Review by Karl Verhoven
Interviewed on her retirement, acclaimed ballerina Rosamund Hammond is asked about her distant past. “Your student days were marked by tragedy, were they not? The death of a classmate…” Hammond bats away the statement, claiming she was never close to the dead girl, but her mind drifts back to her schooldays, and these form the bulk of Corpse de Ballet.
Rosamund has transferred to a prestigious ballet school late in the term and is to room with Eugenie, first seen protesting the removal of her previous room-mate’s property. They rapidly find common ground, though, not least because they seem the only genuine people in a class of bullies. Megan Kearney quickly establishes a mysterious and possibly sinister side to the school beyond bullies as Rosie navigates an intimidating new world.
Kearney’s illustration is as confident as the writing in supplying your girls out of their depth in fully formed environments. Elements of the supernatural, such as tarot cards and ouija board, along with day to day dance practice are incorporated well amid good storytelling. That appears to falter at one point when Rosie is invited to a meeting with the headmistress and colleagues, but that’s deliberately designed to foster uncertainty. So are other elements. Kearney cleverly ensures neither Rosie nor the reader can be sure of what’s true, and any older readers might pick up on Kearney further muddying the waters via references to acclaimed 1940s film The Red Shoes, not least that students are working towards a performance of Coppélia.
The supernatural occurrences are well maintained amid an atmosphere of suspicion and the fatigue generated by the immense work schedule. Is Rosie hallucinating because she’s exhausted or is she actually receiving communications from beyond? Eventually an out and out villain develops, inflating the tension, and Kearney maintains a fine balance between reality and unreality all the the way to the end. In keeping with what’s gone before, dots have to be joined for the full truth, but even without that there’s a satisfactory conclusion to a well conceived macabre dance.
