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Pink satin shoes hide bloody, bruised feet
In comfy, stuffed chairs, the audience watches the ethereal dancer float across the stage on two pink satin hooves.
Jerri Niebaum
First Person
Miraculously, she hop-hop hops on the burlap and glue-hardened stumps. Then, she pirouettes on a single stump, the other stump street ched and held in a "four" at her knee
Inside the filmy satin are bloody blisters, bruised toes, torn toenails, bunyuns and inflamed tendons.
The audience never knows it hurts.
Two weathered feet scream for a bucket of ice-cold water as the balerina glides on stage for a final dance. Her gracious smile disguises the pain.
The audience never knows it hurts.
Paper towels, toilet paper, old
nylon hose, sweat socks, cotton,
lambwool, foam. Athletic tape,
Band-Aids, corn pads, toe pads,
New Skin. All have been used by dancers
who try to pad and heal their pinched,
ground-hamburger toes.
Each dancer has her own combination of padding and taping. I choose the athletic tape and nylon hose option. The tape and hose provide a slightly springy filler for the shoes that fit like a second skin. And the big toe on my left foot gets an extra pad of foam rubber.
Cadid in its little foam cap, my left big toe doesn't fight as hard to move around in its pink squished world. If the toe moves, it will rub against the inside of the shoe. If it rubs, it will blister.
Getting a blister can be traumatic
Twirling and hopping, I can feel it beginning, a small spot of soreness filling with fluid. As I continue dancing, the small spot spreads. Then the magic moment. The blister pops, and the pain is no longer dull.
The challenge is to continue dancing as if my feet are still part of my body. They feel like separate entities, screaming to be removed at the
Inside the filmy satin are bloody blisters, bruised toes, torn toenails, bunyons and inflamed tendons.'
Jerri Niebaum
ankle. They don't want to point and bourse (small running steps on pointe) anymore, and they barely obey the mind that does.
Later, with my foot over the sink, I pour alcohol over the wound. It's not as painful if I bite on a towel while I pour. The blister will heal in a few days if I keep it dry and tape it for rehearsal.
Hopping on pointe, I can feel the bruise begin. I tighten my abdomen
and back and stretch the long muscles in my legs to pull the weight off of my 10 little digits. It doesn't always work.
The bruise feels like a lever pulling my toenail away from my toe. Later, the sheets of my bed will touch the toe and make me wince. The toe will be tender for about 12 hours, then slightly sore, but bearable, for several more days. The toenail will probably fall off in the next few months, but it won't hurt them.
The lost toenail will provide a topic for dressing room chatter as we tape and wrap our abused feet. Dancers love to brag about their aches and pains, moaning as they belly up to the barre.
My feet offer a particularly popular topic for dancers with feet-fetishes — tendinitis. My Achilles' tendon has ended at my heel with an oddly shaped bump for the last seven years. I'm told it's a pretty common ailment for a dancer.
The doctor says it might heal if I quit dancing and get it shot up with cortisone. I laugh and leave with an overstuffed dance bag thrown over my shoulder. It doesn't hurt that badly!
I'm not a professional. My feet don't pay the bills. I will quit when the pleasure of the curtain call and the joy of movement stop being worth the pain in my feet.
The prima balerina can't quit. Ballet is her life, and her feet are part of her ballet. Next time you watch her glide across the stage, think about the blister and the bruise and the inflammation. Then forget about it and enjoy the magic of dance. She will.
"The audience doesn't know it hurts," Niebaum said. "When the dance is over and the shoes come off it's a great relief, but not a pretty sight."
Jerri Niebaum, Lawrence junior, practices her art at the Lawrence School of Ballet, 2051 St. W Eighth St. She has been dancing for 16 years and says her feet have had near-daily contact. It
Documentary chronicles Kerouac's decay
"What Happened to Kerouac?" is an interesting documentary that might have been better titled "Who Was Jack Kerouac?"
John Benner
Columnist
The 96-minute film combines interviews with Kerouac's friends and lovers with a string of cityscapes and nature, backed by jazz and several of Kerouac's readings of his work.
