Last night I dreamed I was a ballerina, or at least I had been one when I was a kid. I had played a role that doesn't exist in the real Nutcracker ballet—I was Clara's younger sister, and I only showed up in a few scenes. Something happened where the girl who was going to place this role couldn't do it, so they called me out of the audience to reprise my role from ten years ago.
So I was standing backstage with the other dancers, in costume, waiting for the show to start, and I started joking with the woman playing Clara (she looked like Gelsey Kirkland) that I had forgotten everything and was going to have to improvise. The other dancers overheard me and started giving me nasty looks and whispering to each other. They assumed I was going to sabotage the show. So I backpedalled and reassured her that I remembered most of the steps, and anyway, I had been improvising since I was little, so if I had to fill out the rest, it would be fine. She was unconvinced, but she wasn't mean to me for it.
The only other thing I remember was going into the arabesque position (balancing on one foot's toes with the other leg pointing straight out) wearing the pointe shoes behind the curtain. I've never done ballet in real life (though I wanted to) but it felt real. The stuffing in the toe of the shoe sank a little under my weight, and I felt the muscles in my leg stretch and the blood rush from my raised leg. It was weird.
I never actually got on stage to perform, or at least I don't remember that part of the dream.
