Falling in Love (with Dance)

I am falling in love with dance. My performance group is having a joint show with a master chorale and dancing to traditional choral music is totally different and much harder for me than the modern, african and the calypso type of dance we do for our show. I am starting to enjoy the vastly different chorale music because it makes you dance different and feel the music differently. And of course I have a major lift that takes a couple of guys to pull it off comfortably. (Yes I have been dropped, but not by this group of guys :)

Ballet is quickly becoming my favorite. Learning ballet technique makes it so much easier to dance other dances. It teaches balance, technique and lines. I realized I was falling in love with ballet on Saturday. With the drastic weather changes, I had been at home sick for the past three days and had a bit of cabin fever by Saturday. So, I bundled up and went to dance practice to watch. We had a guest ballet instructor who is wonderful and I sat there disappointed and a little upset that I had missed a chance to practice with her. At that point I knew I was in love.

Traditionally, I am too old to become a dancer but it will not stop me from learning to dance. Dance to me is a creative outlet that came into my life at a perfect time. I wanted to take ballet as a child, but being the only child of a single mother means making sacrifices that other children never had to understand. But learning to dance now, later in life, makes me appreciate it so much more.

Dance War and Making the Band

Since the writer's strike I have watched a lot of reality television. By default I started to watch Dance War and was pleasantly surprised the first and second week. Bruno and Carrie Ann have done something their first try that P. Diddy can't seem to do in six.

The second week they divided the large group by gender and the first group of 4 guys looked and sounded better than most groups out right now. Especially considering they were actually singing and dancing (which is rare). Now why is Diddy having such a hard time making his male group? Maybe this last group will be much better than the others...but I wouldn't hold my breath.

The second group of guys and first group of ladies were okay, but the second group of 3 ladies did a pretty good job with the tough song Lady Marmalade. That was a gutsy move, but it was a good performance.

In case you missed it, here is a rather long clip of the first group of guys:

New Beginnings

While watching one of my all time favorite movies Purple Rain, I was listening to the opening sequence:

Dearly Beloved,
We are gathered here today to get this thing called life.
Electric word life it means forever and that's a mighty long time
But I'm here 2 tell you there's something else, the afterworld

Get through this thing called life, huh?

I have watched this movie hundreds of times, I love good live music and since Purple Rain is more of a long concert with bad acting it fits the bill, but I digress to say I love this movie and the opening sequence got me to thinking about life and change.

It's that time of year when everyone is focusing on the "new." Resolutions, promises, engagements, babies, moving into new places and trying new things. I don't believe in resolutions, they are easily broken and make you feel bad about yourself for not being able to stick to them.

What do I believe in? Change.

Gradual but steady change. Change is a word that exicites some people and terrifies others. Last year was a major year of change for me and I checked off many things on my important "to do" list. The most important was to amend fallen friendships and broken relationships.

Some time back I mentioned an important phone call that I was terrified of but felt I had to make. Working through my fear I finally made that phone call and although it did not go as well as I had hoped, it did not go badly either. So now I await the effects of that call. Impatiently I might add (I am still working on changing my patience level) but it feels good to have so much off of my chest.

This year will be better than the last, and next year will be better than this year. I have journeyed through the flames and have emerged a better person, a stronger person and it is time to start enjoying this short period of time we call life.