Part IV. Earning His Wings, Flying Solo
Eleven year old Alessandro stood in a long line of prospective students on the day he was to audition at Accademia di Balletto alla Scala. He and his parents had driven from Casale Monferatto to Milan, Italy on a Friday, because they wished to support and encourage their youngest child's aspirations of becoming a premier danseur noble. In ballet terminology, that position was defined as a male ballet dancer who could perform at the highest theatrical level possible while combining pure grace with one's own natural ability.
Alessandro was six years old when he was watched the famous danzatore primo, Rudolf Nureyev performing in Romeo and Juliet on the family television one afternoon. It was from that moment that ballet would become Alessandro Bellarmine's shared destiny as the young boy stretched his limbs in synchronicity with the male dancer on the television, turning, and spinning around the living room. Alessandro called Natalia Bellarmine away from cooking her family's risotto, and it was the second time she tossed a ruined batch into the garbage to check on him from the doorway of the kitchen.
It was the anniversary of Gianluca's death, and Natalia was teary-eyed. To her amazement, Alessandro performed a perfect pirouette with no professional training whatsoever, and she was so stunned that she dropped her treasured serving plate on the floor and it shattered. A hand pressed to her lips to stifle a cry of shock, and disappointment over losing one of her family heirlooms. She had bottled up emotions over nearly losing her son from his head injury and his miraculous recovery that was hardly conceivable. Now this? Natalia cleaned up the mess as the urge to cry almost overwhelmed her.
Alessandro didn't seem fazed as he burst into the kitchen barely able to contain his childish enthusiasm. Alessandro tugged her arm, begging his Mamma for dance lessons. She could have killed his dream completely by ignoring his desire, selfishly thinking it only as a passing phase that would burn itself out. She may have procrastinated a little bit, especially after her husband voiced his concern about how much dance school might cost, with the excuse that he would need to take extra hours at the market. If it weren't for Alessandro's incessant inquiries to pinpoint exactly, when...
When, Mama, when can I learn to dance?
The following week, Natalia found the telephone number to the ballet school in Trino Vercellase, and she called the director of the school. She was happy to inform Natalia that she had called just in time for her school's open enrollment period and that boys especially were much desired, even though Alessandro would be one of three boys in the class. On a rainy, blustery day in the Piedmont, Alessandro showed up early for his first class, his Mamma expecting him to cling to her leg when he saw that his class was made up mostly of little girls.
There was a determined shimmer to his peridot eyes as he gave his Mama a big hug, calmly entering the dance studio to stand eagerly at the barre with the other children. For five years, Alessandro trained there twice a week and learned basic ballet skills, etiquette and choreography from his ballet mistress, Mrs. Teresa Zanetti. His instructor had seen many students come and go throughout her 34 years of teaching ballet, but she knew the moment she saw Alessandro dance for the first time that he was destined for greatness. So, when Alessandro turned eleven, Teresa had a meeting in the director's office with Alessandro's parents, because she believed strongly that the future of classical ballet was within their son's grasp, and his great potential for success would only be realized if they allowed him to audition for the upcoming school year at Accademia di Balletto alla Scala.
Giacomo and Natalia knew there was always something unique about their son, but were still grieving the loss of his twin brother. Since that time, they'd been overprotective of their three surviving children. If Alessandro applied for the audition and was successful, it meant that they would have to leave him at the school to allow him to reach his destiny and full potential. At the same time, they would be cutting the cord of control that connected them to their youngest son. It was not an easy decision to make for Alessandro either, who was absolutely terrified of the possibility of leaving home so soon to abandon all the things familiar to him just to be that much closer to achieving his dreams.
If he even passed the school audition.
Out of all the children applying for a place in the class of 2010, Alessandro Bellarmine was one of 400, and competition was stiff for the 210 seats available. While his Mama and Papa shared a few concerned whispers between themselves, they watched Alessandro's response to his surroundings while registering at the information desk, where he was given the number 29 to pin to the front and back of his white short sleeved shirt, black leotard and white dance slippers that he changed into while in the car.
After standing in line for two hours , they waited another thirty minutes before they were called into yet another studio to audition in groups of five, then Alessandro would perform a prepared solo. From the moment Alessandro entered the doors of La Scala, it almost felt like he'd entered a magical world, a world apart from the reality outside. His first impression upon standing in the palatial halls, was the fluttering sensation of butterflies in the pit of his stomach. The young boy was very nervous, and despite wanting to go to the boy's bathroom to vomit, he also realized how privileged he was to become part of this institution, whether it be for just a moment of auditioning before the panel, and being sent home.
Or whether the judges chose him to become their next Nureyev.
As the tween completed the basic ballet warm up and turn out at the barre, the panel asked him to perform much more complicated choreography in the center floor area, and for the first time in hours the four instructors recognized a child prodigy in their midst. Afterwards, they could only praise Natalia and Giacomo's son for a perfectly executed performance. In the event that news that Alessandro had been accepted to the school, the car had been packed with his suitcases in preparation for that possibility. Decisions were rendered in the front hall of the prestigious dance school on slips of paper. Bittersweet tears were shed by those who didn't make the cut, and proud hugs exchanged between selected children and their families before they left for orientation at the boys dormitory.
On the slip of paper, Alessandro found out that he would be sharing a room with an older student, Marcelo Tagliavia, who eventually become his first and most cherished friend at La Scala. As Alessandro said his farewells before departing the hall with Marcelo, he felt torn. One piece of his heart represented the love he had for his family and the other piece represented the intense desire and his dedication for dance. Alessandro's emotional pain would cling to him for almost three years, until he had found acceptance within his new family at La Scala as well as the one he had in Casale Monferatto. The next phase of his life had begun.
But it also came with a price, and a loss of his innocence too.
It also seemed during Alessandro's awkward adolescence, that his "psychic gifts" seemed to take on regularity with a vengeance. Around the same time his dancing abilities evolved, Alessandro's psychic powers became amplified with the onset of puberty around the age of thirteen. What had appeared at first to be a trickle, was now a flood of energy, and he began to suffer from debilitating headaches because of the constant barrage of spiritual energy directed at him. Because of the chronic headaches he was advised by a doctor to return home and stop dancing. If it wasn't for his best friend, Marcelo, who listened to and believed his crazy sounding tale of seeing supernatural energy around others and other unexplained metaphysical mysteries plaguing him since his twin brother died, he might have left his dream to dance professionally behind. Instead, Marcelo helped Alessandro perform necessary research at the school library from books regarding clairvoyance and extrasensory perception.
In one book, the two teenagers discovered that earthbound spirits were using Alessandro as a medium, and Alessandro was getting severe headaches because he bombarded by an influx of supernatural energy. Most of the energy was positive, but some of it was negative and unwelcome and because of that he wasn't sleeping well at night. Without Marcelo's help, Alessandro might have never figured out on his own how to guard himself with a barrier on the metaphysical level. Over time, he learned how to form a protective wall of energy around himself to prevent spirits from using him as a conduit into the earthly realm whenever they wished. As Alessandro's other abilities grew, Alessandro did more research with Marcelo. After a while, the colors he could see around people he met didn't bother him as much, and as his psychic skills developed was able to discern what the colors meant. As his puberty waned, Alessandro began to master his abilities and consequently gaining control over them kept the chronic headaches at bay indefinitely.