Thursday, 26 July 2007

• I Want To Put On My Boogie Shoes

  (Yes I secretly love KC & The Sunshine Band - I can't help it! It's catchy!)
  When I was younger, like almost every other little girl, I had the completely deluded life goal of being a ballerina when I grew up.
  Although it didn’t seem a likely career path considering my other pursuits (climbing trees with my friend Jimmy and building tree house forts) around my sixth birthday, my mind was made up. I would be small and delicate-looking, I would wear tutus and I would be so elegant and graceful that I would some day become the world’s most famous dancer.
  When I expressed this idea to my mother, she went down to the local community centre and signed me up for beginner’s ballet, fuelling my fire and leaving me to count down the days until my premiere as Clara in the National Ballet’s yearly production of The Nutcracker.
  I continued with this fantasy right up to the day I went to my first dance lesson. I felt completely out of place, an oversized brunette tomboy amidst a sea of miniature blonde girls in delicate petal pink leotards. A little unnerved at the uniformity of their appearance - had I missed some sort of wardrobe memo? - I took my place at the end of the line and waited to be instructed in the ways of dance.
  However, when the music started and the line of girls took off across the auditorium, I discovered that it wasn’t as easy as I had anticipated. My feet were too big for dainty little toe shoes, the twirling made me dizzy, and my big floppy arms created such a wind resistance that I was always a few beats behind the tiny platinum-haired whirling dervishes in my class. Instead of looking like Karen Kain dancing gracefully to Mozart, I looked more like a trained bear clomping along to circus music.
  Despite my best efforts, after my first major recital, I knew it was time to throw in the towel.
  I was not a good dancer.
  And for years, I have known and accepted this and things have been okay. Working in publishing, my ability to cut a rug rarely ever comes into play.
  Unfortunately, with the wedding coming up, more and more, I have been thinking about my rythmic abilities and frankly I am a little bit frightened for the public at large.
  When it comes to dancing, at my current skill level, I have two options. Go full-out gawky white girl and dance with legs kicking out and elbows akimbo or do the slow 8th grade shuffle, shifting my weight from one foot to another while rotating slowly in a circle.
  Neither of these options work for me since I really don't want to hurt people and I really want the dancing to be special, especially my dance with my grandfather.
  Since I was a little girl, my grandfather and I have talked about our dance at my wedding. In fact, when I got engaged, I called him up and said "Brush off your dancing shoes!" and he automatically knew what I meant, so while the bumbling around like I'm in junior high is fine for some things, I really want to do a good job with this.
  Anyway, recently, Mr. Hummingbird and I were talking about the whole dancing debacle and, in what I can only assume was a moment of weakness on his part (seriously the only song he dances to is The Time Warp and only then because the dancing instructions are IN the song), he agreed to take dance lessons with me.
  So, ladies, as some of you have gone through this yourselves, I've got questions:
  1) Do any of you suffer from being terminally uncoordinated when it comes to dancing?
  2) Did any of you take dance lessons leading up to your big day?
  3) What did you enjoy learning/what is good to learn in terms of dance?
  4) Did it help at all?
  The idea of heading back to the classroom after my terrifying ballerina experience has left me a little spooked so, honestly, any advice/encouragement you can give would be of great help.

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