Nanok wrote:
>Who or what started your interest in ballet ( or dance in general )? A teacher, a movie, parents???
1) My mother took me to a pre-ballet class when I was 7. I remember thinking I was going to learn what Fred Astaire did. I was the only little boy there. This accounts for the 35 year hiatus before my second class.
2) While in college I walked into the lounge and a bunch of conservatory types were watching the Bolshoi do Sleeping Beauty on tv. You know how, as a kid, you put your face right up against the screen to try to see what it would be like to climb inside?
3) When I reached the age of 43 my daughter suggested I stop spending all my time looking after her and "get a life". A friend asked what I did for myself, for fun. There really hadn't been anything for years. I saw an ad in the paper and called.
4) After a year of ballet, I bought a sailboat. We christened her "Degage". I was waiting for my sailing instructor to get time to help me take her out for the first time, but got restless and launched her myself and singlehanded all day. That night I dreamt I had Dacron wings under my arms that would fill with wind and lift me each time I did a pirouette just right.
Life is too damn brief, guys. Since then I have spent my time dancing, sailing, watching dance and sailing, and plotting how to get to my next class, performance or voyage.
5) Christmas of '96 I danced in the finale of Nutcracker with 70 other dancers and a full orchestra onstage. The cardboard sign went up in cyberspace; "Will Polonaise for food".
Here are some responses I sent to adult males (mostly 20 to 30 year-old) who wrote on Internet that they wanted to go to ballet, but thought they might be too old.
I'm 46 and am in my third year of ballet in Appleton, Wisconsin. I live with my teenage daughter, and asked her if she needed a ride anywhere one Friday night. She responded "no, dad; I don't mean this mean or anything, but why don't you get a life? I can get where I have to go, why don't you go on a date or something." She was right; I was spending all my time on my job and on fathering her.
Being a single guy who doesn't hang out in bars, ballet class seemed mighty attractive. I saw an ad in the paper, called the teacher and asked if she had a beginner's class for adults and she said, yes, how old are you? Forty-three. Pause. "Well, come on down and we'll see what we can do."
I decided I'd stay with it as long as I met two conditions;
1) I kept up with the class, and
2) I didn't look like a complete twit.
Since then I've seen professionals who couldn't pass #2, so I'm pretty pleased with myself. Every once in a while the teacher asks you to show the class how to do something, or someone asks you a question (being an experienced father figure helps) or you catch yourself in the mirror doing something that looks pretty cool. It's well worth it.
I fell once too, hard! Blam. But who never falls down? Certainly not skiers, baseball players, runners; this is just as demanding as that. I laughed about it, as a matter of fact; satyr to splatter in .2 sec.
At first it seems like a race against time. It is a constant duel with injury. After overcoming the initial embarrassment of being worse at something than some 11-year-old, the challenge becomes learning as much as you can without getting that one injury that is going to end it. But then I learned to pay attention to my body and my teachers, I reached a state of balance and the pain went away.
My weak point is my knees; I seem to blow out my left knee doing the simplest jumps at the barre. At sixteen, pain is the knees is an annoyance, at 45 you feel like an 80-year- old with his first hip fracture.
It's your body telling you you're doing something wrong. "Plie', plie', plie' plie" it whispers during class'. ""WHY DIDN'T YOU PLIE????" it screams the next morning. On takeoff and landing. Every time.
Warm up (gently) BEFORE you stretch, so you're stretching muscles and not tendons. I jog slowly around the block for about ten minutes. I've read that letting your knees go farther to the side than your feet in a grand plie is begging for chondromalacia (bad), but am amazed at how many dancers do this.
The only other male "late bloomer" I've met is a marathoner in Madison. He already has the problems with motivation, discipline, body image and persistence licked. That's a huge part of it. Endurance is not that much of a factor, unless you have ten classes a week available to you. Tai Chi kept my balance and flexibility good, not to mention my indifference to physical intimidation; that's the experience I came from.
Then there's the innuendo at the office; this is a guy thing, of course. How many people look down their noses at me for dancing five hours a week with remarks like "SOME of us have to work, ya know.. wish I had time for flitting around like that..." AND THEN THEY'LL TURN TO THE PERSON NEXT TO THEM AND TALK ABOUT THE SIX HOURS OF TV THEY WATCHED THE NIGHT BEFORE! Would someone tell me what is accomplished during the billions of hours we watch TV in this country every year? Or the hundreds of dollars they're spending at the gym or playing golf or racquetball or buying exercise equipment or getting liposuction or God knows what. I don't think I've lost a single true friend over ballet, but it thins out the ranks of the jerks.
