A few years back I was described by someone, a dancer in a production I was involved in, I can’t remember exactly who it was because professional dancers have a tendency to become a blur of spinning fabulousness when you’re around them—as “elegantly clumsy.’
I almost wept with joy. I felt it was one of the highest compliments I had ever been paid. Besides, I only heard the word elegant. After that entered my ears—they stopped listening.
I never heard the clumsy part.
Well, maybe I did.
I just have to say that considering the circumstances—clumsy was still a compliment.
Back as a young girl in the midst of tween-dom, I was stick figure thin; a gangly compilation of arms and legs, with giant blue eyes, braces, and a tiny tween brain. What I loved more than anything else was to put on shows. God, how I loved that! Dancing or roller-skating and lip-syncing to the latest movie soundtrack on our long, smooth concrete patio. Funny Girl with Barbra Streisand was my favorite.
I could sing. Sort of. At the time it was a volume over substance sort of thing.
The trouble was, I also fancied myself a graceful dancer. Not a ballerina exactly, I wasn’t quite that audacious. But thinking I was a dancer was still a reach considering the fact that when faced with choreography, even the most elementary dance steps, my left leg traveled right, and my right leg, which has always had a mind of its own, did its very own version of Michael Flatley, Lord of the Dance.
While all of that was happening below my waist; my arms, hands, fingers, neck and head appeared disjointed, like a marionette, unattached from each other in any kind of biological way. They twisted and turned, undulating rhythmically, part Hawaiian Hula, part Aboriginal Fire Dance with a touch of Tai Chi and a sprinkling of Bob Fosse.
They moved to some internal melody that was completely unrelated to the music that was playing out loud.
Eyes closed, I can remember feeling at one with every note of every song. I had no idea how I appeared to those who were lucky enough to witness my spectacular moves. All I knew was that I was a dancer…until I heard the laughter.
I remember opening my eyes and thinking—actually consciously deciding—I can play up the funny—or I can be self-conscious—I chose to do both.
For the rest of my tweens, I played up the funny, because if you act like you’re IN on the joke, then they’re not laughing AT you—they’re laughing WITH you.
Once I reached high school and starting participating in Musical Theatre, not getting the dance steps wasn’t funny anymore. I became almost paralyzed with self-consciousness. Almost. As luck would have it, God giveth whilst He taketh away. That singing thing had gotten a lot better which allowed them to overlook my awkward dance free-stylings.
While the cast would dance their amazing Broadway-esq ensemble numbers, I was moved to a stationary platform where I was asked, told, to stand still and sing, or to move ONLY my hands in unison with the others. After numerous failed attempts to do exactly that, we all decided, for the sake of the show, that standing perfectly still or sitting on the side of the stage was preferable.
When I decided to re-join musical theater in my fifties, I discovered menopause had helped me to forget how much I sucked at dancing. It was only my feet, those two things below my knees with painted toes, that jogged my memory and saved that tiny shred of self-respect that had persevered since High School.
They did that by completely refusing to cooperate.
I could barely point my toes, and pointed toes are to dancers what lips are to singers.
After only an hour of dance rehearsal, my arches screamed in agony. Every toe was distorted into an arthritic looking charlie-horse. I hobbled around trying to walk off the pain, but my feet knew better. They were saving me from dance humiliation.
Blame it on us, they said.
So I did.
What choice did I have?
The powers-that-be lowered their expectations of my ability to “move”. ‘The old broad has shitty feet”, they muttered as they choreographed around me.
I’m okay with that, I thought, even though the moment I left the theatre—my feet behaved normally. It felt better than the fear of them get wind of the fact that I didn’t possess one lick of dance talent.
I had one of the leads in A Chorus Line, a show about dancers and their passion for dancing, where I was begged not to dance. “God, I’m a dancer, a dancer dances!”, I sang into the spotlight with all of the sincerity I could muster, as I stood nailed to the ground.
It’s called acting.
Eventually, I was cast as Velma in Chicago where they made me dance with a chair. I mean, how hard could THAT be?
It was Bob Fosse style, which means you’re actually making love to a chair.
On stage.
In public.
I couldn’t do it straight. So I made it funny. Sexy-funny if there’s such a thing. I may have just invented it.
Anyhow, they left it in the show, and it was after a run thru of that particular number that one of the dancers came up to me and whispered, “I like your style”.
“Oh, really? What style is that?”, I replied between gasps of air, as I poured buckets of sweat onto the stage.
“You’re elegantly clumsy”, he said with conviction, like he had just told Baryshnikov “Nice Jete”.
I will live off the fumes of that compliment until the day I die.
Carry on,
xox
