I don't even get this one, but I think it has something to do with Valentine's Dances

February 15, 2006 - 11:51 a.m.

On Saturday the pilot and I went out for a pre-Valentine’s Day celebration with a married couple we’re friends with, and people, my god, for once in my life I had a good idea. I never have good ideas and usually zip the lip of my brain because my paltry ideas always turn into utter failures. Maybe twice a year I get good idea.

Wait – to be fair to myself, I do get good ideas all the time, in the subjects or art, photography, design, film, gift giving, sex etc. But when it comes to theater, dance, museums, music, festivals, travel, and just about anything that requires “going out” or “leaving my desk” or “socializing with other human beings”…uh, not so much. I think this is probably because I have limited experience in these things. It’s hard to be good at planning outings and choosing events when you’re a connoisseur of introversion, isolation and solitude. I get good ideas on CREATING things, just not ATTENDING things.

That is why it is very important that I date somebody who is socially active or I/we would never leave the house.

Are you wondering why I described myself as introverted? Does it seem to not-jive with the tactless, self-asserting, loud-mouthed way that I write here? Well my friend, I am both intro and extro-verted, and in these parts, that’s what we call CRAZY. Sure, it’s not unusual for a shy person to come out of their shell around close friends. But HeyZeus, I am stone-cold, hermetically sealed, emotionally paralyzed, Mr. Roboto about 65% of the time. And the rest of the time, around friends and family, I’m onstage with a bullhorn and pom-poms, pigtails bouncing, performing variety show acts, voice impressions, miming, shaking you by the shoulders, assaulting your 5 senses like the attention-whore Paris Hilton, minus the polluted vagina.

Lordy.

Thinking and writing about one’s cuckooness gets really old, really fast. Old, it is.

I’m boring myself.

Getting to the point here…Out of the 100 events going on in Chicago last Saturday, I chose “Valentine Dances” at the Athenaeum Theater. It was 15+ dance companies performing love-related dances, ranging from young, pubescent students to dinosaur professionals. Oh, and PEE ESS, it was only 20 bucks!

Ok, there was a Circus Punk Marching Band with homely cheerleaders. And I’m totally not trying to be all “Aren’t I cool because I like things that are uncoool” but I honestly love marching bands, and it’s something that I never, ever have access to. Duhh, what do you think? That I am attending high school football games? No, but marching bands bring me joy because they are so loud that you feeeeel them while you hear them and oh what a clusterfuck of instruments! I love just about anything that is choreographed and synchronized and even better if it makes harmonious NOIZE.

As I think about this…I’ve concluded that a marching band is a pretty good personification of my mind. When they came out on stage it was like a wrecking ball tearing through the theater. I don’t think anyone expected it to be THAT LOUD, because aren’t they typically found in the outdoors, far away on a grassy field somewhere? Indoors, amplified, me trapped in an acoustical box with a Marching Band. The trumpets were deafening, like Gabriel calling me to heaven.

And to make it all better, everyone was dressed like a weirdo, hence “Circus Punk”. They were all mismatched and chaotic and there was a white helmet (!) and knee socks and feather plumed hats, with electric instruments not plugged in, and cheerleaders screaming angry words into megaphones.

I stared, mesmerized, my cones and rods dancing and vibrating with delight. It was like being slapped across the face with a leather glove, over and over.

I thought This is my head, my thoughts, my inner workings. This is what I have to live with every day of my life. The embodiment of my cuckoo mind, performing on a stage, yippee!

I want to go see this marching band again and again and I’m pretty sure there is no one who will want to go with me. I will go alone. I will even start attending football games if I have to. Gordon Tech? Lane Tech? Who’s got a marching band?

Of course, I do think I prefer the punk rock version, like the cheerleader whose uniform read OBAMA. If you don’t live in Illinois, you probably don’t know what that is and I don’t feel like explaining it.

There was also the Culture Shock Dance Troupe, a hip-hop dance company and hayell they brought the house down, at least in my mind. Like 20 hip-hop kids on stage, all with different yet complimentary stylish clothes, bandanas tied around arms and legs, hats pulled low over their eyes, break dancing and shit. They were by no means perfect, and there were even a few chubby people in the troupe, but that’s just how a street-dance group should be, I think. Awesome music mix, like 12 different songs mixed into a 6 minute set, including Gorillaz and Black Eyed Peas. Loved it!

There was the Lavender Cabaret Femme Tv girls, wearing just bras, panties, and garters and that was super hottt. The River North Dance Company who we saw on Valentine’s day last year, Melissa Thodos Dance, which ROCKS, some New Delhi girls wearing saris, the Joffrey Ballet, and a guy named Stone, a one man band who was quite excellent at playing a police whistle and a PVC pipe along with his drums.

