Jeté the Chaos Queen
Jeté the Chaos Queen
Where ballet meets chaos, and chaos usually wins.
Every ballet class has its characters, but today's story
belongs entirely to Jeté.
If you've read my post about the unhinged things my students have said, you'll remember her. Jeté is the child who introduced her teddy bear
as Jeté, has several other stuffed animals named Jeté, and somehow even has a
real dog called Jeté.
Trying to follow one of her stories is like trying to solve a riddle.
If there were an award for Most Things Named After Yourself, she'd win
it. Then she'd probably name the trophy Jeté too.
She is also responsible for at least five of my weekly
career crises.
Today's ballet lesson earned her a blog post all by itself.
🟢Incident One: The Green Paint Disaster
The school day ended, ballet began, and Jeté arrived with an
announcement:
"I can't do ballet today."
Apparently, she hadn't done her homework, so her
schoolteacher had told her she wasn't allowed to attend ballet.
After a brief discussion, we explained that her schoolteacher doesn't actually make decisions about ballet lessons.
I thought that would be it.
I was wrong.
While waiting for the other students, Jeté discovered green body paint backstage.
I became suspicious when I hadn't heard her make a single noise in a few minutes.
Within those minutes Jeté had gotten paint on her hands, the desk, the floor, and somehow even the barre.
I still have questions.
At first, I thought someone had spilled juice.
Then I noticed the shimmer.
The culprit was standing proudly in the middle of the mess
with bright green hands, looking as though she'd auditioned for The Grinch.
The second she realised she'd been caught, the tears
arrived.
Jeté has an extraordinary ability to switch from confident
mischief to devastated innocence in record time.
Fortunately, body paint cleans easily. After a mop, several
wipes, and a deep breath, the studio was back to normal.
Jeté had already moved on.
💥Incident Two: The Hitting Saga
A few minutes later, Jeté was happily running around as
though the Great Green Paint Incident had never happened.
Then came the crying again.
Two students brought me Jeté and her friend Ouvert. After
some questioning, I discovered Jeté had hit Ouvert. Twice.
Ouvert had eventually hit her back.
That was when Jeté started crying.
Loudly.
She clutched her hand as though she'd suffered a
life-changing injury rather than experiencing the consequences of her own
actions.
To be clear, we don't allow hitting. But children are still
learning how to manage big emotions, and these things happen.
What made this memorable was that Jeté seemed far more upset
about being hit once than Ouvert had been about being hit twice.
I separated them, checked everyone's "booboos,"
and briefly wondered whether child conflict mediation should come with hazard
pay.
🐷Incident Three: The Piggy Heist
All the students had arrived and we could finally start class. I was hopeful that the excitement was
over.
It wasn't.
One of the students had brought with them a stuffed pig named Miss
Piggy.
Jeté immediately fell in love with her.
The pig passed from child to child throughout the lesson,
and I watched with the growing sense that this wasn't going to end well.
At home time, my suspicions were confirmed.
Miss Piggy's owner arrived in tears because Jeté was trying
to take the pig home.
Sure enough, Miss Piggy had been carefully placed inside
Jeté's bag.
Not accidentally.
Very deliberately.
Like a tiny criminal preparing for a getaway.
Once confronted, Jeté brought back her tears. Like switch.
And what followed was an unexpectedly lengthy negotiation
involving one stuffed pig and two determined four-year-olds.
Eventually, Miss Piggy was returned to her rightful owner.
Jeté was unimpressed.
More tears followed.
A few minutes later she went home.
By the next lesson, it was as though none of these events had ever happened.
🎭Curtain Call
Teaching ballet sometimes feels less like teaching ballet and more like managing a very small travelling circus.
One moment you're correcting pliés.
The next you're cleaning green paint, settling disputes, or negotiating the return of stolen stuffed animals.
Days like this remind me that ballet isn't just about technique. It's about teaching patience, kindness, resilience, and occasionally explaining why we don't hit our friends or steal their pigs.
Jeté may be a chaos queen, but she's our chaos queen.
She's endlessly chaotic, consistently entertaining, and responsible for a surprising amount of my professional stress.
But she's also one of the reasons I love teaching.
The studio is more than steps and exercises.
It's childhood in all its messy, hilarious, unpredictable glory.
And honestly?
I wouldn't have it any other way.
💬 Did you have a "Jeté" in your class, workplace, or family growing up?
Which of Jeté's three incidents would have tested your patience the most: the paint disaster, the hitting saga or the piggy heist?
Blog Disclosure: No children were harmed during this lesson. One stuffed pig was briefly kidnapped, several surfaces were painted green, and a ballet teacher questioned her career choices multiple times.
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