Long story short: Tomorrow, after a hiatus of several years, I finally return to dance. I start ballet.
Long story:
First steps
Apparently I have loved to dance as long as I can remember. But it wasn’t until high school that I sort of fell into it seriously. The school was starting a dance program my freshman year, and at auditions for the play, they also had everyone try out for a dance workshop (jazz/musical theater styles), which would meet weekly and perform at the school fashion show and put together a dance concert. I didn’t make it into the play, but I did get into the dance workshop. Honestly I was bewildered at first, but little did I know that dance would turn out to be the one of the most enjoyable activities of my life.
Cue that Billy Elliot song about how dancing makes you feel: “Electricity.”
Throughout high school my weekends and evenings were often spent in the theater: dancing for the workshop or singing in the chorus or all that plus acting in musicals. I loved it. In college I kept up with doing musicals, but for one reason or another I did less and less dance. I did occasional ballroom dancing, and took one jazz class and one ballet class, but that was about it. After college I meant to keep taking class or performing, but you know how it is. Years go by, and you think, oh someday. Eventually.
‘Eventually’ is now
I’d been vaguely keeping my eyes open for dance classes I might eventually take, and a couple of months ago I saw that LINES Dance Center in San Francisco had an “absolute beginner” ballet workshop. Well, I’ve always loved ballet, and even though I have a teeny, tiny bit of experience, “absolute beginner” was just the kind of gentle re-introduction I was interested in. So I signed up. And it starts tomorrow. Excitement!
The workshop meets weekly for only four weeks, but that’s just the first phase, and at that point I can figure out whether to continue (most likely) with the longer next phase and/or if I want to add a drop-in class during the week.
Here is a video about LINES Dance Center, the diverse adult dance school affiliated with Alonzo King LINES Ballet, on the occasion of their twentieth anniversary a couple years ago:
When I decided to do this, I threw myself into everything ballet. For example I’ve been reading ballet blogs, and it’s great to find several written by and/or for adult beginners. I’m very tempted to spin this adventure off into a new, separate dance blog, but we’ll give it time and see.
OK, that’s enough prologue. And now we dance!