Chapter 49 – The Dancers
While Roger sat in the theater thinking about how to get even with Stirg, Gwen and the woman sat in the back office, thinking about how to get dancers for the production. Really good dancers. Gwen said, “It’s time now, hon. We gotta find the dancers. That’s the last big challenge.” She knew the woman had been working on this; but she also knew the woman had not solved this problem. It was time for her to step in and lead.
The woman rubbed her eyes, looked guiltily at Gwen, and said, “The good news is that our show coincides with the end of the main dance performance season. All the troupes and companies around the world basically are on the same late fall through spring schedule. There is some overlap of that season and our show, but most companies will be done with their productions. The bad news, part one, is that most of the dancers will be worn out from the combination of performance and traveling. They’ll be ready for time off at home. The bad news, part two, is that Stirg now is competing for the same level of performer. He wants his production to happen first, to be the world premiere, but he’s going to have a tough time putting that together in less than five months. I’m not sure where that leaves us.”
“Ok,” said Gwen, “that’s the picture. Let’s get the geeks in here, and figure this out once and for all.” She went out on the stage, looked around, and saw four people sitting in the middle of the theater with their eyes closed. Townshend was fiddling about, fiddling about, with the knobs and switches of the synthe. She yelled, “Hey, what the hell are you doing out there. Get up here.” All four sets of eyes blinked open simultaneously and registered a low level of fear at hearing Gwen’s command. Only Roger smiled, but he hopped up just as fast as the other three. As they mounted the stage steps, Gwen said, “What in god’s name are you doing? We have work to do.” She looked at Peter because he was the weakest of the group, and she knew she could squeeze him the easiest. “What were you doing?”
“We were thinking.”
Gwen knew Roger often closed his eyes when he was thinking, and that was legitimate for him. She always thought this was an odd idiosyncrasy, but over the years she had gotten used to it, especially since she had found, also over the years, Roger to be a very good thinker. But she wasn’t sure this acceptance should be accorded to the three ballet geeks. Artists aren’t known to be very good thinkers. “All four of you were thinking? At the same time?” They nodded. “About what?
Peter said, “The stuff.”
“What stuff?”
“The Hermitage stuff. Where it is. What Stirg is doing with it.”
Gwen looked at Selgey and Bart, said, “You two were thinking about where the Hermitage stuff is?”
Bart said, “Umm….not exactly.”
“What were you thinking about?”
“Umm….nothing, really. We were trying. Well, I was.”
Gwen looked at Selgey, who said, “Same with me. I was trying. To think. Umm….”
Now she looked at Roger, said, “What are you doing? Why are you wasting their time? Our time?”
He knew better than to try to defend himself in the face of his wife’s interrogation. He said, “How can we help you? Now.” And smiled at her.
She, in turn, knew better than to stay angry at him for something like this. She said, “Come into the office.” And smiled at him.
She crowded the six of them into the woman’s office and closed the door. Then she opened the door, went back to the stage, and returned with Pater. He was a dance geek, and needed to be part of this. By jamming seven people into a small office and closing the door, Gwen created a pressure cooker. Now she applied the heat. “No one’s leaving until we have a strategy and tactics for finding our dancers. It’s time to make this happen. How are we going to do this?”
Everyone was silent, looking at each other, the ceiling, the floor, their nails. Gwen pulled her chair over and set its back again the door. Heavy symbolism. Gwen looked at Roger, who was complacent, which told her he had an answer. She waited for the others to come to the same conclusion. Finally, Pater said, “Buy them. Do The Godfather thing.” Roger smiled at him and nodded.
Gwen looked at the woman, said, “How much is that going to take?”
She said, “We decided we need forty corps dancers. We didn’t talk about principles. I think forty is too many; we can do thirty.” She looked at Selgey, who nodded assent. “How many principles do we need? You have a lot of the choreography done. You should know who you need.”
Selgey looked at Bart, who said, “Six. We need six principles. The best. Really the best.” Selgey nodded at this.
The woman said, “Ok. Now we have the numbers.” Looking at Selgey and Bart again, she asked, “If we approached you the way we’re going to approach these people, meaning you already have a position, and now someone strange is trying to hire you to do this production….how much would it take to make you say, yes? For the principle roles?” She looked at the Ps, said, “Same question: how much for a corps role?” The two pairs huddled, face to face, mouth to ear, whispers emanating from their clustering.
