They thought the professional
ballet world was tough. Then they tried parenting.
From the author of Outside the Limelight—named a Kirkus
Best Book of 2017—comes a story about parenting, the performing arts, surviving
high school and fighting back, in this gripping finale to the Ballet Theatre
Chronicles.
Katrina Devries, having navigated the cutthroat world of professional ballet to
arrive at the top, has found the perfect life as a principal dancer and mother
of a three-year-old. But when her partner announces he's found true love
elsewhere and moves out, Katrina's perfect world begins to crack. Devastated,
she turns to April, her best friend among the company's artistic staff.
April, a seasoned ballet master and parent, is confident she can solve any
problem thrown her way and plants a distraction at the studios: a handsome
young pianist, eager for work as an accompanist. Only it's April's teen
daughter, not Katrina, who falls for him, hard.
Now April's dealing with new, tougher problems on the home front and at the
studios, where a celebrity choreographer's ballet featuring Katrina borders on
disturbing. When he and his ballet display violence—toward Katrina—April must
make a controversial decision that upends protocol and imperils the careers
both she and Katrina have worked a lifetime to build.
Other Stages chronicles the behind-the-scenes
challenges of professional ballet, parenting and friendships, amid the journey
of learning what to accept and when to fight back for what's right.
Terez Mertes Rose first introduced her readers to the world of West Coast Ballet Theatre in 2015 with “Off Balance,” and followed it with “Outside the Limelight” in 2016 and a prequel, “Ballet Orphans” in 2021. This fourth and final novel puts us back inside the world of a professional ballet company set in San Francisco to say goodbye to characters we have grown to know and love. As she has in previous novels, the author mines current affairs in the dance world to bring authenticity to the fictional ballet company.
Whether or not readers follow events in the international ballet scene, they will nonetheless find the storylines in “Other Stages” intriguing and well-plotted. If they do, this novel will be that much timelier and more contemporary.
Throughout the series, Terez Mertes Rose has avoided all the usual cliches associated with ballet: you won’t see soapy melodrama in her books, no backstabbing understudies with eating disorders, no prima ballerinas who have given up every shred of personal lives in order to dance, no Baryshnikov-alikes having affairs with all of the corps dancers.
Instead, the reader meets real people with real problems (careers, family, disappointments, grief) who just happen to be professional dancers. In the best possible way, this series is a great example of the common guidance to “write what you know” and Rose knows dance, as a former ballet dancer herself. She writes with genuine warmth and compassion for all of her characters, from the teenage Kylie experiencing her first real crush on an older man, to Kylie’s mother April, a former professional who is finding a new place for herself within the dance company, to Javier and Katrina, who must navigate rocky waters as they forge a new alliance to raise their son. Each of her characters is drawn with sympathy, emerging onto the page as three-dimensional beings who feel very realistic.
The series comes full-circle with the character of Alice from Rose’s first novel, “Off Balance.” When we met her, Alice was struggling with a career-ending injury at the same time as she was being asked to mentor a younger dancer in the company. In lesser hands, this storyline could have been cliched and trite, but Rose elevated the women’s relationship from stereotypical competitive jealousy to a friendship of support and respect.
And now, in the final chapter, Alice is again our moral compass, a woman who could easily become jaded, who could step back and away, who could check out and let everyone sink or swim but she doesn’t: she rises above and does what is right. Alice is who we hope we can be: someone who is able to find new dreams to pursue and who can support others’ dreams too.
While it’s not necessary to have read the previous novels in the series in order to enjoy “Other Stages,” why not read them all? They are as fast-paced and spirited as the best dance performances are, with characters and setting painted like sparkling costumes amid a beautiful backdrop.
“Other Stages” is available for purchase here through Amazon.
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Terez Mertes Rose is the author of the Ballet Theatre Chronicles and A Dancer’s Guide to Africa. Writing nonfiction as Terez Rose, her work has appeared in numerous journals, anthologies and online publications. She makes her home with family in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Visit her at The Classical Girl (www.theclassicalgirl.com) where she blogs about ballet, classical music and life, with twin dollops of humor and philosophy thrown in.
Want to know more about Terez, her writing and what is to come? Read on!
What was your initial inspiration for this series? Did it change over the course of the series?
