into the main salle, a space that could fit the entire company. "This is a lot of acreage, but I guess we'll need it, right?"
"Indeed," Spock says, edging in what he hopes is a subtle way towards the doors. Kirk's eyes narrow faintly, and then he links their arms and smiles guilelessly up at Spock.
"Show me to Pike's office?" he asks, in a manner he probably believes is winsome. "He said he has last year's libretto stashed on a shelf somewhere."
Spock is not touch-phobic, nor is he an android that can't fully mimic human functions (as he once heard Sulu postulate). He simply was not raised to welcome undue contact, and the warmth of Jim's arm through his is at once a grating and strangely stimulating sensation.
"Up the stairs and to your right," he says stiffly, trying to extricate himself. Kirk sticks like a limpet.
"Great!" he says, and proceeds to drag Spock up the stairs after him.
Kirk talks while he works, an endless flow of noise and aural clutter that Spock stops trying to process five minutes into their search for the elusive libretto.
"I was thinking of starting auditions as early as this afternoon," he says as he shifts a tall pile of scrapbooks and music scores to the side. "Chris said he followed Tchaikovsky's form almost to the letter, and it is a classic, but I want to jazz it up a little, you know? I wanna see what Enterprise can really do. Oh, wow, Pike, moldy coffee much? Anyway, I'm bringing in a new composer-a recomposer? And I've got a set designer lined up who really likes to work with angled stages, so I was thinking of installing these rotating panels- Holy shit, was that a sandwich? It's purple!"
And he keeps touching Spock, casually tugging at his sleeve or running a fingertip down the back of his hand to get his attention. When Kirk leans in over Spock's shoulder to look at something and rests his chin on the bone there, Spock steps smoothly to the side and says, "I think I hear someone at the door, please feel free to carry on without me."
Luckily enough someone has indeed just arrived, and Spock sweeps down the stair and surprises a small group of corps members just entering the sale. Nyota is among them, and Spock ducks through the confused girls and crowds the danseuse into the coatroom, closing the door behind them.
"Kirk is here," he says without preamble.
"And so… we're hiding in a closet," Nyota says.
"We have made a strategic retreat," Spock corrects her. "The man might be insane."
"The best dancers always are," she says, starting to smile. "Spock, you look a little flushed."
"I am not flushed," he snaps. "I am concerned for the future of this company at the hands of a madman."
"One month-and-a-half run is not going to make or break us, Spock. And if we're going to experiment, why not do it with the Nutcracker? It can't get any worse," she says hautily, and lets herself out.
When Spock exits the coatroom, it is to the sight of half the corps draped over their new director, cooing and lowing like besotted cattle. Kirk is dangerously charming; he has them eating out of his hand, falling over themselves to shake his hand, tell him how much they loved Anna Karenina and would he sign something for them? Kirk laughs and signs t-shirt and hats, and when all one hundred and eighty-odd troupe members have arrived he ushers them into the theater, sitting on the stage with his legs swinging like a child.
He has a long speech about how glad he is to be there, shaking up tradition and boldly going where no man has gone before. Throughout it all, Spock senses the pull of Kirk's gaze like sticky taffy and feels besieged. The feeling worsens when Kirk pulls him aside and whispers that he'll be counting on Spock for his support. His fingers linger at the back of Spock's neck, and he can't quite suppress a full body shudder after Kirk moves on to his next victim.
Kirk does not invade alone. Over the course of the afternoon two other men join the troupe at the studio, and while the corps warm up they huddle in conference with Kirk. One Spock has had the dubious fortune of meeting personally; Montgomery Scott is a set designer made famous for his work with the Cirque du Soleil, and infamous for an incident involving a patron's prize Beagle and a piece retractable landscape. The second Spock knows only through rumor, and rumor does not paint a flattering picture of Dr. Leonard McCoy, Ph.D. in musical composition.
"It's Tchaikovsky, Jim, what the hell do you want?" Spock hears him bellow at one point in the afternoon.
"C'mon, Bones, work with me here," Kirk answers. "I'll put Jojo in the Sugar Plum Fairy scene, front and center. Just work your magic for me."
"It's Tchaikovsky," the composer says flatly. "Have you even ordered a celesta?"
"… sure I have."
"Jim!"
"What? I have bigger things to worry about!"
He does. The 'auditions' last for three days, and Kirk spends most of them stalking through the salles, staring thoughtfully at each individual dancer as if contemplating a move in a chess match.
Despite the elaborate castles in the sky built by les petites danseuses like Janice Rand, the casting falls almost exactly as it has in the past- with the notable exception of the part of Clara.
"An ingénue can't do what I need you to do," Jim tells Gaila.