The pairs sat back in their chairs at the same time. Pater said, “You go first.”
Selgey said, “No, you go first.”
Peter shook his head. Bart shook his head. The four of them folded their arms.
Gwen thought, Jesus, said to Selgey, “How much?”
“Ok. It’s more than the performances themselves. It’s also the rehearsal time. We’re doing four performances over two weekends. We think we need two weeks of rehearsals for them to learn the choreography. So, that’s four weeks of their time. Plus expenses. Salary should be $2,000 per day, $14,000 per week, times (4) is $64,000 for the month. Per diem should be $3,000 per week, times (4) is $12,000. Travel should be $3,000. All that times six dancers is $474,000.”
Gwen was impressed. “You figured that out in your head?”
“Bart did.” And she smiled at her lover.
Gwen now looked at the Ps. Peter said, “Salary should be $700 per day, $5,000 per week, times (4) is $20,000. Same per diem and travel as the principles. Times thirty dancers is $1,050,000.”
Again Gwen was impressed. “You figured that out in your head?”
“Pater did.” And he smiled at his lover.
The woman said, “That totals $1,479,000. That’s a lot for a single production of four performances. A lot for the cost of the dancers.”
The group sat around, mulling over that number. Gwen again looked at Roger, communicating telegraphically. Something was donging in the heads of Selgey and Bart, Peter and Pater. The woman realized what it was and spoke up. “We’re going to pay the entire dance corps $1,479,000, and we’re paying The Whosey $5,000,000.” Everyone looked at Roger, who had cut the deal with Townshend.
Roger was about to say that Townshend was a musical genius, and well worth the fee, but he realized the four ballet geeks would think just as highly of the dancers, at least the principles, so, instead, he said, “He’s here for six months, day in, day out. The music’s important. That’s what Stravinsky gave us. That’s what he’s giving us.”
The geeks shook their heads, indicating it still didn’t add up: one guy, five mill; thirty-six dancers, one and a half mill. They folded their arms, signaling defiance. The woman spoke up, “So, let’s just double the dancer’s fees. What the heck.”
The geeks unfolded their arms, looked at each other. Smiled. Now you’re talking. The woman said, “Five mill for The Whosey, three mill for the dancers. What else?”
With this settled, the group thought more about money. Pater looked around, said, “You been paid? Anything?” Peter shook his head no, and Selgey and Bart did the same. Roger and Gwen, as de facto management, remained impassive.
Then Gwen said to the woman, “Pay everyone. Figure out how much. Yourself too. Not us or Helstof," who nodded.
“Now,” said Gwen, “how do we get the dancers, even if we offer them this amount? How?” She looked around, ending with her husband. He blinked at her, which made her happy, knowing he had an idea. She blinked back. Go ahead.
“Make them come to us,” he said. “Let’s do the same thing we did with Townshend. Put ads in every major newspaper in the world, on our website, and on a bunch of websites that cater to cultural types. ‘DANCERS WANTED. THE BEST. WORLD PREMIERE PERFORMANCE OF STRAVINSKY’S LOST BALLET’. That’s all we need, really. We hire a great ad designer, make it sparkle. We already have good PR going. We just stoke the fire a little. The word will get around to the dancers, they’ll ask questions and look into it. We’ll tell them about finding the lost score, about Townshend competing with McCartney and Oceans Kingdom, and about who is doing the choreography.” He smiled at Selgey and Bart. “With those people involved, they’ll be interested. Then we tell them about the fees we’re paying.” He paused. “Look. We have something no one else has. We have the lost ballet.”
Roger’s enthusiasm for his idea had started to kindle like feelings in the others, but with his last statement, the air went out of the balloon. He sensed this, thought about it, then said, “Oh, yeah. We had something no else had. Now….”
Gwen stepped in, said, “Ok. Everyone buy Roger’s idea about the ads? We let the dancers come to us?” They nodded. The woman felt relief; they had a strategy, and she only could hope it would work. Gwen opened the door of the office, letting the pressure of the meeting escape. But as everyone left, they sensed the pressure still was there. They knew they were in a fierce competition. Competition with Stirg….the Nazi hunter.