Terez Rose: Off Balance was a standalone novel in 2007 that I wrote at the suggestion of my agent, who’d nixed my ballet-dancer-runs-off-to-Africa novel but loved the idea of a ballet-dancer narrator. It never crossed my mind that it would become a series, not even four years and two books later, by which time Off Balance and a third novel had been shopped to publishing houses without success. I had the wisp of an idea for another ballet-centric novel and shared it with my agent, asking if she thought it had a chance before editors. She was enthusiastic, and thus Outside the Limelight was born. Even then, I didn’t connect the two ballet books except for the setting, the concept of the West Coast Ballet Theatre, and a couple of the core characters. When shopped, this novel garnered more interest from editors, but ultimately (twelve painful months of nail biting later), no takers.
It was only after that, and when my next two (actually three) attempts at a new novel failed to engage my agent, that I began asking myself some tough questions. I decided I was sick of Big Pub and trying to please them, and I’d kind of hated writing the non-ballet novels anyway. A writer I’d recently met was indie-publishing a young-adult ballet novel, and observing her pre-pub efforts, all so elegantly done, I decided it was time to try the indie route. I screwed up my courage, told my agent my thoughts, and she gave me her blessing.
The best part was that now I had not one but two finished ballet-centric books. It was only at this moment, in 2014, that I thought, “Hey … a series!” It took me a year to tweak, redistribute characters and situations, stick Rebecca and Dena into Book 1 and, likewise, insert Alice, Lana and Gil into Book 2. And I have to say, by the time Off Balance was ready to release, I was so grateful it hadn’t been traditionally published. In the seven years since I’d started it, I’d become a different writer, and with the introduction of The Classical Girl in 2013, I’d learned so much more about the professional ballet world (and YouTube access to footage of rehearsals and backstage had just exploded). The same thing occurred with Book 2. Thinking I only needed twelve weeks to revise, I got some great editorial feedback and ended up taking twelve months to revise. Time well spent: Outside the Limelight was soooo much better than the earlier version, garnering a Kirkus starred review and making the publication’s Best Books of 2017 list.
Had you envisioned four novels in the series plus a companion novel at the outset? If not, at what point did you realize there was so much to write about?
I thought there might be three and that was it. In fact, looking at my notes, I started (what I thought would be) Book 3 in early 2016, nine months after Off Balance had been published, as I was doing those final revisions to Outside the Limelight. Those efforts on a Book 3 were the earliest incarnation of what would later become Other Stages, although I cringe every time I read that clumsy original effort. Through this period, I’d been building a document that housed backstory for all the characters, and I just wrote and wrote and wrote. It became far easier to work on the backstory document, I realized. I’d already decided to publish my ballet-dancer-goes-to-Africa novel after Book 2 came out, so I took a year off the Ballet Theatre Chronicles effort. But this too had its advantages: I slotted ballet master April into A Dancer’s Guide to Africa, as narrator Fiona’s best ballet friend from childhood, with whom she exchanges correspondences.
This was SO much fun, connecting the Ballet Theatre Chronicles to the Africa novel, and at the end, even Anders got a mention, which entertained me to no end. I became so drawn into April’s story, as well as “seeing” the younger, more vulnerable Anders Gunst. I knew I’d never use Anders as a narrator, but I realized I wanted to tell at least some of his story. So Ballet Orphans became the next book I finished and published. (And as a personal perk, Fiona joined the cast of this book, which I hadn’t seen coming, but I just loved.)
Finally I looked at the hot mess that was my early attempt at a sequel of sorts to Outside the Limelight. I could have dropped the idea of revising and stopped the series there, and been okay with that. Except, no, I couldn’t. I’d ended Outside the Limelight too abruptly—mostly because I thought it would be more edgy and compelling to editors, back in those trying-to-please-Big-Pub days. But I hated it. I hated the harsh fate I’d delivered to Rebecca, in particular. Ultimately I decided that, yes, I needed to complete a Book 4, if only to let the readers (and myself) see Rebecca and Dena’s happy ending that they weren’t allowed in Book 2. And I wanted to address the issue of parenting. Having a non-dance teen girl serve as one of my three narrators in Other Stages was, in a way, the beginning of stepping away from the Ballet Theatre Chronicles and out into the bigger world.
You reference so many current events in the dance world. Was there anything since the original novel was published that you wish you had (or had not) fictionalized?