"And what exactly will I be doing?" she asks suspiciously.
Jim's grin is shark-like.
Spock has been cast once again as the Nutcracker prince, which surprises no one. Nyota is his Sugar Plum Fairy, and Sulu delights in being named Mouse King. That Jim chose Pavel for the part of Fritz is expected, but casting Giotto as, among other small parts, Mother Ginger seems a bit cruel and unusual. A few dreams are shattered, but most of the troupe walks away happy and genuinely excited for the coming show.
And then rehearsal begins.
In the first few hours of their meeting, Kirk earns the company's love. Over the next few weeks, he earns their fear, respect, and absolute loyalty, much like a feudal lord.
The majority of the corps seems to have been fooled by Kirk's constant smiles and lack of formality into believing that the man is easygoing and even-tempered. Spock knows better, has seen Kirk dance, and so is not at all shocked when a fire-breathing monster emerges from under his laid-back persona. Nothing is good enough. Practice is unspeakable; a troupe's hours are always long but the Enterprise company's days grow horrendous, fourteen hours sometimes stretching into eighteen, until they've danced themselves into exhaustion and physically can't go on.
Kirk has the younger members in tears, forces the older danseurs to the limits of their abilities and beyond. The grand dance scenes are insane, a kaleidoscope of confused movement and chaotic steps, the mad Mr. Scott making good on his reputation for floating platforms and having half the dancers in harnesses.
"It looks ridiculous," he snarls at Kirk, because the man makes him forget that he was raised the privileged only son of the ambassador to an OPEC nation. "There's no pattern, they're falling over each other with every turn-"
Kirk grabs him by the wrist, and when Spock digs in his heels drags him out into the seats, up the top level where the sound booth sits.
Jim yells, "Again!" and Spock rips his hand out off the man's grip-
-and watches, fascinated, as a flower unfolds petal by petal in the form of twirling dancers.
Somehow in the midst of it all, Spock comes to realize that he has never seen Gaila move so nimbly, and somehow Kirk knew that Sulu had trained to fence. There are points during the battle with the Mouse King that it becomes an actual battle, and Spock is forced to defend himself for fear of physical injury.
When they're alone, Kirk is friendly, flirty, stealing sly caresses and openly delighting in Spock's increasingly obvious bewilderment at the treatment.
In rehearsal, Kirk calls him dull, two-dimensional, and on one memorable occasion questions his manhood in front of the entire mouse army.
"You have to communicate the aggression, the thrill and heat of the battle. The audience needs to feel it. Do you understand?" Kirk growls, inches from his face.
Seconds from putting his hands around the man's throat and throttling him, Spock remembers, Fire and air, and thinks that perhaps he does understand.
Kirk drives all of them hard, harder than they've ever been driven before, but no one more than himself. After another practice runs until two in the morning, Spock decides to meditate in his dressing room instead of returning to his apartment. When he emerges hours later, a glimpse of movement through a cracked door leads him to the main salle, where Jim Kirk is dancing with no one.
It's not a routine Spock recognizes, although he hypothesizes it might be from one of the Czech classics. It's slow and adagio, and Kirk's limbs drift as if through water.
Kirk notices Spock at a half-turn, but holds up a finger and doesn't break the fluid series of movements. "Just a minute. I got breakfast," he adds, nodding towards a cardboard thermos, some Styrofoam cups and three or four pastry boxes on the ground.
When Spock has seated himself on the floor and selected a baked good, Kirk flops gracelessly to the ground beside him, holding out a hand for the thermos and a cup. Kirk still eats like dancer, Spock has observed. He seems to live off of caffeine, champagne and the occasional sliver of cake from fundraising buffets.
"Sorry, needed to finish my moment of Zen," Kirk says, then makes an obscene noise of enjoyment at his first sip of coffee. "Mmgod. That was Dvořák's Rusalka, if you were wondering."
Czech, as suspected. But Spock's attention is arrested by the dark circles and tired lines framing Kirk's face. Take away all his ballerinas to torture and danseurs to yell at, and their manic director looks more like a wrung-out dishrag than a tyrant.
"Why do you push so hard?" he murmurs.
Kirk gives a little laugh. "You know the answer to that, I think. This is my only chance to really impress the board- as it is, they've got no intention of letting me direct in the spring. Chris had to fight them tooth and nail just to get this much."
Spock doesn't know what to say, and so instead bites delicately at the edge of his bagel.
"I was so disappointed, when you didn't come with Chris that night," Kirk says suddenly, apropos of nothing.
Spock swallows and says, "I beg your pardon?"
"Aelita? April, in New York?" Kirk says, raising his eyebrows. "I saw you sitting with him. I've seen you in, like, twelve shows. You danced the prince in Swan Lake, and it was always my favorite."
