In 2019, after 15 years with the American Ballet Theatre, Mick Jagger's partner and dancer extraordinaire Melanie Hamrick hung up her pointe shoes. Now, she's publishing her debut book, which lifts the curtain on the salacious secrets of the dance world.
"Number One" follows Sylvie Carter, an ambitious young ballerina who dances with the National Ballet. Sylvie has big plans for her future on stage, but she increasingly resents the nature of her industry: ballet practice, once a source of joy, has now become "never-ending torture." Her dreams are further dashed when a relationship sours, and the burden of the resulting scandal falls squarely on her. She's convinced she'll never become a prima ballerina... until famed dancer Alessandro Russell joins the group, and she finds her life on and off stage more tumultuous than ever.
Get a first look at the book cover below, then keep scrolling for an exclusive excerpt from the First Position starting page. To find out what happens next, grab a copy of the novel when it's published in 2023.
prelude
I can barely see. I was hot and cold all at once, and I already knew I wouldn't remember much tonight. I'm glad I won't. I looked at the bottle of anti-anxiety medications on the bathroom counter and thought about throwing them off the hotel balcony. I'm better than this. Or at least I am.
I still do, right?
I got out of the bathtub, took off my soaked clothes, walked out of the bathroom naked, and walked to the bed. I sat with my legs spread wide for a moment, then looked at the zippered compartment in my suitcase. I can’t believe I still have my old diary hidden away. Everyone knows what's in it. I can't even believe I still have it. It’s such a shame to revisit.
All these pages acknowledge that I wish I was famous, look forward to it. Trust yourself and the world around you deeply, as if life will be fair. Even happy. I'm not a bitter, tired old woman or anything now, but I'm sure I'm not that girl anymore.
I unzipped the pocket and pulled it out. What made me buy a pink diary?
There are rules on the first page.
Oh, the rules.
I read them carefully, even though my eyes were seeing double images. Maybe less reading and more coming from the heart, remembering each one immediately.
rule:
- Be good. very good. Justifiable.
- Don’t reward yourself – dancing with ANB is a reward, not a dessert.
- sleep.
- Rarely drinks, except for an occasional glass of fine wine. Not doing any drugs.
- Don't have sex with anyone . Unless it's truly pointless - which is unlikely - avoid it all together. (Sidebar: When they call you a prude, tell them you’re not a prude, but you just don’t want to act—that’s true and respectable)
- Don't write crap down. once.
- Don't let friendship turn ugly. It's better to have no friends than to get involved and risk drama.
- Make friends with your employees, not sycophants. They will eat the stuff as long as they ignore trivial matters.
- When you are twenty-one, dance like Juliet.
I smiled and closed the book. Jesus. I've broken every one of them.
Chapter One
Washington DC
Sylvie
I used to love the word encore . It means everything. It means it's over, it means they want more, more of what only I can give. It means I'm fine. It’s so good, I can’t stop.
The encore meant I wanted more. Encore means don't stop, keep going . The point of the encore is, I don’t want to say goodbye – not yet.
There was a time when I longed to hear it. Now that word fills me with fear. I was a weary traveler under the scorching sun, exhausted, desperately thirsty, and unbearably hungry, and I was told that the end was a mirage—that there was more to go.
"Again!" Diana's voice screamed the word. "again!"
I squared my stance and repeated the words for the hundredth time. Under the blazing stage lights, sweat poured down my forehead. I could feel the blisters on my heels starting to swell and bloom. I knew it meant pain, and the more I ignored it—and I would ignore it—the longer it would take to heal.
I smile. Not because it's all worth it or anything like that. I smiled because I had to smile, and if I didn't smile—if I couldn't convince Diana that smiling was effortless—I would have to smile again.
again.
again.
Encore.
Diana is a ballet teacher, which means she is basically like a coach and we are her players, preparing her for the big competition. She asks for more poses, straightening every line in our bodies, bending us until we almost snap, all while remaining as straight as a pane of glass - all the while managing to look as calm, relaxed and effortless as a weeping willow.
Diana would yell "encore" loudly until the word began to feel like a whip driving through flesh.
At the last rehearsal, the encore conducted by Diana meant fifty-seven consecutive performances of angry arabesques . My feet ended up bleeding. No one here cares when your feet bleed. Honestly, seeing blood on the smooth lobby floor is no more suspicious than grass and dirt in the locker room after a football game.
The week before that, encore meant doing echappées until my entire lower body was numb.
If beauty is pain, then becoming art is torture.
Also endless torture. It took me twenty years to get my hands right, but I'm still told every day that my fingers don't fit. Usually it's my thumb that sticks out too much. I glimpse it in rare moments when I 'm not thinking about the stage and my body and the relationship between them. I hate my thumbs. I hate it like it's coming to get me. To some extent, it is. I should be able to control it, but...I don't.
My fucking thumbs up.
Of course, it doesn't stop there. I secretly sneered or glared at every inch of my body. I'm not the only one doing this. This is true for every dancer. We glare and find fault in the mirror and at each other—like a predator looking for a weakness in its prey.
I hate the extra millimeters that form around my hip bones when I retain water before my period. My under eyes turned gray-blue from practicing too late and waking up too early. Later, I would glare at my heels for daring to get blisters when all I needed was calloused, leathery skin that still looked as soft as the most restless porcelain doll.
The music started again and Diana was prepared not to like the show and asked for an encore before we started.
Excerpted from FIRST POSITION by Melanie Hamrick, published by Berkley, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC Publishing Group). Copyright © 2023 Melanie Hamrick.
