Out of nowhere, I told him he was my favorite ballet dancer in the world. The isolation of my queer youth was about to return. He might have said, “Lovely party,” but that was it, he was on his way. Now he was in loose linen pants with a drawstring belt and an open collar that exposed the rod of his clavicle. Onstage, the ballerino wore brown tights that showed the trunks of his thighs, and everything else. Something about his movement told me he was gay, and I felt he was dancing not only for himself but for me. Earlier that evening, I had seen the dancer turn, leap and smile onstage, expressing through the mute language of ballet who he was. No, this is about the ballerino - my word for him - I met and what he represented to a lonely gay kid in Southern California in 1984, a kid who had never before met another gay person. I recall about 200 people - family friends, Olympic officials and maybe 25 dancers - eating curry (is that right?) off paper plates. The company had come to Los Angeles to dance in the Olympic Arts Festival, and my parents volunteered to host a post-performance dinner in our backyard. When I was 15, I met a dancer from Canada’s Royal Winnipeg Ballet.