It renders Spock momentarily speechless. "Swan Lake?" he echoes, finally. It was six point three four years ago.
"Yeah. You were beautiful."
Spock forgets himself and scowls at Kirk. "I am not-"
At that moment, Sulu stumbles into the room, no doubt lured by the smell of coffee. He blinks blearily, and visibly blanches when he recognizes Kirk.
Kirk smiles toothily at him. "Awesome! Since you're here, let's do the slipper scene again."
Sulu whimpers. Spock agrees entirely with the sentiment.
The days blur into each other, and November vanishes in a whirlwind of rehearsals, costume fittings, glimpses of Mr. Scott's stagecraft that get stranger by the hour and McCoy regularly bursting into practice with the newest bit of sheet music or inspired addition. Christine Chapel, their pianist, has professed undying hatred for the man.
As the weeks wind down, a kind of manic energy suffuses the studio, a direct reflection of their director. Kirk, it seems, can be in five places at the same time and never slows down, not even to sleep. Their dress rehearsal is a two-day lock-in, and at the end of it Mr. Scott produces a video tape of their performance. All two hundred of the cast members crowd around the television from the prop room and watch in absolute silence as something desperately beautiful enfolds on the screen.
Their first performance is on Black Friday, and the atmosphere in the wings is that of tense, breathless excitement, anticipation honed to razor-sharpness. Beside him, Gaila's eyes are huge and her hands are fisted tightly in the tulle of her gown. Mr. Scott is crouched behind them, ready to deploy the giant Christmas tree as soon as the party scene ends.
Just as the curtain is about to open, a hand smoothes up Spock's shoulder, followed by the whole of a lean, warm body. "Break a leg," Kirk whispers hotly into his ear. Spock doesn't quite stifle a shudder.
Gaila isn't looking quite so stiff anymore. "So… you two, huh?" she whispers, after Kirk has swaggered off.
Spock is thankfully saved from answering by the beginning notes of the overture miniature, and prepares himself to dance.
They play to two or three lackluster crowds: children on school trips, the elderly out on the town. The whole of the troupe holds their breath, waiting to see what will happen. Those who do see the ballet walk out buzzing with amazement, exhilaration, and slowly but surely word catches on. The right words in the right ears, and the Nutcracker explodes.
The seats fill up in the thousands, all twenty-odd remaining shows sold out in a single mad rush of a few hours. More performances are hastily scheduled and those sell out too, at three times the original ticket price. Amanda sends Spock newsclippings, reviews from the same critics that had panned Enterprise only months before, and words like ravishing and tour de force jump off the page. A juror from the Prix Benois is spotted in the audience, and causes a minor panic in wings that almost throws off the Snow Queen's entrance one evening..
Spock dances, and he feels like a part of something bigger than a story about dreams and candy kingdoms. The fight against the Mouse King is worthy of novelization, as visceral and bloody as any military campaign this century. The pas de deux between the Prince and the Sugar Plum Fairy is one of the most famous in ballet history, but Spock is sure that no juror has ever seen it done like this, like the two dancers have become as light and insubstantial and the soft snowflakes that drift down from the rafters.
Each time the Nutcracker evolves from a wooden toy to a foreign prince, Spock feels himself begin to evolve with him. He's uncertain, but he thinks this trite piece of commercial garbage might be the finest work he's ever done.
Pike laughs when he mentions this, in between shows on a Saturday afternoon. "What can I say, Spock?" he says, his chuckles tinny over the phone. "I told you, the kid could be great, and he'll drag you all with him."
Spock watches Kirk's face as the man stands wordlessly in the wings, and believes it.
[ << Scene I ] [ Scene III >> ]
[ The Nutcracker Libretto - Act I - Act II ]
Dictionary of Terms :
Étoile - star, in the Paris ballet tradition
Danseur/balleroux - male ballet dancer
Danseuse - female ballet dancer (Italian: ballerina)
Salle - fancy French for room
Barre - a bar used for stretching purposes, usually in front of a mirror
Ingénue - stock character. An innocent young girl, naïve and sweet
Adagio - Italian, a slow and stately tempo
Corps - (pronounced cor) full length = corps du ballet, fancy French for dance company. I use troupe/ company/ corps pretty much interchangeably
Libretto - the text used in a musical work
Overture miniature - the small overture (herp derp) that introduces the main theme of the Party Scene
The Prix Benois (de la Danse) - prestigious ballet award, given by the International Dance Association in Moscow
Celesta/Celeste - musical instrument that sounds like tiny bells. Think “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy”.
