Dancing

I was without dancing for a long time. Real dancing I mean -- dancing that expressed rather than proclaimed, advertised, or was a means to a different end. It wasn't until I met you that dancing came to me in a way that wasn't scripted.

I was in dance classes from about ages 3 - 6. Ballet, tap and later jazz. I don't remember anything about it, save for four things:

1. That we had to have imaginary friends to look at while we learned spins in ballet, and we had to announce their names to the class. Apropos of nothing, just like that. I remember being a bit annoyed at this. Rather reluctantly, mine was Jessica -- a tallish long-haired femme -- and she kind of stayed with me for longer time than I cared to admit after that.

2. We had to learn to "count-off" on our own. There were ten groups and we had to count, in our heads, "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8...2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8...3, 2, 3, 4, ..." etc., and I remember it being terribly difficult to keep track of these groups of numbers when we actually did this to music. I remember being glad I wasn't in the front to start off the line. I was always at the end on these cross-stage lines, because the smallest person always got to wave at the audience as she left the stage at the tail end of the line. (Yes. Even then I was the smallest. One year my friend Tanya was in the same class. She was also tiny and during rehearsal we would switch off as end-of-the-line-cherub. But the one day one of the instructors measured us and said, "sorry Maggie it looks like you're the smallest now". I've been the smallest ever since.)

I should mention that I really liked being the end-girl, because you got to be the one to do something different. I did always hope though that nobody thought I was actually breaking any rules by doing that. I wanted them to know that it was not a spontaneous act of self-absorbed cuteness, but something I was instructed to do and did dutifully to give our dance a finish and alert the audience when it was time to applaud. I was the punctuation mark. I went into this at great length in the car on the way to one of my first recitals, so at least my parents knew.

3. The make-up took FOREVER to do, though it always seemed to take longer during dress rehearsal rather than on recital day. I was very uncomfortable with the eye make-up in particular -- the application was tedious and it was a bit frightening to have someone pushing on your eyelids like that.

4. Our tap sessions immediately followed ballet, and at the halfway mark everyone got to change into their loud shoes. I remember being terribly amazed by one other girls toe-heal-toe walking rather quickly back to her spot in the middle of the room. It was something I knew how to do -- we all did -- but for some reason I was in awe of it. It couldn't have been the seeing of it, because we danced in front of a mirror the whole time. Though I don't remember watching myself dance, nor my classmates for that matter. Maybe I was too busy concentrating.

These things I remember about dance are all meta-details. Tiny moments in between the actual rehearsals and performances. They are interesting vignettes that are buried fairly deeply into my psyche and will most likely never leave me. But they have nothing to do with the dancing itself -- I don't remember the moves or how they all strung together. You'd think I'd remember, we usually memorized the entire sequences. Maybe we were so bogged down with counting and remembering steps that muscle memory simply didn't kick in. Maybe I was too young for muscle memory. For whatever reason nothing seemed to stick. I don't even remember wearing the costumes, though (of course!) we kept them for the dress-up box. (Best. Dress up clothes. Ever.)

I also don't remember feeling anything about it. One way or another. When we moved to Colorado there was a combination dance/gymnastics studio near our house, and I opted I opted to only do gymnastics not because I disliked the actual dancing per say, but because there wasn't an ultimate Final Recital where you have to wear make-up or wear itchy sequins. (Not at that age, anyway.) It's just goofing off and doing dangerous stuff under careful supervision. But you can't recreationally tumble for very long, so when we people in my group started to advance and actual competitions were taking place I lost interest.

After that, there were suddenly Dances. To attend. Dark gymnasiums filled with people, sexual tension, and music I wasn't familiar with. The only thing I liked about it was darting around in the darkness trying to find people. I knew how to do but one acceptable dance: a "slow-dance" -- that grasping sway you revisit for weeks after the fact. I would tremble the whole time and think later on how stupid it was that we had to pay money to stand in a dark gymnasium and listen to loud music in order to feel butterflies. I felt perfectly capable of attaining butterflies all on my own, and therefore stopped going to dances.

This was a pretty vocal choice. It had to be, my best friend was a Dancing Fiend. She loved dances, but she also loved boys and boy-drama, and for the most part I just wasn't interested. I was pestered to attend every single dance, and I had to refuse every single one, eventually by saying, "I don't dance." Which was practically the case. I could act like I was carrying an invisible box across our crowded courtyard at lunch time, I could paint a picture about an indignation and hang it on the wall at school (where the Guilty Parties would see them), and I had no problem with performing a skit in almost every single French class. But I could not bring myself to move my body to music. I would scarcely snap in time to a beat.

It was partly this no-dancing identity I had constructed, and partly because I didn't really see the point. It seemed to me that dancing was primarily some sort of sad little mating dance -- we press our stomachs together longingly during a pop song instead of do what we actually want. This idea was reinforced by the dancing one saw on television. The high school dances that in no way resembled actual high school dances. The MTV exhibitionist type of thing. Pure sex. Dancing meant to entice.



Happily, you have dissolved this misconception. Ever since you danced those two weeks away listening to Head Automatica, it became clear that dancing was meant to express, not represent.



Just as singing or screaming connects a clearer path from the mind to the outside world, so too does dance. The body's emotions. And the body can have a lot to say, if you let it.

I have come full circle. The woman who refused to dance in high school now goes out dancing with friends. I hear the slightest beat and I can't sit still. It's taken awhile and I'm certainly no one you could take lessons from, but isn't that the point? You can't take lessons to dance in earnest. - not in an honest way. Instead you have to experience. You have to know what it feels like to achieve something, or fall in love, or smell rain for the first time in months. The joints bend, the ear hears. The mind commands. Apart from that, all there is to do is to remove the inhibitions.

I was thinking about this at work a month ago, when I walked into the workroom to find a legal assistant dancing to the sounds the copy machine makes.

That is where it's at.

I thought about it again when I watched this video.



Ellen DeGeneres said that Americans don't dance enough, which is why there is that dance session just before her show. I think she's right. I also think we have to be careful and draw the line between real dancing and something like this.

You can be as sexy as you want to. Just as long as you actually have something to say.