Mister, Mister

“Give it to Mr. Jerome…”
“Ask Mr. Jerome...”
“Mr. Jerome? Do you have a safety pin?”
In all my born days, I never thought I’d be answering to Mr. Jerome. But it seems to be a ballet school custom that at a certain level instructors and other personnel are referred to this way. My brother is always referred to as Mr. Bill, my sister-in-law as Miss Susannah, even by their students’ parents. Likewise with all the other instructors, and the ladies are invariably Miss. There have been exceptions. I imagine that the great primas like Alexandra Danilova and Cynthia Gregory were called by their surnames, while Mr. Misha and Mr. Rudolf frankly sound like a couple of émigré hairdressers. Balanchine was respectfully referred to as Mr. B., and in “The Company,” Robert Altman’s underrated and underappreciated movie about a Chicago dance company, the artistic director played by Malcolm McDowell was called Mr. A. Among insiders, this was seen as a reference to Gerald Arpino, co-founder and artistic director of the Joffrey Ballet, whose dancers and choreographers were used in the movie. (It also could have been a sly reference to Altman, though I think most of his friends thought of the late, great director as Bob).

When I arrived in Western New York this spring some of the parents around the ballet studios already knew who I was and what my relationship to Bill and Susie is; others had no idea. But as the school year progressed and I became better known, I started hearing myself referred to as Mr. Jerome. It makes me feel a little like I’ve just come out of a class on Introduction to Follicles, or like an offstage character in an Athol Fugard play. But the other day I finally succumbed; writing the reminder that there wouldn’t be any classes after 6 p.m. on October 31st, I hesitated. My dry-erase marker hovered. Then I wrote, “Please see Mr. Jerome if you need to make up a class because of Halloween.”

Well, interacting with kids on this level is for me a whole new game. Tonight I hear that the Creative Movement class—a kind of preschool ballet/calisthenics for three- and four-year-olds—will be having a little Halloween party next Monday. Maybe I should start thinking about my costume.