Dmitri Shostakovich (sha-sta-KO-vich) - a Soviet composer, started writing music at age ten and didn’t stop until his death in 1975.
Carl F. Gauss - “Prince of Mathematics”, started correcting his father’s math at age three and by age twelve had started proving Euclidian axioms. Possibly the greatest theorem prover ever.
Leonhard Euler - the most prolific mathematician in history and also widely regarded as the best algorist of all time.
[ Wikipedia’s Glossary of Ballet ]
Author:kototyph
Beta:angelmaple
Summary: For ksadvent2011. Original prompt: “Ballet AU: It's Nutcracker time for The Federation's "Enterprise Ballet Company". Young, bold, and rakish Jim Kirk is brought in to ramp up the Company's end of year performances, after a not so great season earlier in the year. Spock, the lead Principal dancer is not pleased, but cannot help but be attracted to the charismatic Jim. Bonus points for: Christmas eve, drinking hot cocoa together backstage/dressing room/in the wings, and finally Jim talking Spock into dancing with him on stage. Curtain's magically opening to a live audience...or its already open, and just the two of them, either would be great.”
Le pas de deux - Scene II
8:43pm, October 30th, 2011
The Enterprise Ballet Company is ostensibly the world's premiere ballet company, and as such only the crème de la crème of the dance world are represented in its ranks. The men and women of the troupe are all étoiles in their own right, all prima ballerinas, danseurs and danseuses of the utmost dedication and professionalism.
"Make him go awa-ay," Gaila whines into Pike's shoulder, slumped over him where he lies prone in the hospital bed.
This does not prevent, and in fact supports, their acting like badly spoiled children.
A smile creases Pike's grey, tired face. "My dear," he sighs, reaching up to pat her head, "You realize I have as much control over who the board chooses as you do?"
"But you have some influence," Nyota points out, most of her attention devoted to peeling an apple. "You vetoed the one before this."
Pike threw his hands up. "All you've said is that Morrow's boring! I can't bring my official objection to the board because a man's boring."
"The hell you can't!" Sulu exclaims, grabbing the newspaper out of Chekov's hands. "Look at this! Culpepper called us the blandest thing onstage this season."
Spock has read the article. It goes on to attack Enterprise for 'technically flawless but complete flat' performances, and the controlling board for setting up a rotating system of interim directors that have managed to produce some of the worst flops in the company's short history. There's some question, now, as to whether Enterprise will be able to continue without Christopher Pike, its first and best director. The knowledge is heavy in all their minds.
"Well, if you all feel that strongly about it," Pike drawls, glancing in Spock's direction. Spock inclines his head. Although Henry Morrow is a highly respected director and choreographer, he'd proved to be a bad match for Enterprise- inflexible, stubborn, and too self-important to take advice or help when it was offered.
"Then it behooves me to inform you the board has, in fact, spoken to me," Pike says with a bit of the old twinkle in his eye. "Morrow is out."
Gaila gasps in outrage. "You are a very bad man, Mr. Pike."
"Ha!" Sulu punches the air.
"But it's almost November," Nyota interjects. "The only thing we have left this year is-"
"-the Nutcracker," Pike finishes. "Yes."
"Why even bother?" she asks, and Spock looks to Pike; he's interested in the answer as well. The first time the board had asked them to perform Tchaikovsky's Nutckcracker, Pike had stormed around calling it a trite piece of mainstream garbage, tacked on to the end of the fall season as a crass moneymaker they should be ashamed of producing. Morrow would have been a perfect fit.
Pike shifts up a little in bed, careful of the IV lines in the crook of his arm and the back of his hand. "I'm hoping we'll get to keep this next director around for the spring production too, if not permanently."
"They're that good?" Nyota muses.
"Henry Morrow was good," Pike points out. "Jim has the potential to be great."
"Jim?"
"James Tiberius Kirk," Pike says, looking directly at Spock.
"Jim Kirk!" Gaila squeals. "Christopher, I take it back. You are a wonderful, wonderful man."
"I thought you said Kirk was an ass," Sulu says, looking askance at her.
Nyota snorts. "Oh, he is."
Gaila twists to face the rest of them. "He's an enormous ass. The whole world knows that, and most of the world hasn't had the benefit of sleeping with him like I have."
"You've slept with everyone," Sulu says admiringly.
Gaila leans over to pat his cheek. "Yes, I have, and you'd best remember. But Anna Karenina! And Don Juan Triumphant! The man is a genius ass."
Nyota makes a moue of distaste. "Too modern for my tastes."
Sulu pulls his own face. "Shostakovich is too modern for your tastes."
The three of them carry on bickering, and Chekov ventures to the room at large, "I'm sorry, I haven't heard this name. Who is Kirk?"
