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Balanchine, the Wilis, and Collective Female Anger in Ballet   Growing up in ballet, I occasionally trained with a visiting instructor who had danced for George Balanchine in his glory days at New York City Ballet She went by only her first name and titled her dance accordingly, perhaps in an attempt to mythologise herself in the same way she mythologised ‘Mr B’ – when she spoke of him, her eyes took on a cultish glaze I came to associate that mesmerised expression and a near-erotic love of dance with Balanchine dancers, many of whom never seem to have got over having been touched by The Master   When she warned us that ageing as a dancer was an accelerated process, as though we were deteriorating in dog-years, I felt let in on a secret that connected me with a grand tradition of dancers But she was also a cautionary tale: as I would imagine her preparing for her goddess-like descent on our class – brushing her wispy, waist-length white hair into a severe bun, wrapping her frame (which had no loose skin to indicate that she had ever gained weight or strayed from a balletic body) in tights and a chiffon skirt as though she were still a student – I felt unsafe from myself, as though I was quickly approaching a day when there would be nothing I could change about my life, either Wanting could become an end unto itself   Like many young dancers, I devoured former NYCB principal Gelsey Kirkland’s 1986 autobiography, Dancing on My Grave, which chronicles her rise from star student to principal dancer, her drug addiction, physical deterioration, and the pitfalls of being locked into Balanchine’s closed system of instruction I read the book between classes in the crumbling building of my ballet school, breathing the characteristic scent of rosen, sweat, and Jet glue while the other girls stretched and tittered as the boys struggled to balance in their pointe shoes For many, these interactions were their earliest flirtations, branded by the slightest betrayal of the strict balletic gender divide: women wear pointe shoes, extending their limbs