They say you never forget your final performance. In Greyscotes' Theatre at the heart of Dry Bleckwood they don't let you. Few dancers want to leave but not because they are attached sentimentally to the theatre but because they might not survive their last show let alone the leaving party.
Out of the eight dancers who have willingly left before their contracts have expired only one has come forward back into society to show what they went through. He spoke about how way they use the showlights to try and blind you which left him with permanent specs of blood popping and healing every time he blinked.
He was grateful that he never did ballet - they were never allowed to remove their shoes.Not until their feet fell off from the inevitable infections caused from the combination of roughly shaped nails, constant use and sweat. If they were still contracted when they lost their feet (or more depending on how severe the infections were) they would be given adapted shoes and forced to dance on whatever stumps they had until they were left with nothing.
He had been a singer with the theatre's orchestra and when he left he'd been forced to sing for thirty six hours solid, no breaks and brief moments when water would be tossed at him and whatever he managed to swallow between words was his only salve. Needless to say he doesn't sing any more, doesn't talk either. His throat so utterly wrecked he can't hope to recover much more than he already has.
Still, he counts himself luckier than the other seven.
Out of the eight dancers who have willingly left before their contracts have expired only one has come forward back into society to show what they went through. He spoke about how way they use the showlights to try and blind you which left him with permanent specs of blood popping and healing every time he blinked.
He was grateful that he never did ballet - they were never allowed to remove their shoes.Not until their feet fell off from the inevitable infections caused from the combination of roughly shaped nails, constant use and sweat. If they were still contracted when they lost their feet (or more depending on how severe the infections were) they would be given adapted shoes and forced to dance on whatever stumps they had until they were left with nothing.
He had been a singer with the theatre's orchestra and when he left he'd been forced to sing for thirty six hours solid, no breaks and brief moments when water would be tossed at him and whatever he managed to swallow between words was his only salve. Needless to say he doesn't sing any more, doesn't talk either. His throat so utterly wrecked he can't hope to recover much more than he already has.
Still, he counts himself luckier than the other seven.
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