Outside the Limelight had a whistle-blower character that reflected the #MeToo movement evolving at the time, which continues to feel appropriate. I also love that that Other Stages has a “girl power” angle, right there alongside the real-life rise of female choreographers and artistic directors. But in regards to “wish I hadn’t fictionalized this,” I should share that in Other Stages, the real-life, rapid downfall of high-flying choreographer Liam Scarlett served as an inspiration in creating my character, celebrity choreographer Edwin Hess. Except not: I adored Scarlett’s ballets set on the San Francisco Ballet, and he seemed genuinely affable, in tune with the dancers, wildly popular. But apparently he had a hidden dark side, and it was revealed, and shocking, when I was writing my early draft in 2020. My character, Edwin, was despicable publicly and privately, and quickly became his own unique, darkly charismatic person. I barely made the connection after that early draft. But then Liam Scarlett took his life in 2021 after the allegations against him had caused a complete ostracization by the ballet world. I felt terrible and wondered if I should stop right there out of respect to a talented, otherwise worthy choreographer, but by then, Edwin was too entrenched in the story, literally creating his own dramas right and left (in truth, I love when characters do that!).
How did you keep all of the storylines going?
They are embedded in my heart at this point. It’s like having a big extended family (which I do) and keeping track of all their lives and dramas. It never felt like a challenge. The stories just kept arising in me, and intermingling. In truth, they still are, even though I know I’m done writing them out.
Got any favorite characters or stories you’d like to spinoff into a new series?
Actually, I do have a few characters that have followed me to the newest novel I’m working on. Their names have been changed, as have a few other details, but I recognize them, and I’m thrilled they are fitting into the new story. I won’t jinx it by saying which ones.
How do you feel about closing this chapter in your writing life?
It feels right. I was burning out on writing performance scenes, studio scenes. Professional ballet dancers are exquisite to regard, and I will continue to write dance reviews and blog about ballet at The Classical Girl, but I’m feeling the need to write novels about different topics, different settings.
What’s next in your literary career? Will you continue to write about dancers?
I’m at work on that aforementioned new novel, and actually one of my three narrators is a professional ballet dancer. But it’s more of a peripheral thing, and only a fraction of the story takes place in that realm. Instead I’m exploring nature, family and local history in my own backyard, so to speak: the beautiful, rough-and-tumble Santa Cruz Mountains. There’s a glorious old house attached to a nearby regional park, that has just begged for its story to be told (the house and not the park). When one of my sisters passed away in April 2022, that story unfolded before my eyes: three adult sisters, returning home to celebrate their father’s upcoming 70th birthday, are stunned by the arrival of a fourth sister who ran away at 15 only to return now, 25 years later. Which throws the family unit into chaos, with upheavals galore, family secrets revealed, and so on. Not a dance rehearsal or performance in sight. In fact, the sister who’s a professional ballet dancer is the anomaly, still a bit of a curiosity to the others. I’m already deeply attached to this novel-in-progress, even though it’s still in “sloppy first draft” mode and will likely take years to craft.
And now, a few fun questions!
Do you play music when you write? If so, what do you play?
Classical. Tons. But I also like ambient New Age stuff for the afternoons. And, weirdly, Cirque du Soleil soundtracks.
How about snacks? Any food or drinks you need when you work?
Cup after cup of hot tea with milk and sugar. I easily drink five cups a day.
What was the last ballet you saw performed?
Does The Nutcracker count? Saw it late last December. Fell in love with it all over again.
Got a favorite dance-themed movie? How about any reality TV shows that feature dancers?
I actually really like Robert Altman’s The Company. It’s lower profile, lower octane, but maybe that’s what I like about it. And I’ve mostly steered away from the reality TV shows featuring dancers. I didn’t want it to bleed into my own writing. (This is why I’m very particular, too, about the fiction I read when I’m creating.)
If you could be any of your characters, who would you be and why?
I love April; something about her always resonates with me. Maybe by making her the narrator of a prequel, and a first-person narrator at that, I got to know her at the core. And making her a narrator in the final book, ditto. She also is a mom, and struggles there, which I can relate to. I love that her life as a ballet professional is so rounded out: the performing years; marriage; the ballet-master years; the parenting years. Even though the series has ended, she’s still there in my mind. I think she will always be there. Some characters simply stay in your heart and psyche forever.
