The Dancer in Black Satin Shoes

The stage went dark first.

Then the house lights.

Everything was still.

All was in hush.

A pinpoint spotlight shone on her feet. And on her feet, she wore black satin dance shoes. When the spotlight widened, it revealed a young dancer—the costume, a forest green satin with hand-beaded seed pearls. The skirt, a gradient green taffeta with layers of chiffon that lifted as if angels held the edges, keeping them afloat. She moved slowly with Erik Satie’s Gymnopedies No. 1 as her escort. Every gesture, a sacred word, only to her. When the brief prelude ballet ended on the final notes of Satie, the stage and the room were cast into darkness again.

Within seconds, the drummer’s sticks quickened the tempo for what anyone who knew was waiting for. The dancer faced the audience, tossing the skirt in a grand sweep to the side with a flick of her wrist. An intake of breath from the audience. She didn’t hear it. A dialogue was about to begin with the drummer. Her staccato taps, fast, rhythmic, humanly impossible, some said. She stopped. The drummer answered—a conversation in code. A communion of skills and heartbeats. Intimate. After a minute, the music swelled into a crescendo with piano, horns, bass, and drums, to the end of Benny Goodman’s ‘Sing, Sing, Sing.’

Yes—the dancer gave the audience what they came to see: The Turn. She spun so fast, blurring as she turned to the music like a whirling dervish, lifting her to a place that was nowhere and everywhere. She no longer heard the music or the applause for this modest feat.

Exiting the stage, Tony Bennett, the star of the show, walked to meet her. Smiling, reaching for her as the audience cheered when he took the dancer’s hands in his, and whispered, “You dance with your soul. Never stop.”

I was that young dancer sixty-four years ago. I had no idea what Tony meant.

I do now—

Let the beauty we love be what we do.

Begin here. This morning I renew old conversations.

Rain pours in sheets, mid-December. I’ve shifted from my ritual morning tea to a potent brew of coffee. Half-freezing rain deserves strength. Tapping the keys, I hear small ice pellets clink against the windows.

My candles will burn longer this morning.

Candle glow comforts.

This is a quiet hour when darkness holds on to the edges of night. Veils fall from our hearts and eyes, revealing insights before dawn.

Contemplation is my companion this early morning. One significant event this year shifted my life onto new pathways. The sight in my camera eye wavered, then faded. I devoted thirty years to this art form.

Clear focus is no longer available to me.

I am resolved; I do not linger. An opportunity, unknown and unseen, will find me when I am soft enough, still enough to recognize it.

This week, we observe another turning of the year. When the year turns, and language feels thin, I run to the poets. They strip reality and truth to the bone; even soft marrow is stirred.

Will this solve our problems? The world’s?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

Dawn’s light reveals steel-gray clouds.

Rain tickles the windows in a steadier rhythm.

This now is the only moment I have: burnt sienna waits for my hand to melt the sensual wax hue and apply a declarative stroke of paint, a horizon, on a bare maple board—for the first time in fifteen years.

That is enough.

Old Black Satin Ballet Shoes © 2025 Lee Anne Morgan

Notes:

Let the beauty we love be what we do.

There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

—Rumi