Wednesday, August 01, 2007

One... Singular Sensation...

(Begin with the right foot) BRUSH-BACK-STEP,

(now the left) BRUSH-BACK-STEP,

(right) BRUSH-BACK-STEP-(now step on the left!) STEP,

(now right again!) BRUSH-BACK-STEP.

(REPEAT!)


Thus began my dancing lessons, red-haired Miss Byrne calling out the instructions, and an ancient, stooped woman named Sylvia pounding an old, out of tune upright piano.

....(Up a steep and very narrow stairway,
.....To the voice like a metronome,
.....Up a steep and very narrow stairway,
.....It wasn't paradise...
.....It wasn't paradise...
.....It wasn't paradise...
.....But it was home)


The place was the "Val Mates School of Dance," up a long and very narrow stairway above a storefront on East Avenue. I was a very pigeon-toed, skinny kid, and my parents were hoping that dancing lessons would straighten out my feet.

.....(Dance: ten; Looks: three...)

True, Val Mates wasn't paradise, but neither was it anything like my home. The man Val Mates, though seldom seen, looked like his painted portrait on the sign that hung in the window, albeit a bit older: an oddly (to me at the time) pretty fellow with very curly hair slightly longer than was the masculine style of that day. The rest of the faculty was made up of women unlike any of my friends' mothers. Except for Miss Byrne and the grumpy-looking old pianist, they were bleached blondes, noticeably made up and wearing fishnet stockings, low-cut leotards and very short dance skirts. As young as I was (probably about eight), the prevailing lack of wholesomeness made an impression. This was a fascinating place.

.....(Give me somebody to dance for,
.....Give me somebody to show.
.....Let me wake up in the morning to find
.....I have somewhere exciting to go).

There was a small lobby with a curved black sort of desk/counter where you paid your money. The lights there were dim, and it was where The Blondes hung out when they weren't teaching in one of the two maple floored, mirrored studios. It didn't seem to me that pretty, freckle-faced Miss Byrne fit in there, and I must have been right, because one day she was gone. I arrived for my lessons, and she had been replaced by one of The Blondes.

Sylvia disappeared too. Her piano pounding was replaced by a small record player, one of those old 78 rpm portable models that looked like a small suitcase, the top unlatching and opening to expose the turntable and needle arm. Perhaps in boredom, perhaps for the shock value, The Blonde put a vinyl disk in place, turned it on, and proceeded to play the record using her long, red fingernail instead of the needle!!!

.....(Play me the music!
.....Play me the music!
.....Give me a chance to come through!
.....All I ever needed was the music and the mirror
.....And a chance to dance-- )

Not long after that, Miss Byrne called my mother. She had opened her own dance studio in the basement of her home, or more likely, her parents' home. I left Val Mates and resumed tap, acrobatic and ballet lessons next to a furnace beneath a low ceiling and neon lights, eventually graduating to "toe" (nowadays known as "on point") and modern jazz. I thought I had talent, and maybe that was why I didn't feel I needed to practice. (If I’m honest here, I guess I would have to admit to having more laziness than perceived talent). I'd gradually learn the numbers as new steps were added week after week, eventually suffering through each lesson as poor Miss Byrne must have suffered in teaching a student with little motivation. One day she announced that she was going to get married, and her underground dancing school closed.

My mother sought out other studios, and after a nasty encounter with a teacher who used my ponytail to yank me into a back-bend, I gave up all but the tapping and took dance in the home of a young man who was the nephew of our local town druggist. I’d ride my horse to his house for lessons, transforming from Annie Oakley to Bo Jangles and back in the space of an hour.

And then came hormones, Jr. High, and the realization that even if I wanted to be (which I didn't), I would never be a dancer.
.
.....(Hello twelve,
.....Hello thirteen,
.....Hello love! )
.
It was time to let my tap and toe shoes gather dust.
.
.....(Everything was beautiful at the ballet.
.....Graceful men lift lovely girls in white.
.....Yes, everything was beautiful at the ballet.)


