Before Yesterday

Last night, like so many of the nights of my life, I took a dance class. At this point in my life (I’m 54) I don’t find very many opportunities to take a class.

I drove 45 minutes to take an 8:30-10:00 jazz class with Todd, terrorized by the possibility that I might humiliate myself the entire way there. I was the only dancer that showed up. Todd held the door open for me to enter and held the class anyway. Great. So many more possibilities to humiliate myself waited in the empty dance studio.

The Boston Marathon bombing was yesterday. Todd moved here to Phoenix from Boston. It was a rough day for Todd. Not as rough as for many in Boston, but for someone removed and unable to help, rough still. But he stayed present to teach a class to one person…a 54-year-old dancer who rarely gets into class.

Last night, I didn’t have the right footwear for pirouettes, my left knee didn’t…my balance wasn’t quite…my butt refused to…I only wanted to sous-sus with the my right foot front even when the left foot front made more sense, but Todd and I danced together anyway in a style from back in the day. Back in a good day.

Last night was stepping back  to a time when I got to move with music to choreography somebody else created. This is a luxury I cherish now. This is a luxury that used to be “usual.”

I forget that I love to dance. Deeply. Dearly. Last night I remembered that our bodies were meant to soar and float and our souls were meant to breathe. Sitting in front of a computer it’s easy to forget.

We smiled. Almost the entire time. We had both danced with the same people back in New York, back in the day when twin towers still towered… with Luigi and with teachers still teaching:  Hama, Doug Caldwell and I can never remember the other guys name…Claude Thompson!  I had white high-top jazz oxfords back then. Humiliating shoe choice now, but so cool then.

Yesterday sucked for Boston, for America, for human beings. Art of any kind always gives us a pocket to climb into and escape. For me, dancing is my comforting, cherished pocket.

This morning the world is still the same, but for an hour and a half last night – it was a yesterday before terrorists. 

A yesterday when dancing was usual. 

Boston, I hope and pray you will find a pocket of escape for your soul to breathe and someday you will be able to remember your days before yesterday.

Thank you for taking the entire time to dance with me last night, Todd.

 

www.abbybelladance.com, Todd Bailey, instructor

https://www.facebook.com/dancersover40?fref=ts

https://www.BurnsItUp.com 

The Nature of Defiance

I wonder how many dancers have become dancers just out of defiance? There are easily millions ofdancers that have stopped dancing and millions that will dance into their grave at the end of a lifetime. I wonder if determination born of defiance could also be counted in the millions? At least as it refers to dancing.

I had to write a poem about an event that occurred in a room in the house where I grew up for a creative writing class. The professor pointed out that the dancing I loved came almost more out of defiance than anything else. I think I really just like being music, but his thoughtful comment caused me to consider that perhaps I'm stronger than I ever considered. Which is GOOD and I'm just gonna go with that.

The Straight and Narrow

Oblivious to the clicking of steel on linoleum I twirl thru the tiny brown kitchen

Hypnotized instead, by Judy Garland asking,

“If birds fly over the rainbow, why, oh why, can’t I?”

My brother points and laughs from his steady perch atop a stool

At the miniscule kitchen table.

The braces strapped on my legs to straighten out a crooked broken nature,

did more than restore the trauma of a birth canal.

The cold, perfectly straight, unforgiving iron bars

that could cement bone to bone

and free sinew so muscles could move,

also cemented iron to a will

and released the music inside, despite small spaces and small minds

and rough beginnings.

The need to silently twirl and leap happily over linoleum freely oblivious

to a brothers laughter and metal designed to constrain

would ultimately bring more defiance and elegance

than if I had been born in the perfect image of the dancer that stood within the bars.

But even after a forever of straight-legged pirouettes and fearless leaps,

being broken to begin with is still the person that returns my glare in an endless sea of mirrors.

Still, after a lifetime of silent dancing, the bars are something to be stepped past.

Another reason to dance: defying imperfection.

Shelf Life

The 50 year evolution of a dancer.


Evolution: A gradual process in which something changes into a different and usually more complex or better form.


Tomorrow at approximately 2:35 p.m. I will most likely dance for the last time on a stage.


At four-years-old, just barely out of leg braces, I stepped into Charlotte Crowleys Dancette Studio. Immediately, Miss Charlotte took off my corrective saddle shoes and slipped my feet into soft pink ballet slippers. I looked just like every other little girl there, my first moment of normal.


