The Art of Dance

When I tried out for the play, it mostly consisted of singing a bit of a song of my choice (I chose Forget about the Boy from Thoroughly Modern Millie). There was no recitation portion of the audition, nor was there a dance portion. I've done musicals before, I took a dance class or two (ballroom, aerobics, etc.) in college. I thought, Oh, yeah, I can do this. Now I'm thinking, Was I out of my mind?!?

This Monday (Martin Luther King Jr. Day) was the first dance rehearsal. I was run by K, a girl who used to help choreograph the dances for show choir when I was in high school. She is now a music teacher and a dancing queen. Really, she's amazing. I, however, am not such a dancing queen. Rehearsal for the first song (it's about five minutes long) took pretty much the whole morning of rehearsal 9 to 12. During this time I mostly managed to follow along, at times grabbing kids aside to have them show me moves over and over again. And I was actually getting a lot of it. Till someone mentioned I was getting a lot of it. And then the magical dance magic stopped. I made more mistakes then ever. And then, someone came up with the idea to do lifts. With me involved.

When DQ (dancing queen) first mentioned lifts she said that the only people to be involved would be smaller girls and guys who could put the girl's safety first. Although I am about 5'3", I am not considered by most to be a small girl. For this reason, I thought I was safe. I was wrong. I was the only girl faculty member there, so I was elected. First we tried the "easiest" lift. When the boy flips the girl in a back flip. Nope, bad idea. We tried it once and my face was pointed downward, my feet upward and all was not well. Then, we decided the flip-over-the-back move. Which worked. Barely, but it did. So, if you'd like to have the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of Miss A flipping over someone's back, come to the play, you may never get the chance to see it again.