Fire and air, Spock remembers, and immediately suppresses the thought.
Pike smiles at Chekov, their youngest troupe member and a recent transplant from Kirov company. "Jim's a former danseur. More recently he's gotten a lot of attention for his small-scale projects for the New York and Boston companies. I think you'll like him, Pavel. If nothing else he'll certainly be a change."
It's true. Kirk's Anna Karenina was all the ballet world could talk for months, a strange mixture of contemporary expressive dance and classical ballet that critics either fell in love with or hated. Enterprise had been performing out of the country for the length of its run, but even if he'd had the opportunity, Spock is unsure if he'd have taken it. There is something about Kirk that still… gives him pause, for lack of a better phrase.
"And if his flight gets in on time, you'll meet him tomorrow," Pike is saying.
Three years, Spock recalls suddenly. Kirk is a bit overdue, but it looks like he'll be joining Enterprise after all.
Spock dreams of Aelita's burning palace and wakes in a sour mood. Experience has taught him that some nights, his mind will not settle, and so he makes a strengthening tea and sets out across San Francisco on foot. He arrives at the studio just as dawn is lightening the unrelieved grey dome of the sky. Winter in San Francisco is cold and damp, and fills him with longing for the endless dry summers of Shi'Kahr.
To think of Shi'Kahr is to think of his father, and that abruptly ends his homesickness. To say that Sarek does not approve of Spock's career choice is to understate both the entrenched character and bitterness of the conflict. Spock was, as a child, a mathematical prodigy. His father had hopes that Spock might be the next Gauss or Euler, but after graduating from MIT at age fourteen he found that the mental pursuits he had so delighted in seemed tedious and inconsequential. Spock sought something different, and was attracted to ballet by its highly structured and demanding nature. After all, it was Gauss who wrote, "It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, which grants the greatest enjoyment. When I have clarified and exhausted a subject, then I turn away from it, in order to go into darkness again."
Nevertheless, Spock remains more his father's son than Amanda's in many ways. The habits of diligence instilled by years of conservatory education have yet to fade, and he uses these early mornings and late nights when his troupe-mates are sleeping to practice, endlessly practice. He recites with his body as he remembers reciting formulas and geometric proofs.
To be alone, too, is soothing. Enterprise rivals the Bolshoi in size at nearly two hundred members, and dancers tend to be highly emotional. Long days surrounded by the drama and intrigue of the troupe are tiring. Having the huge, echoing salles and empty barre to himself helps him center and focus his mind before the onslaught of the day.
Which is why, when Spock rounds the corner and sees Jim Kirk is sitting on the steps to the back door, he briefly entertains the urge to turn and flee.
The man has a duffel bag over his shoulder and a day's growth of stubble; his face is illuminated by the iPhone he's flicking through. He's dressed to dance, skintight shirt over loose pants and sneakers and a sweatband holding back truly unruly bedhead. Square black frames perch on the bridge of his nose.
While Spock is still taking him in, Kirk glances up and blinks owlishly at him from behind the lenses.
"Oh. Good morning- hey, wait. S'chn T'gai Spock, right?" he says, sounding honestly excited. He doesn't even have the decency to mispronounce it.
"Yes. You are James Kirk," Spock acknowledges, and is the recipient of a blinding grin.
Kirk swings easily to his feet. "Chris said you came in early, but this is a little over the top, isn't it? It's only five thirty."
"And yet, here you yourself are," Spock points out.
Kirk shrugs. "I got in a little earlier than I'd thought, decided to wait."
There is an awkward pause, as the man looks expectantly at Spock and Spock wonders what it is that he wants.
"D'you think we could, you know, go inside?" he says finally. "It's cold as hell."
Spock covers his embarrassment with a gruff, "Yes, of course," and climbs the steps towards him. He is acutely aware of Kirk's weight pressed close to him on the narrow landing, and fumbles the key in the lock once before sliding back the bolt and opening the door.
The studio is nothing much out of the ordinary, a converted brick warehouse that happened to be behind the behind the theater. There are several salles, with dizzying forty-foot ceilings and literal miles of mirrors. The costume and prop storage rooms are on the second floor, with interior windows looking out into the practice rooms.
Jim whistles as they walk into the main salle, a space that could fit the entire company. "This is a lot of acreage, but I guess we'll need it, right?"
"Indeed," Spock says, edging in what he hopes is a subtle way towards the doors. Kirk's eyes narrow faintly, and then he links their arms and smiles guilelessly up at Spock.
"Show me to Pike's office?" he asks, in a manner he probably believes is winsome. "He said he has last year's libretto stashed on a shelf somewhere."
