Dance= art + (sports- grunting)

I think that "Dancing with the Stars" as done a pretty good job showing America just how painful and difficult dancing can be-- and I'm not just talking about the footwear and costumes.  It's one thing to play a sport and get to grunt and show on your face how much effort and concentration you are putting into every move; with dance you have to convey a certain emotion and match your motions to music.  I feel ballet is particularly challenging because there's so much technique and specific restraint involved that is hard to appreciate from an outsider perspective.  Dance is definitely art, but this categorization makes it easier to pass of as a less serious occupation of time.  Aside from "Dancing with the Stars", I only see dance on TV on PBS; meanwhile you have five variants of ESPN and games are usually broadcast on the most basic cable channels.

The most compelling and hilarious hybrid of dance and sport: competitive aerobic dancing.

With the music, choreography, and goofy-happy facial expressions, I think this leans more on the side of a dance.  But there's no denying the athleticism involved in all those moves.  It's a pity that this seems to have been a fad and doesn't really exist in this form today.

Singing vs. dancing

To me, singing is more embarassing than dancing.  I'm clumsy and generally uncoordinated but I know how to move in time with the music and I know the limits of my gross motor skills.  I can deal.  But I just don't have a nice singing voice; I can sing in tune and maybe with some (intensive) training I could become a passable singer.

But which of the two is more embarassing? On the one hand there dance clubs in which the house lights are low and different colored lights and strobes go off to create a cool effect and make your dance moves look electric, no matter how much you're actually moving.  And there's alcohol to drink, and probably some other drugs that can be obtained to create a more heightened experience of dance.  On the other hand, karaoke bars are also wildly popular and feature lights and alcohol so that people are less inhibited to potentially make fools of themselves.  Both require a certain amount of familiarity with music and how it is structured.

You don't have to have a particular body shape to dance well, but you have to know how to move yourself in a way that is visually striking and not too strenuous.  If you put a lot of time into dancing and choreographing routines you burn a lot of calories and it's likely that your body will become more toned and muscular.  Dancing isn't something that is usually taught at school; physical education focuses on strength and athleticism, which can definitely help to make one a better dancer but to dance you have to learn the moves.

Music, on the other hand, is pretty much mandatory at school.  Few can actually sing it well but we all learn how to sing the national anthem in school and have to take music classes.  In high school there was an arts requirement and many students who weren't really into fine arts opted for the mixed chorus, which had no audition requirement.  It's really easy to fake singing when in a chorus; if you dance in a group, though, you really have to know your stuff because it's blatantly obvious if you don't.

I think I just convinced myself that dance is generally more embarassing.  But personally, if it were a matter of life or death to either sing or dance I'd chose the latter.  Would I live? Maybe.

Julian Matthias and I: Withdrawal?

I've come fresh out of a dress rehearsal but I'm already thinking about withdrawal.  It's not that I want to withdraw from the show, but that I'm preemptively feeling for the actors and the production people involved.  I don't know how long they've been working on this production-- for weeks at least, maybe a month or two.  This week has probably been the most joyous and stressful, since this Friday marks the very first show.  All that hard work and rehearsing will be on display and it's showtime, quite literally.  And before we all know it we'll be performing the last show, and then it'll be over.  There will be no more "next rehearsal" or "next show" to make it better or amend mistakes or relive the thrill of receiving applause after that particularly exhausting yet thrilling show-stopping number.  It's a relief once it's all over, but then immediately there's also a feeling of nostalgia and mourning, almost, that it's all over and it's gone, it will never happen quite that way again. 

I know "nostalgia" is usually used in reference to childhood memories; I don't know what the prefix "nost-" means, but "-algia" refers to pain-- think myalgia (pain in muscles) or neuralgia (nerve pain).  Nostalgia means "to look back with pain", and I think that it's very fitting for the feeling of After The Show's Over.  Withdrawal, too, feels like an apt description, as theatre is like a drug: there are very high ephemeral highs, and there are very stressful, dark lows when everything is going wrong and it doesn't seem like there's a chance that the show will go on or be presentable in any way.  There's a lot of sturm and drang that goes into putting on a show, but the people involved think that it's all worth it in the end, that all the energy and money and emotion that goes into it is of value, just as a junkie will sell everything s/he owns to get just one more hit.

Ach, I didn't intend for this post to be so depressing!  It's just that I'm anticipating this feeling for others.  As a pit orchestra musician I have probably the least amount of involvement for someone involved in the production.  I just have to show up and play, and it's someone else's problem if the sound doesn't work or the music cues don't match up.  I'm heard but not seen, and I like it that way.  But I've been on the other side of the stage, I've been a performer on stage in a theatrical production before, and I wish nothing but the best for everyone else who's worked literally day and night on this production.  The dress rehearsal was fraught with technical difficulties, but I stand by the superstition that if a dress rehearsal goes badly the actual run of the show will go well.

Just dance

Confession: I watched The Bachelorette  on Sunday.  I don't typically watch it but my curiosity (and boredom, mayhaps) got the best of me as I found myself flipping through the channels that night.  Don't judge me solely on that piece of information!

The bachelorette, a dentist with a passion for dance, brought 12 of her suitors to Las Vegas, divided them into two dance crews and gave them 30 minutes to come up with a dance (to impress her).  I felt bad for these men, who came to Sin City only to have to earn a mini-date with the bachelorette, not through luck or strategy but through their body movement and gestures.  It's one thing to move about in a sporatically lit club while mashed against other writhing bodies, and it's a completely different matter when dancing in sync with five other people on a stage.  I didn't actually watch their dances due to secondhand embarassment; I regularly make a fool of myself and I don't tend to savor watching others put themselves in potentially embarassing situations.

Dance seems to be a bigger deal with women, yeah? If a man isn't a good dancer it's not a big deal, not as expected; the man is apt to be able to laugh it off good-naturedly and proclaim that it in no way implies incompetence in any other field of experience.  Females tend to feel more self-conscious in the first place, worrying about things like do I smell okay?  Is my hair getting undone?  Are my breasts in place?  Does my muffin top show? I'm rather impulsive (or intuitive) and tend to Just Dance! and find out afterward that I was dangerously close to some sort of hair/wardrobe malfunction.  I haven't done ballet in almost ten years but I'm still somewhat flexible and aware of the limits of my body and how to move.  I've never been graceful but I've managed.