I’m thinking about taking a dance class this week. I’m hoping it will be more successful than my last foray – 10 years ago.
About ten years after retiring from dance, I was looking for a way to stay in some form of decent physical shape. And as the thought of doing yet another plie finally didn’t conjure up waves of nausea – I figured a dance class might fit the bill. I managed to take about half a dozen classes before I gave up – it was an unmitigated disaster. Why? Several reasons.
OK – first I need to give you the context of the class. An advanced/professional level ballet class which is a mixture of amateurs who have achieved a high technical level and pros who have “been there – done it – or are still doing it”. The class was a mixture of ages of varying degrees of professional experience.
First problem – the instructor was demonstrating all of the exercises at a snail’s pace. After forty years in the business – you can tell me “do eight tendus” – you don’t need to demonstrate all eight of them. For novice readers – a tendu is brushing your foot along the floor to a point. My mind was slowly freezing over (as were my older muscles that need some form of constant stimulation) as the instructor droned on and on and on. OK – I figured I could handle this little idiosyncrasy – he wasn’t the first dance instructor that I had had who liked to draw out his demonstrations. Actually there were a couple of others that were a lot worse. I just kept quietly moving my body while he explained the exercise to his satisfaction. Problem solved.
Second problem. He ran his class like a support group. He encouraged applause for every single effort made in the room – no matter how small and no matter how insignificant. I’m not big on gratuitous praise. Don’t praise me for my pointed feet – they’ve been pointed for many years and I was trained to point them automatically. As he praised student after student for their mediocre efforts and they beamed with pride – I was saddened by the lowering of technical standards. I was saddened that the young dancers of this class were not being asked to achieve the same technical proficiency that I had been asked to achieve when I was their age. OK, OK – I reminded myself – this is a different age – these kids live in a different world than I did at their age – their priorities, expectations and artistic sensibilities are different. I hated all of those teachers in my day that used to say “In my day we did…….” Let it go. Problem solved.
Third and final problem. We were doing an adagio exercise in the centre of the room. An adagio exercise for you novice readers is a slow moving set of positions – usually with the legs held up high – and usually pretty exhausting to do correctly. The class was split up into two groups for the exercise and I was in the first group. I enjoyed the exercise – it was difficult for me to do, all my muscles were screaming from the effort and I was pouring sweat. We finished. I sighed with relief. Nailed it. I was feeling pretty pleased with myself. As my group headed to the back of the room and the second group moved out onto the floor, a young dancer in her twenties stopped me. She put her hand on my shoulder, patted me a few times, leaned over and said “You did that very well”. This kid just praised me – like a trained monkey. I turned to her, forced a smile on my face and said “Thank you”. She smiled sweetly and started to walk away. I turned and looked over at only other retired professional dancer in the room and said (loud enough for the kid to hear), “Well – you would think after thirty f***ing years of dancing I’d get something right!” This problem I couldn’t solve. I didn’t go back.