No News is Good News

…Right?

Haven’t heard anything yet, but there was a second round of auditions Tuesday night, so I would guess the director wouldn’t let people know until Wednesday – actually, she said Wednesday afternoon at the latest.  And for a nice change, she contacts everybody by email, telling them yay or nay.  That’s nice!  I much prefer obsessively checking my email over constant silence from my taunting phone.

Between visits to my in-box, I spent possibly the most awesome afternoon of my life watching Michael Jackson videos with the choreographer of  “Mary Poppins.”  Even that sentence is awesome.  I visited my former director Mary because she was gifting me a copy of “Mary Poppins” (after I told her that Moo loves the music and we don’t have a copy).  Her house is plastered with pictures of the amazings things she’s done and people she’s met – she was even on the cover of Life Magazine!  (That one hangs in the bathroom – hee!)  There was also a picture of the 1993 Superbowl halftime show with Michael Jackson, which she choreographed.  !!!!!  Oh, I love this woman.  So we started talking about Michael Jackson, and then there we were on her couch watching Beat It, Thriller, Bad, and even the unedited version of Black and White.  But she saved the best for last – a performance from the 1993 American Music Awards which I’d never seen before.  We watched it three times. 

 

Seems like performers these days cram every damn thing into their live shows – circus acts, giant blow-up clown puppets, gymnastic equipment – but maybe all you really need is talent like that, choreography like that, and some cool lighting.  I think I’m just going to keep watching that until my email arrives.

*P.S. – If you can dance like that, I don’t give a shit if you lip-synch.

Lessons of the Day

Today I learned:

1) I can no longer get away with eating half a scone and a few pretzel fish all day and expect to dance my li’l heart out at 7 p.m.  (Like I used to, back when I was 34…)  After the first turn combination during jazz , I felt so dizzy I actually had to scope out potential puke-spots in the studio (hmm, potted plant or recycle bin?), and though at first I thought, “Bun in the oven?”  I quickly remembered that I had forgotten to eat anything with any sort of vague hint of nutrition all day.  I limped through class, trying to “snake” and twirl and wiggle my hips, all the while thinking, BANANA.  BANANA.

2)  I also learned that I should always listen to my mother.  Dropping off Moo to play at my mom’s house, I told my mom I was heading out to Scottsdale to buy jazz shoes, because I need them for all the new dance classes I’m taking.  “Don’t you already have jazz shoes?” she asked.  But Moo was doing something cute, and all I heard was, “Donnuh hah juh shoo?”  So I drove 45 minutes to Barry’s Capezio in Scottsdale, because they’re the best dance store in town, tried on five pairs of jazz shoes, bought the cheapest pair (of course), drove 45 minutes back home, ate lunch, started cleaning the house, and was in the bathroom, deep in Comet when I suddenly thought, “Hey, wait a minute, don’t I already have a pair of jazz shoes?”  So I dug deep in the closet, and - yes.  Yes I do.  In fact, I have two.  (Now three.)

Anybody need a pair of size 7 Capezio jazz shoes?

Adieu, Pierre

I believe I’ve made my last visit to Pierre’s House of Pain (a.k.a. ballet class).  My last class with Pierre started out well – when we started plie-ing, Pierre pulled me off the barre and asked me to dance at the center barre instead.  Hooray! I thought.  Pierre wants to show me off as an example!  Then he whispered, “That barre was getting a little crowded.”  Oh.

But then things improved, as Pierre suddenly approached and asked if he could touch me.  Mon Dieu!  I said you betcha, Pierre, and he proceeded to correct my center placement (like, the place in your body that allows you to twirl and leap and oh, everything) in a way that, in one moment, improved my dancing tenfold.  But 15 minutes later, there I was scowling and miserable once again, as Pierre asked us to do a complicated center routine that exactly one dancer could do well (and she was obviously a professional, slumming it in the adult class just for giggles).  I’d had enough of feeling so discouraged, so I packed away Pierre’s invaluable piece of advice in my memory and silently bid adieu to his perfectly toned buttocks.

Then two things happened:

1.  I learned that Phoenix Theatre is having a summer dance program!  Last week I went to their musical theatre dance class, expecting the teacher to make up a dance to a Broadway tune a la Tyce Diorio on SYTYCD.  Instead, she’s actually recreating original choreography, so I learned the Jerome Robbins choreography to “Cool” from West Side Story, something I would never get to dance normally, since I am not a man, and also kind of old.  In addition, the teacher made us do about 200 sit-ups and 20 (non-girly-style) push-ups.  Who does that??  Ow.  But my sleeveless tops and bathing suit appreciated it.

2.  My friend Leslie (who has embarked on a quest of her own) told me about a jazz class at this new(?) studio called Sway, which is a dance studio MEANT FOR ADULTS, something I have dreamed about since moving to Phoenix.  I went last Tuesday and felt like I’d found a new dance home.  I felt really comfortable with the level of difficulty, and oh joy, we did a dance to “The Way You Make Me Feel,” my favorite MJ song to dance to, so I feel like I got to say goodbye to MJ in my own way.