At 53-years-old, there is a different leg brace and equally as ugly, pair of corrective shoes gathering dust in a back corner of my closet. I'm still clinging to that first moment of normal, or vanity.


The gradual process of turning a clumsy, yet enthusiastic, four-year-old child into a strong, yet still insecure dancer has taken 50 years.


I certainly can dance way better than I could at four, but not as well as most of the years in-between. There is a shelf life to dancing (unlike Twinkies). Dancing is still just as much fun as ever, even with the age limits.


It's just time.(I hate time.) But it is time to embrace that I have become just like Charlotte Crowley, the wise old teacher in the corner giving little dancers their first moment of normal and pushing them toward a lifelong evolution toward strength. I'm trying to keep the insecurity to myself.


Charlotte Crowley, here I come. Well, not until the day after tomorrow.


Thank you to the Theatre Artists Studio for creating a space without age limits. On your stage I'm a Twinkie.

Reasons #5 to #101

I'd just rather dance than do anything else.


Anything.


At all.


Ever.


Reason to dance #5: It's better than anything else.


Reasons to dance #6-#101: please see reason #5.

Looking for a Good "Hot" Escape?

There are the legitimate things we need to escape from - abusive parents, a negative spouse, debt, doubt, fear of anything or everything...laziness as a way of life might even be enough of a reason to escape.


For an excellent vice - I'd like to recommend a dance studio. One with large Marley covered floors, mirrors floor to ceiling, and music pounding so loud that conversation or reflective thought is impossible.


This is the chance to let your guard at the gate of your insecurities down and pretend you are the best dancer in the world. This is the chance to be someone with fire and passion and precision. You can be brilliant and glorious and no one has to know it isn't you. Even though, deep down inside - you hope it is you, and will always be - all through the rest of your life. Even when you walk out the door.


Tonight, while teaching my "Hot Mama's" class, something snapped in my left knee while my sprained ankle barked incessantly "Stop jumping!!"  It's hard to rise to "hot" when one knee is on strike and one ankle won't give in and play well with the others.
I keep hoping to escape the ever encroaching knowledge that my dancing days may be over. That the guard at my gate will now only let my brilliant-precise-fire-dancer out for a minute. My inner fire dancer is becoming an ember. Having used dance as my primary vestige of escape this leaves me with nowhere to run and hide. Maybe I just won't walk out the door! Or I could fire the guard. I never liked him anyway.


Reasons to Dance #4: Escaping into who you know you are, if only the guard at the gate will let you out.

#3: Living Rooms

The first ballet I ever choreographed was entitled: "Blue Leaves." I was 5. My neighbor, Jan, cut out hundred's of blue leaves and we glittered each one carefully. Jan threw the leaves in the air as I magnificently executed each, well, for a lack of a better word - twirl. Our Living Room Theatre held our families under protest, as our audience.


 I wish I had understood this quote then  - or at least by now:


"There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique.


And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost. The world will not have it.


It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable it is nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.


You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you.


Keep the channel open.


No artist is pleased.


There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others."


~Martha Graham to Agnes  de Mille

Check her out! This is Martha Graham.

“I wanted to begin not with characters or ideas, but with movements . . .I wanted significant movement. I did not want it to be beautiful or fluid. I wanted it to be fraught with inner meaning, with excitement and surge.”–Martha Graham

She wanted significant movement. I think she got it.


Okay, so, my "Blue Leaves" ballet was neither beautiful nor fluid - but, it was fraught with inner meaning and there was lots of glitter. My brother laughed at it. Loudly. It was deeply humiliating. My tender, 5-year-old self threw the blue leaves in the air and punched him in the kneecaps.That was my significant movement.  I didn't create another ballet until I was in my forties (still with lots of glitter). 


But, in the meantime, I danced other's significant movement and their valuable ideas. How lucky is that? To have grown up and noticed the creative, intelligent human beings around me - and to have ignored my brother...eventually... I wonder if Martha and Agnes ever had anyone laugh at their ideas...of course they did. (It probably wasn't their brother though.) These two women went on to change the world of dance and didn't seem to care what anybody else thought. Admirable.


Reason to Dance #3: Surviving a brother's laughter


I'm having the hardest time clicking "publish post" on this entry. I am not satisfied with it. There is just no satisfaction of any kind with any art. Even a blog.


Any Living Room Ballet stories??

Reason #4: in the works.


About Martha: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/martha-graham/about-the-dancer/497/
About Agnes: http://www.kennedy-center.org/explorer/artists/?entity_id=3719&source_type=a