Dancing Queen

I approach most endeavors from a decidedly humble perspective, particularly my art, convinced that no one will like it but me. Having realized that such an attitude is stifling, I now just put it all out there. After all, not every stroke of Picasso's brush was genius, right? Surely Hemingway penned a lot of crap before The Old Man and the Sea finally emerged. The creation of art can be a slow, ugly process. Last night's dance rehearsal must have been a fine illustration of this point.

We learned the big kick line number (for Raleigh Little Theatre's production of Cabaret, for those of you who don't know what I'm up to these days). I always feel a little lost and out of my element learning choreography because I've never danced. What the hell is 2nd position?? If ignorance makes me feel like a fraud, then doing dance moves designed for 6-foot Amazons (I am 5' 3" on a good day) makes me feel deformed. Difficulty contorting my body into the warm-up positions isn't a good sign of things to come.

I managed to actually do most of the choreography reasonably well. Most of what I did not do well will get better once it is all memorized. I know this now that I've had a good night's sleep and doped with too much ibuprofen, but I sure as hell didn't feel that way while doing that one particular kick, spin, circle, kick, spin, run, hold hands, goose step series. At one point I thought, this must be what it feels like to be inside a dryer with a bunch of other people. Spinning, dizzy, pain as arms, elbows, legs, asses slam against everybody else. Did I just lose a toe?? Everyone needed a hug by the end of rehearsal. As I took off my dance shoes to put on flip flops, I noticed the imprint of a heel on top of one foot. When did that happen?

Near the end of the evening, I noticed the choreographer laughing while talking to the director. I told him that laughing at us doesn't help. He enthusiastically said that he was not laughing at us. He said he is giddy with delight at how great the number looks and how well we are doing it. I'm gonna choose to believe he wasn't just blowing smoke up our bruised asses. Apparently this ugly process is getting us to a beautiful work of art.