In one week I went from suffering through a miserable ballet class to finding two dance classes I love.  Ballet is wonderful exercise, but there’s very little joy in dancing ballet (at least for me).  When I dance to Michael Jackson, or pretend I’m a member of the Jets, dancing to “Cool,” I feel – well, like that wise Billy Elliot once said, I feel like I sorta disappear.  And I’m just there.  Flying like a bird.  Like electricity.

Mama Say Mama Saw Mama Coo Saw

With all my talk of getting old, I don’t know if I ever really felt it until yesterday, when Michael Jackson died.  Is this how it felt for the generation of Elvis-lovers?  I’m sure it’s a little bit different, since so many people really did love and lust for Elvis, and I, and probably most people, have mostly felt befuddled and/or deeply disturbed by Michael Jackson, the man, over the years.

But his music!  His music, as I’m sure many folks my age would say, was the sountrack of my childhood.  Not just my childhood, but my adolescence, and even my young-adult New York years.  My mom thought I was too young to see the videos for “Beat It” and “Thriller,” with their somewhat violent content, but I watched them, again and again, at my friend Kelly’s house after her parents went to bed.  I remember crowding around the TV with a bunch of friends when the video for “Bad” premiered as a primetime special in high school.  In New York, studying dance, all my teachers choreographed again and again to “Man in the Mirror,”  “The Way You Make Me Feel,” and that “Free Willy” song.  I did my first triple pirouette to “Black or White.”  In fact, a few years ago I realized that while I never really obsessed over MJ’s choreography, all of my childhood dance teachers did, and so I was brought up learning MJ-style jazz dance, minus the moonwalk.

Even as an adult, whenever I’m in a funk, all I have to do is put on Michael Jackson and I am flying around the house.  “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” is my go-to sit-ups song.  A few years ago, Herbie and I had to pull over so we could bust out, car-dance-style, to “Smooth Criminal.”  Once, at a dance party, I made an instant friend in Jenna the Great when we spontaneously recreated the entire knife fight from “Beat It.”  And two years ago, Herbie and I won a “Thriller” dance-off at his office Christmas party.

Every generation has that icon – that ICON – and when that icon dies, a generation gains instant age lines.  I feel like all stores and radio stations and public venues everywhere should be playing MJ non-stop… and maybe they are, after all, we’ve only been to AJ’s and My Gym today.  At our house, it’s nap time, and with all these songs bouncing through my head, the quiet is feeling very heavy. I can’t wait for Moo to wake up, so that I can, despite my new age lines, try to teach Moo the zombie walk.  I’ll save the spin-and-crotch-grab until she’s just a bit older.

Pierre et Suzanne

Two more ballet classes down! 

I had the Pierre Experience again last Tuesday, where he showed signs of a sense of humor (“It’s okay if you’re on the wrong leg.  You only have two legs – you’ll figure it out eventually!”) and even admitted that he wasn’t teaching a beginning-level class.  He explained, in his delightful Stueyesque voice, that he just wants us to keep moving, and we should keep up as best we can.  That’s all fine and dandy, but when you have about five people shuffling cluelessly across the floor everytime we danced a new combination, I’d say that’s a sign something’s not quite right.  But even though I was stuck at the front of the barre again, I did much better, and Pierre even smiled at me – twice!  Maybe it was my newfound sense of I-Will-Not-Let-You-Win-This-Standoff-You’re-Completely-Unaware-Of,-Pierre! or maybe I just got my ballet legs working again. 

I’m starting to find Pierre fascinating.  At one moment, he’ll be laughing at himself for momentarily forgetting the combination, and then the next moment he’s shouting, “WILL NO ONE HELP ME MOVE THIS BARRE?” I think I might love him.  Once, after my group had finished our pirouette (turn) combination, Pierre looked in my general direction and said, “It’s very disappointing to see you do a single pirouette.  Especially someone of your training – what a waste.  Please, you must always try double pirouettes.”  This is the problem with not wearing glasses in dance class – I have no idea if he was talking to me or not.  I have definitely had some training, and I suppose it shows, but then I looked to my right, and saw another girl who also definitely had some training.  I didn’t even know if I should nod or not, so I just gave Pierre a vaguely affirmative expression.  The next time around, I did double pirouettes, and I heard a loud, “YES!  Very good!”  But of course, the other girl was dancing right next to me.  Either way, I’m never doing a single pirouette in Pierre’s class again, and I suppose motivation, even when caused by extreme near-sightedness, is always a good thing.

Then Saturday I went to ballet yet again (coupled with Moo’s frequent demand that we “eggersize,” a.k.a. I do sit-ups while she dances to Beyonce, I’m getting in great shape!), and discovered Pierre’s antithesis – the easy-going, normal-sized Susanne.  Suzanne greeted almost everyone in the class by name, asked about their kids, and cranked down the thermostat (always a big plus in a dance teacher – some teachers seem to consider dance class an opportunity for torture-by-sweating).  I didn’t even realize she was the teacher until she signaled the pianist to begin playing.  Suzanne reviewed every combination multiple times and kept the pace easy-peasy.  I must admit, it was a sweet, sweet feeling to be the best one (along with a few others) in the class.

Between Pierre and Suzanne, I think I should be able to develop a fairly healthy ballet ego, and maybe even a flatter stomach.