Well, not really everything. I had seen that.

I quit.

There was no reason to continue. My pigeon toes (the reason my parents sent me to dancing lessons) had straightened out, maybe (as hoped) from those many weeks of forcing them into first, second, third, fourth and fifth position. Or maybe it just would have happened anyway as I grew.


The many “routines” I’d learned were soon forgotten, but I can still do the steps – and sometimes do. The beauty of having had all those dancing lessons is that to this day I can still punctuate a wise-crack with a shuffle-ball-change.
.
.....(And I can't forget, don't regret, what I did for
love pigeon toes).

15 comments:

Pepper said...

Dance lessons, thanks for bringing back a childhood memory. I was drug to tap dance lessons and only lasted a year. I was born with two left feet.

captain corky said...

My wife was really into dancing when she was younger and now we watch So You Think You Can Dance every Wednesday and Thursday.

Thanks for the link. I added you this morning. ;)

darkfoam said...

wow..
brings back tons of memories of having taken ballet lessons. i just unearthed by ballet slippers today that i wore as an early teen. i know someplace i probably have my toe slippers. and ironically in draft i have a post which i felt compelled to write a few weeks ago about my many years taking ballet and dance classes. yours is much better though.
you have a way with composition...
grande plie anybody?

Sue said...

Yes, the memories come flooding back. I started younger than you, about 5 I think, with the Scottish Country dances which were an essential social skill for any young lady destined to catch a man at the Perth Hunt Ball! (I never did)I have written about dancing these though in my post this week - but not as well as you.

the blogger formerly known as yinyang said...

I did ballet and tap for a little while, until I impressed the ballet instructors so much they skipped me a level and put me with older girls referencing moves almost exclusively from the level I'd hopped. That, and the lessons were on Saturday mornings - and what kid really wants to wake up early on a Saturday to don a leotard?

The Lone Beader® said...

I never took formal dance lessons... but I did get private salsa dancing lessons from a friend once... That was fun!

Citymouse said...

my son took dance lessons until the local school coundnt teach him because of a lack of advanced kids. He got a scholorship -- but the school was 30 miles away and it requried him to go 3 days a week. I think he may start up again when he can take the train by himself (next year at 14yrs old)
He love dance-- thanks for the story!

Bardouble29 said...

Seems as many of us all had those dance lessons.

I loved my dance lessons, it was a highlight of a many times dreary home life...

Em said...

I took no lessons and am living proof that white men have no rhythm! LOL But it was very nice reading about your dance as a young Wizard.

Crabby said...

When I was little I dreamed about taking dance lessons. I wanted it soooo bad. We were far too poor. I didn't even ask my Mother because I knew she'd feel bad.

After reading your ponytail incident, I'm thinking I got off lucky. LOL!

But what I love here with you is.....your horses! Have you always had horses?

Robin said...

Wonderful story, Wiz. They made me take piano lessons when I was about eight. The teacher was an old, old bitter woman. Her death is what saved me from even more torturous hours....(God forgive me.....)

Rick Rockhill said...

After awhile I caught on. I mean I saw what they were hiring.

I also swiped my dance card once after an audition. One a scale of 10, they gave me, for dance: 10, for looks: 3

Judy said...

I was expecting to raise some memories among many of you, and it is fun to read them...

but...

Palm Springs Savant - Your comment made me laugh out loud - So glad somebody "got it"! I think I worked in all but maybe one of the tunes from Chorus Line. "...and I'm still on Unemployment, dancin' for my own enjoyment; that ain't it, kid, that ain't it!" Sadly, I never did get to see the wizard on Park and 73rd.

CS said...

At six, I begged and begged to take ballet lessons until my parents gave in. But the teacher frightened me and used me as her model for the things that required flexibility. So I begged and begged to be allowed to quit until my parents gave in.

Craig D said...

My wife is talking about having our daughter go to dance class. Is 3-1/2 years old too young, I wonder?