Spock is not touch-phobic, nor is he an android that can't fully mimic human functions (as he once heard Sulu postulate). He simply was not raised to welcome undue contact, and the warmth of Jim's arm through his is at once a grating and strangely stimulating sensation.
"Up the stairs and to your right," he says stiffly, trying to extricate himself. Kirk sticks like a limpet.
"Great!" he says, and proceeds to drag Spock up the stairs after him.
Kirk talks while he works, an endless flow of noise and aural clutter that Spock stops trying to process five minutes into their search for the elusive libretto.
"I was thinking of starting auditions as early as this afternoon," he says as he shifts a tall pile of scrapbooks and music scores to the side. "Chris said he followed Tchaikovsky's form almost to the letter, and it is a classic, but I want to jazz it up a little, you know? I wanna see what Enterprise can really do. Oh, wow, Pike, moldy coffee much? Anyway, I'm bringing in a new composer-a recomposer? And I've got a set designer lined up who really likes to work with angled stages, so I was thinking of installing these rotating panels- Holy shit, was that a sandwich? It's purple!"
And he keeps touching Spock, casually tugging at his sleeve or running a fingertip down the back of his hand to get his attention. When Kirk leans in over Spock's shoulder to look at something and rests his chin on the bone there, Spock steps smoothly to the side and says, "I think I hear someone at the door, please feel free to carry on without me."
Luckily enough someone has indeed just arrived, and Spock sweeps down the stair and surprises a small group of corps members just entering the sale. Nyota is among them, and Spock ducks through the confused girls and crowds the danseuse into the coatroom, closing the door behind them.
"Kirk is here," he says without preamble.
"And so… we're hiding in a closet," Nyota says.
"We have made a strategic retreat," Spock corrects her. "The man might be insane."
"The best dancers always are," she says, starting to smile. "Spock, you look a little flushed."
"I am not flushed," he snaps. "I am concerned for the future of this company at the hands of a madman."
"One month-and-a-half run is not going to make or break us, Spock. And if we're going to experiment, why not do it with the Nutcracker? It can't get any worse," she says hautily, and lets herself out.
When Spock exits the coatroom, it is to the sight of half the corps draped over their new director, cooing and lowing like besotted cattle. Kirk is dangerously charming; he has them eating out of his hand, falling over themselves to shake his hand, tell him how much they loved Anna Karenina and would he sign something for them? Kirk laughs and signs t-shirt and hats, and when all one hundred and eighty-odd troupe members have arrived he ushers them into the theater, sitting on the stage with his legs swinging like a child.
He has a long speech about how glad he is to be there, shaking up tradition and boldly going where no man has gone before. Throughout it all, Spock senses the pull of Kirk's gaze like sticky taffy and feels besieged. The feeling worsens when Kirk pulls him aside and whispers that he'll be counting on Spock for his support. His fingers linger at the back of Spock's neck, and he can't quite suppress a full body shudder after Kirk moves on to his next victim.
Kirk does not invade alone. Over the course of the afternoon two other men join the troupe at the studio, and while the corps warm up they huddle in conference with Kirk. One Spock has had the dubious fortune of meeting personally; Montgomery Scott is a set designer made famous for his work with the Cirque du Soleil, and infamous for an incident involving a patron's prize Beagle and a piece retractable landscape. The second Spock knows only through rumor, and rumor does not paint a flattering picture of Dr. Leonard McCoy, Ph.D. in musical composition.
"It's Tchaikovsky, Jim, what the hell do you want?" Spock hears him bellow at one point in the afternoon.
"C'mon, Bones, work with me here," Kirk answers. "I'll put Jojo in the Sugar Plum Fairy scene, front and center. Just work your magic for me."
"It's Tchaikovsky," the composer says flatly. "Have you even ordered a celesta?"
"… sure I have."
"Jim!"
"What? I have bigger things to worry about!"
He does. The 'auditions' last for three days, and Kirk spends most of them stalking through the salles, staring thoughtfully at each individual dancer as if contemplating a move in a chess match.
Despite the elaborate castles in the sky built by les petites danseuses like Janice Rand, the casting falls almost exactly as it has in the past- with the notable exception of the part of Clara.
"An ingénue can't do what I need you to do," Jim tells Gaila.
"And what exactly will I be doing?" she asks suspiciously.
Jim's grin is shark-like.
Spock has been cast once again as the Nutcracker prince, which surprises no one. Nyota is his Sugar Plum Fairy, and Sulu delights in being named Mouse King. That Jim chose Pavel for the part of Fritz is expected, but casting Giotto as, among other small parts, Mother Ginger seems a bit cruel and unusual. A few dreams are shattered, but most of the troupe walks away happy and genuinely excited for the coming show.