The film quickly spells out Kerouac's formative years as a boy in the French Canadian industrial town of Lowell, Mass., and on to the relationships he had with fellow Beat Generation writers William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and Michael McClure.
Interviews with these men and
with other Kerenouac contemporaries, including ex-lovers and wives, portray him as a man unable to cope with life after the success and the adventure of his most popular novel "On The Road."
Little tidbits of his life are revealed, such as Burroughs confiding in the interviewer that Kerouac came up with the title for "Naked Lunch."
In chronicleing the decay of Kerouac, director Richard Lerner and Lewis MacAdams use footage from interviews filmed nine years apart.
The first clip is from the "Steve Allen Show" in 1959 and contains a reading by Kerouac from "On The Road." The reading is fascinating because it shows the emphasis and intonation that he intended and that the reader might omit when sampling Kerouac's stream-of-consciousness style.
"On The Road" was published in 1957, and the Kerouac on the "Allen Show" clip is young and energetic, still in love with the road.
In this interview, he defines "beat" to tell him by saying that it means "symphony."
The second interview with Kerouac is from a 1968 edition of William F. Buckley's "Firing Line." On this program, we can see an alcoholic but still provocative Kerouac taking some last swipes at the beatnips and hippies who found their genesis in his writings.
Ginberg's interpretation of Kerouac supports this notion. "To Jack joy and suffering were one taste. Tears were a celebration of existence."
On this television program, Kerouac denies that his aim was to criticize. Instead, he says, he "wrote about the beauty and about the ugliness."
Kerouac died the year after the Buckley interview and was reported to have said, "I'm a Catholic, so I want to go. I plan to drink myself to death."
"What Happened to Keronaac" probably is a film for his followers and is too sad for a light evening's entertainment. However, it is a haunting study of one man's inability to cope with success and with those who couldn't understand him.
"Kerouac" will play at Liberty Hall, Seventh and Massachusetts streets, at 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. Sunday through April 9 and at 5:30 and 7:30 p.m. April 11.
Oscars are cheapest publicity
United Press International
"Platoon," a brutal depiction of the Vietnam War, already has earned 621 million making it one of the greatest successes among Oscar winners.
"Platoon," chosen best picture of 1986 and winner of three other Academy Awards, is sure to add at least $10 million to its gross in the months ahead, but even the losers are laughing all the way to the bank.
LOS ANGELES — Hollywood cleaned up after the Oscars Tuesday, in more ways than one.
Director Frank Capra noted in 1935 that "the Oscar is the most valuable but least expensive item of worldwide publicity ever invented by any industry," and nothing has changed in the years since then.
A pleased director Oliver Stone, who spent 10 years pleading with producers to finance his gritty grunt's eye view of war, speculated that in addition to increasing "Pla-
"A Room with a View" and "Hanah and Her Sisters," which each took three Oscars at the $9th annual film festival night, also will profit by their wins.
"I'm delighted that 'Platoon' won four awards," said Stone. "More important than any feelings of personal triumph, I am happy the academy recognized the picture because the truth about the war has been buried for 18 years.
toon's" earnings, his win also might help his critically acclaimed "Salvador," which sagged at the box office but won a best actor nomination for actor James Woods.
Stone said he hoped that "Salva-
郎" would be re-released because of his
work.
Winners, their Oscar statuettes prominently displayed at their tables, included Marlee Matlin, winner for best actress for her performance as the embellished deaf girl in "Children of a Lesser God."
Using sign language, the deaf 21-year-old access called the affair "The Sick Girl."
Most of the winners and many of the losers attended the academy ball at the Beverly Hilton Hotel after the 3-hour-22-minute telecast, dancing, wining and dining until well after midnight.
Sitting with Matlin was William
Of his own loss to "The Color of Money" best actor Paul Newman, a winner on his sevent try, Hurt said, "I looked for some kind of spiritual support before I left for the awards. I opened the good book and read, 'Judge not, lest you be judged.' That was good enough for me."
