in memory of dance

[rm]

I spent this morning at Broadway Dance Center taking a jazz class. The experience was bizarre, in large part because that place is total chaos, mobbed by eight million high school kids and other wayward sorts of who, until they become stars, are determined to be as loud as possible.

Class was... odd. I never took jazz classes and it's antithetical to the things my body wants to do (remember I was Graham trained from age 11, and took ballet and ballroom before and after that). The tendons in my legs, particularly my hips, are even more screwed up than they were a few years ago, which is more screwed up than they were fifteen years ago. I doubt I will ever do a split (or anything close), and I find this emblematic of the history of me. I am not for other people, despite my best and repeated efforts.

The teacher was... brusque and difficult in a way unfamiliar to me, and I was annoyed, having to will myself not to leave the class repeatedly. I was incompetent and yet people watched me at times because of that air of false superiority I'm so good at, and because I felt. *sigh* But towards the end as my line came to the front she grabbed my hand and said, "you okay kiddo?" and I nodded, imaginging she had figured out at least half the story.

I still do inside turns instead of outside turns when I am flustered. And my thighs rebel -- my pants are tight in the thigh and loose in the waist and that can't be a good sign of anything.

But I do have a photo ID now. And tomorrow I will apply to get my social security card replaced before going to a voice lesson. And I don't hate myself. And I got a lot of interesting mail today. And soon I'll be able to get a state ID and a passport, and run away, even if just for a little while (if I can make it fiscally and emotionally possible -- right now it's still just in the plausible category, but I sort of have a plan -- I'm seriously considering just spending January in Sydney -- why? classes I want to take, good weather, water, a lovely exchange rate AND REALLY FUCKING FAR AWAY. Also it seems like the right sort of thing to spend a New Year's there, alone. Good for the soul. This sounds odd to people who don't know me well, or obvious in the wrong sort of way, but I have certain recurring odd habits to regenerate -- one involves fantasies of moving to mediocre midwestern-American cities that I thankfully never follow through on, the other involves travelling to slightly odd locales to bust my ass studying something that moves me, i.e., the Guitar Craft Adventure and My Summer at Yale).

Dance used to break my heart. As a child, it was the only thing I was good at that I could show to other people, and I would watch them as they watched me and know that they were frightened. I was alone, and it was good. And I understood things children should not. I knew power, and pride and ownership. Dancing broke my heart -- not when I failed it or it failed me, but because it did every time I moved. I still love it. And it still lurks within me. But we have a truce now, and it is a virus fled. I think I'm saner for it, even with all this showier recolonization.

Comments

[ex-mijra932.livejournal.com]

Yes. No, don't come to some mediocre midwestern American city. St. Louis would probably hold your attention for all of half a week, at which point it would probably leave you completely bored and comfused. Sidney sounds like a much better idea.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Agreed. I lived in St. Louis for for 7 years, it was by far the most boring place I have ever lived. Most of the midwest is far too similar, except for the parts that are both dull and scarily conservative