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ballet
October 2009 
Dance
Posted on Jan 7th, 2009
by 
J~E~S~S
J~E~S~S
I have a gym membership. In December, the Zumba teacher broke her ankle and they needed a replacement. They substituted street dance, hip-hop style. Today was my first class, however I met and chatted with the instructor in Dec. after joining in the last ten minutes of his class.
"Have you danced before?" he shouted over the music after I picked up the combination after five minutes.
"Used to!" I replied.
Later, I told him I haven't danced seriously for about 20 years, but I've got about 12 years of ballet, another year of modern and scattered classes of jazz, indian, and african in my history. I nearly joined the performing company at The Dance Place in DC, but I moved away before I was invited to audition. (Carla, the owner, told me that she would have invited me if only I wasn't moving...)
Today after class, (and he's a pro teacher and enters competitive hip hop dance events) he was saying how hard it is to get the girls who've been trained in ballet to actually loosen up. When they try to do hip hop they are stiff as a board, just like their ballet or jazz teacher molded them to be.
"It's difficult to unlearn conformity," I added, because it took me several years to stop pointing my toes when I lifted my feet from the floor. It took me years after quitting ballet to be able to shake my hips!
So that's a great allegory for how people get attached to the methods and tools they use for coping. High school is all about blending in, right? Structured education teaches children to answer as they think they should, not as they really want to. But, we've all got to learn to conform as we're growing up, then to be able to lose the conformity when it's time to take charge of our own lives.
"Have you danced before?" he shouted over the music after I picked up the combination after five minutes.
"Used to!" I replied.
Later, I told him I haven't danced seriously for about 20 years, but I've got about 12 years of ballet, another year of modern and scattered classes of jazz, indian, and african in my history. I nearly joined the performing company at The Dance Place in DC, but I moved away before I was invited to audition. (Carla, the owner, told me that she would have invited me if only I wasn't moving...)
Today after class, (and he's a pro teacher and enters competitive hip hop dance events) he was saying how hard it is to get the girls who've been trained in ballet to actually loosen up. When they try to do hip hop they are stiff as a board, just like their ballet or jazz teacher molded them to be.
"It's difficult to unlearn conformity," I added, because it took me several years to stop pointing my toes when I lifted my feet from the floor. It took me years after quitting ballet to be able to shake my hips!
So that's a great allegory for how people get attached to the methods and tools they use for coping. High school is all about blending in, right? Structured education teaches children to answer as they think they should, not as they really want to. But, we've all got to learn to conform as we're growing up, then to be able to lose the conformity when it's time to take charge of our own lives.
Access: Public
Yes, a great allegory indeed! Great thought and great new pix!
This is fascinating. Not being a dancing person (not having cultivated that) it’s interesting thinking about attachments on a physical level. So, Jessica, were you able to loosen your hips and get down? Or was it challenging? :)
A very good allegory - so pertinent. I found that after being away from ballet for many years, it wasn’t hard for me to go back and take a class, but I can’t rotate my hip the way I used to! Unlearning conformity is not easy for so many people, because they’re leaving what they think of as a safe place. What has helped me tremendously is being involved in belly dance and teaching ballroom dance. Belly dance helps to keep me flexible in both body and mind, and ballroom dance is a wonderful way to keep a sensitivity to subtle signals ( you have to be very aware of what is happening around you on a dance floor, and you have to respond to your partner’s very subtle signals).
Denim: Thanks.
Centria:
“getting down” took me about a year after quitting ballet and taking serious modern classes to get rid of the automatic turnout, but at that time I never visited clubs, so I never “got down.” Nowadays, however, since dance is only something I get to enjoy once every couple of months, I do go to the clubs just to get my groove on.
Suz: Thanks for stopping by! I like to do the belly dance show “shimmy” on TV but haven’t seen it in a year. Ballroom is my last unexplored frontier. I’ll try it someday!