The Music, and The Mirror, and The Chance To Dance, One Out Of Three Ain’t Bad

Fit To Ride

Awareness of the outside world. Don’t settle for consent. Hold out for enthusiasm. For more on the subject, RAINN: What Consent Looks Like.
~~~

tldr: Figured out why I am drawn to dance and why I will never be good at it.

[New Shoes, Not for the Horse!]

Dance as a Physical Activity

I enjoy moving through space. I am good at it. These are not unrelated facts.

I can walk for miles. I can stand for five minutes before I start whining.

I’m good at learning movement patterns. Tai chi forms. Karate kata. And yes, dressage tests. Not that I never make a mistake – she adds superstitiously – but the basic concept is in my skill set.

If dance class was a matter of learning a sequence of steps, as with tai chi or karate, and then repeating and perfecting the exact same steps, I’d be golden.

Alas, this is not the case.

Dance as a Musical Activity

Dance is the physical embodiment of music. I am not.

In the beginner ballet classes at The Dance Foundation, we dance to a real-live person playing the piano rather than to canned music. It’s lovely. It’s definitely a perk of the class.

However. There is no connection between the pleasant sounds coming in my ear and what happens with my feet. The wiring just isn’t there. Music is a language I am all but deaf to.

For the record, I hate mirrors. I can go an entire dance class without looking at one entire wall of the room.

I had this dance epiphany watching the instructor outline our next exercise. Four of these this way. Four of those that way. It came to me how much of dance is numbers, in the same way that music is numbers.

Dance is music. Music is dance. Neither is me.

Mechanistic movement? Yes.

Rhythm and rhyme and harmony? Nope.

Stay safe. Stay sane.
Katherine