The first time my dad brought me to Radio City Music Hall to see a movie and the Rockettes, I was enthralled with the huge theater, the larger-than-life movie screen, and the live stage show starring the Rockettes. I don't even remember which movie was playing, but I do remember looking around the theater at all the seats, the lights, the plush wall-coverings, the huge balcony, and the perfectly spectacular sensation of just sitting there like a tiny bug in the middle of that huge and beautiful Music Hall.
After the movie was over, a gigantic organ floated up through the floor in the left-hand corner of the stage.... lights on the organ would change color as the music played... the organist flipped keys and pounded pedals and once in a while he would turn around towards the audience as if to say "How about that?! Did you like that?!"
And then the Rockettes.... dancing and stepping in unison, entering from both sides of the stage till they met in the middle into one long line of legs and sparkling costumes. How could you not love them? How could you not want to be one of them, especially if you were a little girl who was taking tap-dance and ballet lessons at the time?
I remember my dad asking me "Would you want to be one of the Rockettes when you're older? I could come here and watch you dance up on that stage." The thought frightened me... dance up there in front of everyone in Radio City Music Hall? What if I made a mistake? What if I kicked the wrong foot or raised the wrong arm? My dad told me that if I practiced enough, I wouldn't make mistakes... and even if I did...... "So what? Do you think those girls up on that stage have never made a mistake?"
When the stage show was over, my dad and I went downstairs to the gift shop in the Music Hall..... dolls and games, dance shoes and porcelain figurines... all sorts of New York City souvenirs were lined up on glass shelves. "Let's get you something," said my dad.... "Pick something out."
I looked at all the possibilities.... my dad was pointing out a beautiful doll with a ballerina costume and dancing shoes..... there were stuffed animals and books and tea sets. He was telling me to take my time, to not miss anything on the shelves, to make a good choice.
And that's when I saw the teapot.... not a child-sized teapot, but a 'real' teapot that an adult would use. It was ivory porcelain with gold trim and in the middle of the teapot's front, the porcelain formed a little stage where a tiny ballerina stood with her toes pointed and her arms raised. The teapot sat on a porcelain music box...... when you put the teapot down on its pedestal and turned the key, the song that played was "Dance, Ballerina, Dance" which was the song my grandmother would sing to me when I showed her the new steps I had learned at dance class. And as the song played, the little ballerina on the teapot would twirl as the music-box key turned to play the music.
"That's what I want..... the ballerina teapot," I told my dad. He told me that the teapot wasn't meant for a little girl..... "That's a lady's teapot," he told me..... "Why don't you pick out one of the smaller ones on the next shelf?"
"But I don't want the teapot for me..... that teapot is for Grandma, and she's a lady!"
Daddy insisted that I pick out something for myself... his suggestions were the large ballerina doll or one of the little girl tea sets. In my five-year-old mind, I knew that the ballerina teapot was the only thing to bring home from Radio City Music Hall. Grandma had tea every afternoon.... her teapot was old and cracked... and this teapot had a tiny ballerina on top of it, and it played the song that Grandma always sang to me. And I stood there in that gift shop and told my dad all of those things and again told him that I didn't want anything for me because "Grandma needs that teapot."
We bought the teapot. Before we walked out of Radio City that day, my dad asked me if I was sure I wanted the teapot for Grandma instead of the ballerina doll for myself. I was positive I had chosen the right thing and didn't want to change my mind. My dad carried the package home on the subway and when we got to Grandma's house, he let me carry it into the house and give it to my grandmother.
"Did you have your tea yet, Mama?" my dad asked my grandmother.
"Over an hour ago," said Grandma.
"Well, put the water on..... you're about to have more."
My grandmother unwrapped that teapot and she started to cry when my dad turned the little key and "Dance, Ballerina, Dance" started playing and the little ballerina twirled and twirled on the front of her new teapot. When she dried her tears with the hankie she always seemed to have in her apron pocket, Grandma said she would keep the teapot in the china cabinet so it wouldn't get cracked like her old one. I knew what that meant--- anything that went into the china cabinet came out only twice a year, on Easter Sunday and on Christmas.
I begged my grandmother to keep the teapot in the kitchen, right on the counter near the stove, so she would always use it...... "The teapot is for every day when you have your tea!"
"But it's so beautiful!" said my grandmother..... "What if something happens to it?"
"Then daddy will buy you another one!" I told her. My father didn't say a word, but I remember him rolling his eyes towards the ceiling, and then he rubbed his thumb and his first two fingers together, silently telling my grandmother that I had no idea how expensive that teapot was at the Music Hall.
It was decided that the ballerina teapot would sit on the counter in the kitchen.... and my grandmother did indeed use it every day, every day. On the days that I was there for her tea time, we would both have our cups of tea (with milk and sugar and tiny spoons and very small cookies or slices of cake)... and the teapot would play its song, the ballerina would twirl, and when I finished my tea, I would get up and twirl myself around Grandma's kitchen while she sang "Dance, Ballerina, Dance."
I think of it now and get tears in my eyes... but I don't have a hankie in my apron, nor do I even have an apron. I do, however, have the ballerina teapot. The pedestal long ago fell onto my grandmother's kitchen floor and shattered... so there is no music box to play the song. That doesn't mean that the song no longer plays, because I can still hear it in my mind..... and I can hear Grandma singing it with her Italian accent. And if I try hard enough, I can imagine a little girl in a pink tulle dance outfit twirling around on a green tiled kitchen floor.
The little ballerina in the teapot is still intact, but she wears a new silk ribbon dress which replaced the white tulle outfit she was wearing from Radio City. She no longer twirls, but just stands quietly on her toes waiting for the day when she will be released from behind the glass doors of my china cabinet. I have to admit that I keep that ballerina teapot in my china cabinet.... what if something happened to it? It could never be replaced.
I don't use that teapot for tea, and actually, no one has made tea in that Radio City teapot since my grandmother passed away in the early 1970s. It was Grandma's teapot, after all.... bought for her afternoon tea, and without a doubt, even if I did make tea in that teapot, I know for certain that it wouldn't be as delicious as my memory of hearing Grandma singing Dance, ballerina, dance.....
