Born Again Dancer

Once a week now, I try to "do the double." Not pirouettes, but back-to-back classes, usually ballet and then theatre dance or street jazz. I love it. But my body tells me when I need to slow down. So a few weeks ago, I was 30 minutes into my second class and getting light-headed during a torturous jazz adagio. Chuckling at my ambitious attempts to dance for nearly three hours, I sneaked around the edge of the studio to talk to one of our teachers, who was observing in the corner. When I told him that I was tired -- that I'd just taken ballet -- he grinned and said "that's great!" -- a supportive "atta girl" that made me proud. That thumbs-up alone would have made my day. But then he said something that made my head spin. "You oughta get a gig." "Doing What?" I asked, wondering what he possibly had in mind. I waited for him to explain his headlining remark: "39 Year Old Amateur Dancer Seeks...Gig." He shrugged. "I...

A few years ago,  I settled into a studio on a cool Tuesday evening, eagerly awaiting a ballet class. So I was a bit surprised when a different teacher walked in to teach a different class entirely: modern. Uh-oh. My mind quickly evaluated my choices: Do I stay? Or do I make a gracious exit and apologize for my mistake? The fear of appearing rude overwhelmed my fear of the unknown. I looked over my shoulder to the pianist in the corner and mouthed "I've never taken this class." "You'll be fine," he mouthed back over the 5-foot grand piano. "I want everyone to make more mistakes," my teacher confided to me as I fumbled through my first-ever modern dance class. "I don't know where we get this idea that we have to be perfect when we dance." "Ballet teachers," I said. Like Parisians are fairly intolerant of imperfect attempts to speak French, ballet teachers are bred to be intolerant of imperfection, period. Go to...

On Thursday, I went a lot of places and hauled a lot of stuff. In the course of the day I carried a purse, laptop case, two different tote bags, a kid's backpack, a kid's bookbag , and two large gym bags. I went to a meeting, then a grocery store and then to work. Then I went to school and back home, then to soccer practice and a nonprofit event. Then, finally, at 8:15 p.m., I went to dance class. I walked into theatre dance with my arms full. I carried a purse filled with its purse-like necessities; a tote bag with makeup, a hairbrush and antiperspirant; and my large quilted "dance bag" with three more bags inside: one with dance shoes (heels and flats), another with two pairs of comfy sandals, and a third bag with 3-inch heeled street shoes that I'd worn to the said nonprofit event. That's a lot of baggage (and shoes!) for a 75-minute class. I should have seen this all coming. Something special about dance classes in this community school (as opposed to a da...