And then rehearsal begins.
In the first few hours of their meeting, Kirk earns the company's love. Over the next few weeks, he earns their fear, respect, and absolute loyalty, much like a feudal lord.
The majority of the corps seems to have been fooled by Kirk's constant smiles and lack of formality into believing that the man is easygoing and even-tempered. Spock knows better, has seen Kirk dance, and so is not at all shocked when a fire-breathing monster emerges from under his laid-back persona. Nothing is good enough. Practice is unspeakable; a troupe's hours are always long but the Enterprise company's days grow horrendous, fourteen hours sometimes stretching into eighteen, until they've danced themselves into exhaustion and physically can't go on.
Kirk has the younger members in tears, forces the older danseurs to the limits of their abilities and beyond. The grand dance scenes are insane, a kaleidoscope of confused movement and chaotic steps, the mad Mr. Scott making good on his reputation for floating platforms and having half the dancers in harnesses.
"It looks ridiculous," he snarls at Kirk, because the man makes him forget that he was raised the privileged only son of the ambassador to an OPEC nation. "There's no pattern, they're falling over each other with every turn-"
Kirk grabs him by the wrist, and when Spock digs in his heels drags him out into the seats, up the top level where the sound booth sits.
Jim yells, "Again!" and Spock rips his hand out off the man's grip-
-and watches, fascinated, as a flower unfolds petal by petal in the form of twirling dancers.
Somehow in the midst of it all, Spock comes to realize that he has never seen Gaila move so nimbly, and somehow Kirk knew that Sulu had trained to fence. There are points during the battle with the Mouse King that it becomes an actual battle, and Spock is forced to defend himself for fear of physical injury.
When they're alone, Kirk is friendly, flirty, stealing sly caresses and openly delighting in Spock's increasingly obvious bewilderment at the treatment.
In rehearsal, Kirk calls him dull, two-dimensional, and on one memorable occasion questions his manhood in front of the entire mouse army.
"You have to communicate the aggression, the thrill and heat of the battle. The audience needs to feel it. Do you understand?" Kirk growls, inches from his face.
Seconds from putting his hands around the man's throat and throttling him, Spock remembers, Fire and air, and thinks that perhaps he does understand.
Kirk drives all of them hard, harder than they've ever been driven before, but no one more than himself. After another practice runs until two in the morning, Spock decides to meditate in his dressing room instead of returning to his apartment. When he emerges hours later, a glimpse of movement through a cracked door leads him to the main salle, where Jim Kirk is dancing with no one.
It's not a routine Spock recognizes, although he hypothesizes it might be from one of the Czech classics. It's slow and adagio, and Kirk's limbs drift as if through water.
Kirk notices Spock at a half-turn, but holds up a finger and doesn't break the fluid series of movements. "Just a minute. I got breakfast," he adds, nodding towards a cardboard thermos, some Styrofoam cups and three or four pastry boxes on the ground.
When Spock has seated himself on the floor and selected a baked good, Kirk flops gracelessly to the ground beside him, holding out a hand for the thermos and a cup. Kirk still eats like dancer, Spock has observed. He seems to live off of caffeine, champagne and the occasional sliver of cake from fundraising buffets.
"Sorry, needed to finish my moment of Zen," Kirk says, then makes an obscene noise of enjoyment at his first sip of coffee. "Mmgod. That was Dvořák's Rusalka, if you were wondering."
Czech, as suspected. But Spock's attention is arrested by the dark circles and tired lines framing Kirk's face. Take away all his ballerinas to torture and danseurs to yell at, and their manic director looks more like a wrung-out dishrag than a tyrant.
"Why do you push so hard?" he murmurs.
Kirk gives a little laugh. "You know the answer to that, I think. This is my only chance to really impress the board- as it is, they've got no intention of letting me direct in the spring. Chris had to fight them tooth and nail just to get this much."
Spock doesn't know what to say, and so instead bites delicately at the edge of his bagel.
"I was so disappointed, when you didn't come with Chris that night," Kirk says suddenly, apropos of nothing.
Spock swallows and says, "I beg your pardon?"
"Aelita? April, in New York?" Kirk says, raising his eyebrows. "I saw you sitting with him. I've seen you in, like, twelve shows. You danced the prince in Swan Lake, and it was always my favorite."
It renders Spock momentarily speechless. "Swan Lake?" he echoes, finally. It was six point three four years ago.
"Yeah. You were beautiful."
Spock forgets himself and scowls at Kirk. "I am not-"
At that moment, Sulu stumbles into the room, no doubt lured by the smell of coffee. He blinks blearily, and visibly blanches when he recognizes Kirk.
