Spent last Friday night as a dancer in a Bollywood parody (pic courtesy of Laura):
The following night I had a wonderful, redemptive performance of Thalia where I played everything from an evil angel to a girl who couldn’t wait to wear make-up on her 15th birthday (straight from my real life, people). Several Canadian improvisers came up to me after the show and complimented my sense of movement asking me the question I long to hear: “Are you a dancer?” It’s funny, because in the dance world I am marginal, intermediate, passable. I only have a few tricks (I busted out the upside down triangle move last night), low flexibility, and am of average weight…but as an improviser I’m all hands and feet, throwing my body all over the stage. Yes! Hurrah! It’s true, I AM a dancer!
Every Friday I find myself in the worst possible position: at the barre during an open-level ballet class filled with company dancers. I am in this position because the class is free, having just completed teaching Storybook Acting and wanting to take advantage of my free class benefit. I have two hours until I need to drive to Mercer Island and teach at the Jewish Center. So, why not take a free ballet class? After all, it’s just barre, nothing fancy. I would never purposely drive to this class, or take time out of my life to do this, I am merely a victim of spare time needing to be filled.
So, it is with great anxiety that I am lined up with professional dancers, folks who dance for the prestigious company that is attached to this dance school. Out of all the places I teach, this is the most legit, heralding a world traveling performance ensemble that–when in town–graces The Moore Theater, (a coveted venue if you can get it). As you might guess, the class is what you can expect: hardworking, highly injured, professional dancers lined up with the occasional older dancer, novice, and once-ballerina-turned-modern-dancer like myself. The woman standing ahead of me was older and fidgeted during the entire warm-up; she tugged on her leotard during every pause, dumped water all over the floor so the soles of her ballet shoes could have traction, sighed wistfully at the girl who extended her leg up past her ear. Watching this woman dance was cringe worthy, and it was all I could do not to correct her: “You know when you rondejaum your hips are swiveling all over the place making your core incredibly unstable.” But anyway, not that I should talk, we were both way out of our league.
Together we plie’d and tandu’ed our way around the barre, stopping only briefly to receive direction from one of the worst ballet teachers I’ve endured. Russian accent in hand, “Olaf” seemed half asleep, his shaggy hair hanging in his face, hiding sleepy eyes–the man was barely awake. At one point he demonstrated the frappe’ combination with his hands instead of demonstrating on his own body. I am not the quickest when it comes to picking up choreography and I found it difficult to interpret his hand motions and then apply them to my feet. When the piano player started up I beat my feet to my own rhythm, completely missing the entire combination but certain that if I kept flapping around no one would notice. The class was an exercise in ‘not giving a hoot” what others think of me–no easy “feet.” Forty-five rough minutes later, the piano music stopped and Olaf commanded, “Center.” This simple instruction was met with everyone scrambling around to clear the barres and prepare for combinations in the center of the studio. I used this time to politely exit.
It is at this point that I have to bring up the fashion: Decked out skinny-minis in legwarmers, shrugs, leotards, and those ridiculous plastic garbage bag pants: 
With the exception of the “Sweat Off Short,” all of these accessories originated in the dance community before going mainstream fashion. One comes to accept all this extra junk on all these hot bodies because, well, they’re professionals and can wear what they want now. It was at this moment that I noticed the attire on this one gentleman:
So ridiculous was this outfit, that I immediately made a mental note to draw this combo upon returning home. It truly sums up the secret fashion life of a pro, the mix of skimpy (check out how hot my dancer body is), the injured (yeah, I have a back brace on), and the practical (why wear slippers when I can wear socks?)
I love it…