Hurt, the actor she fell in love with both in the film and in real life.
Hurt, winner of the best actor award last year for "Kiss of the Spider Woman," made the presentation to Matlin, with whom he has lived for the past year. He gave her a kiss as he handed her the statue.
Hurt broke off to chat with Woods,
another Oscar nominee. Woods said
he was gratified that the absent
Newman finally had won an Oscar.
One of the low points of the ceremonies and the party afterward was the truancy of both Newman, who wanted to break his Oscar jinx by staying away, and Michael Caine, who wanted to support actor award for "Hamish and Her Sisters," who was working on "Jaws IV" in the Bahamas.
"I'm surprised and delighted to have won," he said. "Do you think I'm on a roll? Maybe I can find a job now."
monies on television with his wife, Joanne Woodward, and their children, commented by telephone from his New York apartment.
Dennis Hopper, who had been a favorite for best supporting actor for his role in "Hoosiers," grinned and shook hands with his fellow stars.
"I thought Michael Caine would win all along," he said. "So I'm really not disappointed. It was an honor just to be nominated."
Newman, who watched the cere-
Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, a nominee for best supporting actress, said of winner Dianne Wiest, "She was perfectly wonderful in 'Hannah and Her Sisters.' I believed she would win.
"I am one of Dianne's biggest admirers. I love to see her work, especially on the New York stage."
Tess Harper, also a nominee for best supporting actress for "Crimes of the Heart," smiled bravely and said, "There's always next year and the year after."
Kaw Valley retires tutus and toe shoes after eight-year run
In 1979, a ballerina from New York started a dance company in Lawrence.
It was the first dance company to perform at Lansing State Prison.
Patricia Feenv
This was a that dared to break traditions, surprising and delighting audiences when it donned pointed shoes and danced to Irish and Jazz bands.
"The Nutcracker" ballet became the company's trademark after a while, people grew accustomed to it and the appearance of Santa Claus.
Arts editor
This weekend, the Kaw Valley Dance Theater will take its final bow with "Pops on Pointe."
As her only child approaches his first birthday, company founder and artistic director Kristin Benjamin said she was looking forward to her first leisure weekend in eight years.
Benjamin said she wanted to do more for her school, her family and herself. She plans to do freelance dancing in the Kansas City area.
Looking back on the years with Kaw Valley, Benjamin said she grew up with the company. She said she learned a lot and felt like she was a better manager and more diplomatic.
Benjamin ran her company on instincts. She had danced since childhood but had no management training when she formed Kaw Valley.
Benjamin took on the full-time job as artistic director while she was running the Lawrence School of Ballet, 205 $\frac{1}{2}$ W. Eighth St. She taught 13 classes a week and commuted to Lawrence from Kansas City for classes, rehearsals and performances.
She said that the decision to close the company was painful, but that she knew from her gut that the time was now.
Benjamin said she would miss working with musicians and the kind of program Kaw Valley had. She said she would miss working with her company that has become her family.
But more than anything else, she will miss watching a young dancer grow before her eyes into a solid performer. She describes the transformation as "a rite of passage."
But if Benjamin is strained at all from the challenge of juggling the roles of mom, artistic director and teacher, she doesn't show it.
At 38, she looks more like the 17-year-old school girl she will replace on stage this weekend. The dancer suffered an injury so Benjamin is filling in.
She will miss the face of the little child who came backstage lit up like Christmas after seeing his first ballet.
Kaw Valley's farewell performance will feature the 20 company dancers in six dances. On Monday, Benjamin spent part of her afternoon shopping for rocket launcher props for one of this weekend's props.
She has choreographed a dance called "Juliana in Ragtime" that features an old-fashioned camera complete with gun powder and sparks. It's a comic ballet set to ragtime tunes by local composer Ron Rarick.
Kaw Valley has run its course.
But as Benjamin and her dancers,
musicians, choreographers and technicians take their last bow,
Benjamin will go on knowing that she too has made "a rite of passage."