OH AND TAP DANCING with a similar ruckus to the marching band! Scuff- hop- brush step- ball change- flap- ball change -ball change- ball change! I’ll never forget the first steps of the last tap recital I was in, 18 years ago.

I really can’t write this entry without mentioning my boyfriend, and graciously thanking him for reintroducing me to the world of dance, long after I had abandoned it and forgotten what a huge part of my life it used to be.

Imagine being passionate about something, so passionate that you spend all of your time sitting in the middle of a dry creek bed, squirming your toes in the sad (or mud) and you don’t even hear the quiet rustle of the trees around you. All you hear is a marching band inside your head, at full volume, pounding your ears from the inside out. And the marching band is made up of dancers and acrobats and people jeté and back-handspring as a mode of transport instead of just stupid ol’ walking. You’re dancing in the midst of everything and you can do a round off into 20 back layouts without even getting tired. All of the colors are hot pink, yellow and orange and there’s a bunch of animals there too, like deer and ground squirrels and one elephant. It’s like this imagery is projected onto the inside of your eyelids but you aren’t watching it so much as you are living it.

Imagine wanting something so bad but only being able to have it in your imagination, so you set aside all of your time and reserve your thoughts for this thing. You take time out of each day to find a tranquil place where you won’t be interrupted, and you sit in the creek bed and stare at the sand until your eyes unfocus and you see the pink, yellow and orange again.

Growing up, I was so passionate about dance and gymnastics it was all I could envision myself doing for a career as an adult. I took lessons for only two years and the third year my parents didn’t sign me up again, with no particular explanation. I weakly protested, because at that age your parents control your entire life, and mine were not running a democracy, they were running a dictatorship.

The only reason they had sent me in the first place is because they literally received a tongue-lashing from my best friend’s mom, Donna, who I would put shows on for all the time, and she called my mom and said Why isn’t this girl in dance? And my mom said no…so Donna yelled at her and said Fine! I’m signing her up for my daughter’s dance class, I’ll pay for it, and I’ll drive them to each one, and that’s that!

And that was that. And two years later, Donna was like: Uh, this is your kid, you need to take care of her and the cost of classes was raised from $19 a month to $30 and mom and dad were like *eh*.

I still loved dance, and I still practiced at home, trying to remember all the steps I had learned. I watched movies about dance, and went to the recitals of friends who were still taking lessons. When I was old enough to drive I started going to the recitals for every dance company in town, though it was pretty lame because half of them were little 4 year-old ballerinas standing on stage dressed like poodles and forgetting what they were onstage for.

When I was an adult and moved to Chicago, I knew there was a big, beautiful world of dance at my fingertips. But then I learned that watching people dance would cost $50 or $70 and that snatched the idea out of my reality. By then I started to lose interest, because it’s hard to stay passionate about something that you’re completely detached from. And I no longer had a creek bed to sit in, or any sort of meditative place, so I eventually lost my vivid daydreams of sequins and satin and ruffles. They were replaced by fear of getting raped and murdered, worrying about money and being cold all the time.

That sounds like a real sob story. I didn’t mean for it to go that direction, that’s just how things went down. Nowadays I’m a pretty happy and satisfied person and I don’t hate the city anymore so that stuff doesn’t really matter. Besides, I have no illusions at all that I ever would have been a successful, or even good dancer. Because frankly, I just didn’t have the confidence for it. I could dance alone, but when I got onstage I became rigid and moved like a scarecrow with a permanent scowl on my face. C’est la vie. It’s a lot more satisfying to watch other people do it.

I do, however, believe that I could have been an outstanding gymnast, and for that mom and dad, I will never forgive you!

Whatever. If I had become a gymnast I’d just be an annoying, neurotic adult, always striving for perfection and failing, with fractured wrists, ankles and kneecaps.

All of that lengthy explanation just to come right back ‘round here and say again, how grateful I am that my boyfriend has brought dance into my life. You know I can never get my point across in a single paragraph, I have to pound into your head with a hammer.

And much to the pilot’s chagrin, and perhaps the chagrin of all hearing and seeing people, I’m looking for an adult tap dance class to take! Because tap is about the only dance that can be learned as an adult with any hope of becoming good. And oh, the sounds of the scuff and the toe are so satisfying to the ears. And how much you wanna bet that tap schools in Chicago are predominantly black? Maybe I can pick up some soul, or grow a little bit of an ass while I’m at it!

Look out everyone, Shawna Mooney is going to be the next Gregory Hines!

*tappity-tap*

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