Kirk smiles toothily at him. "Awesome! Since you're here, let's do the slipper scene again."
Sulu whimpers. Spock agrees entirely with the sentiment.
The days blur into each other, and November vanishes in a whirlwind of rehearsals, costume fittings, glimpses of Mr. Scott's stagecraft that get stranger by the hour and McCoy regularly bursting into practice with the newest bit of sheet music or inspired addition. Christine Chapel, their pianist, has professed undying hatred for the man.
As the weeks wind down, a kind of manic energy suffuses the studio, a direct reflection of their director. Kirk, it seems, can be in five places at the same time and never slows down, not even to sleep. Their dress rehearsal is a two-day lock-in, and at the end of it Mr. Scott produces a video tape of their performance. All two hundred of the cast members crowd around the television from the prop room and watch in absolute silence as something desperately beautiful enfolds on the screen.
Their first performance is on Black Friday, and the atmosphere in the wings is that of tense, breathless excitement, anticipation honed to razor-sharpness. Beside him, Gaila's eyes are huge and her hands are fisted tightly in the tulle of her gown. Mr. Scott is crouched behind them, ready to deploy the giant Christmas tree as soon as the party scene ends.
Just as the curtain is about to open, a hand smoothes up Spock's shoulder, followed by the whole of a lean, warm body. "Break a leg," Kirk whispers hotly into his ear. Spock doesn't quite stifle a shudder.
Gaila isn't looking quite so stiff anymore. "So… you two, huh?" she whispers, after Kirk has swaggered off.
Spock is thankfully saved from answering by the beginning notes of the overture miniature, and prepares himself to dance.
They play to two or three lackluster crowds: children on school trips, the elderly out on the town. The whole of the troupe holds their breath, waiting to see what will happen. Those who do see the ballet walk out buzzing with amazement, exhilaration, and slowly but surely word catches on. The right words in the right ears, and the Nutcracker explodes.
The seats fill up in the thousands, all twenty-odd remaining shows sold out in a single mad rush of a few hours. More performances are hastily scheduled and those sell out too, at three times the original ticket price. Amanda sends Spock newsclippings, reviews from the same critics that had panned Enterprise only months before, and words like ravishing and tour de force jump off the page. A juror from the Prix Benois is spotted in the audience, and causes a minor panic in wings that almost throws off the Snow Queen's entrance one evening..
Spock dances, and he feels like a part of something bigger than a story about dreams and candy kingdoms. The fight against the Mouse King is worthy of novelization, as visceral and bloody as any military campaign this century. The pas de deux between the Prince and the Sugar Plum Fairy is one of the most famous in ballet history, but Spock is sure that no juror has ever seen it done like this, like the two dancers have become as light and insubstantial and the soft snowflakes that drift down from the rafters.
Each time the Nutcracker evolves from a wooden toy to a foreign prince, Spock feels himself begin to evolve with him. He's uncertain, but he thinks this trite piece of commercial garbage might be the finest work he's ever done.
Pike laughs when he mentions this, in between shows on a Saturday afternoon. "What can I say, Spock?" he says, his chuckles tinny over the phone. "I told you, the kid could be great, and he'll drag you all with him."
Spock watches Kirk's face as the man stands wordlessly in the wings, and believes it.
[ << Scene I ] [ Scene III >> ]
[ The Nutcracker Libretto - Act I - Act II ]
Dictionary of Terms :
Étoile - star, in the Paris ballet tradition
Danseur/balleroux - male ballet dancer
Danseuse - female ballet dancer (Italian: ballerina)
Salle - fancy French for room
Barre - a bar used for stretching purposes, usually in front of a mirror
Ingénue - stock character. An innocent young girl, naïve and sweet
Adagio - Italian, a slow and stately tempo
Corps - (pronounced cor) full length = corps du ballet, fancy French for dance company. I use troupe/ company/ corps pretty much interchangeably
Libretto - the text used in a musical work
Overture miniature - the small overture (herp derp) that introduces the main theme of the Party Scene
The Prix Benois (de la Danse) - prestigious ballet award, given by the International Dance Association in Moscow
Celesta/Celeste - musical instrument that sounds like tiny bells. Think “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy”.
Dmitri Shostakovich (sha-sta-KO-vich) - a Soviet composer, started writing music at age ten and didn’t stop until his death in 1975.
Carl F. Gauss - “Prince of Mathematics”, started correcting his father’s math at age three and by age twelve had started proving Euclidian axioms. Possibly the greatest theorem prover ever.
Leonhard Euler - the most prolific mathematician in history and also widely regarded as the best algorist of all time.
[ Wikipedia’s Glossary of Ballet ]