AUGUST 3,2010~DANCERS BROKE THE RECORD BALLERINAS ON POINT AT ONE TIME!

  August 2nd 2010, on a perfect summer afternoon at the Naumburg Bandshell in New York City's Central Park, 241 people put on pointe shoes in an attempt to break the previous Guinness record of 226 ballerinas on pointe at the same time. That record was set last year at City Center in NYC after the Youth America Grand Prix. We were determined to best it. Under the watchful eye of a representative from Guinness sporting a logo blazer, we assembled in ten reasonably straight lines. She was stern and businesslike with her pen poised over her clipboard while we waited for the command to releve. Oddly however, nothing in the numerous e-mails sent over the past few weeks by event organizer and uber ballet photographer Gene Schiavone had mentioned a key requirement of the challenge. We were all supposed to stay on pointe, ensemble, for a solid minute. Quick, what would you suggest as a way to achieve that end? How about just sous sous and bourree in place for sixty seconds? Good answer! Instead, though, American Ballet Theatre soloist Craig Salstein gave us a peculiar combination involving bourrees to the left with the left foot behind (!) and a back soutenu without a plie for preparation. I don't have to tell you that many participants, some of whom looked to be as young as 10 or 11, wobbled on the bumpy cement surface and came off pointe. And those straight lines? Not so much any more. But wait! There's a happy ending to this only-in-New-York idyll.





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