Don't let the teacher's corrections get you down. Teachers triage students pretty fast, especially younger teachers who are "retired" dancers, wondering what on earth you're trying to prove. If you act indifferent or get huffy when you're corrected, they'll watch someone else. Let them know that you appreciate correction, and you'll get a lot more help. This is a very interactive pursuit; if you get into a zone in class the way you would in a marathon you might miss something. Or you might be better able to tune out distractions, I don't know. It's different, anyway. A lot of people ask if they can't buy a video and start at home. No. Next question.
On the days I can't get airborne I concentrate on the things I *can* do; adagio, proper head placement and eye focus. It's amazing how good a less spectacular dancer can look in a room full of teenagers who are thinking about their boyfriends and their homework.
Watch good dancers. Stand behind one in class whenever you can. Watch advanced classes when you can. Go to performances. Rent performance videos. Read Alt.Arts.Ballet. Write on AAB (it's just like class; when someone trashes your post there, they're probably doing you some good.)
In another post, someone asked:
>Do you guys qualify as hobbyists, or are you former professionals whose expertise and grace would qualify you as dancers no matter how old you are?
The nice thing about starting this late is that it doesn't matter. You're doing it for yourself, not your mom or your choreographer or whatever. You're doing it for the very profound and real reasons that people have danced since the dawn of time. It's your body, as it is today, on the earth as it is today, exploring movements that are centuries old, with other people.
Going for expertise and pyrotechnics aren't as important as the dignity, compassion, perception you have from ANY life experience. I have listened to ballet music for thirty years, raised two daughters, know some French, can play flute pretty well, have attended two births and several people as they died; *I* know I'm bringing as much to class as my 13-year old peers, even if I lack their flexibility, elevation, or (sometimes, rarely really, and only in packs) arrogance.
At the same time, I have learned that some of my worldly wisdom does not apply to my younger classmates. For all its dignity and grace, ballet is not a rational pursuit, nor is 16 a rational age. Save your "don't do that; you'll hurt yourself" advice for someone who will listen. They might end up doing what you tell them not to at Lincoln Center in a couple years.
Now, there are people who would say what I'm doing is not ballet; ballet is what twenty or thirty extremely gifted individuals, all conceived behind Diaghilev's steamer trunk, do. I won't argue, as long as I don't have to give this divine madness up.
I was attending a class mostly of little girls one afternoon and they weren't dancing very enthusiastically. Mme. M. asked one of them "Why do you come to class?" and got the answer she expected "because I love to dance". She asked a couple others, same response. Then she asked me, since she could tell I was having trouble. Honesty comes easiest at those times; "Mid-life crisis?" I replied.
You may be concerned about what people think of you starting when you have little or no chance of making it your career. Dance is the perfect avocation, as far as I'm concerned; the stimulation is intellectual, physical, emotional, musical, and spiritual. It is the ideal antidote to what you are doing at this very moment: staring at a glowing screen and twiddling your fingers. And in fact, as a male you stand a good chance of getting on stage some day just by showing up around Nutcracker casting time. Performance is a fabulous, euphoric experience you will never forget.
Some adult beginners take advanced classes and just "sink or swim", but that's rude to the other dancers and dangerous to you. Learn the basics. I was lucky to have a teacher who made me feel like I was a part of Dance from day one, and if I didn't like it I might as well move on. I loved it. Yes, you have to be patient and persistent, and you will have to be considerate of the other dancers, but these qualities are older dancers' strong suit. You have to give yourself time to rebuild your entire body. When I felt I was holding things up, I'd practice more outside of class. And if you don't end up doing ballet, as a jazz teacher once told me, "it will give you plenty to rebel against when you start something else".
Every once in a while you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror, doing something you like and you think, "yeah, that's it". As for the things you don't think you'll ever be able to do, the word 'impossible' isn't in the lexicon of your adolescent peers, why should it be for you? A certain suspension of disbelief resides at the core of ballet. It can bring back some of that sense of invulnerability you had as a teenager.
By all means go for it; you won't be any younger if you wait till next year. The right teacher (and class) will be very supportive, and we'll talk you through anything you need to know. "Tower to Ballerrrrrino, we have you on rrrrradar now. You are cleared for four saut de basques and...one and two and...No! you're coming in too low! Your unitard is on backward! Pull your head up! Aieee!......right into that crowd of ballet moms. Beastly, that, impaled on 17 knitting needles. St. Sebastiani di Capezio. Poor kid, he never had a chance. You were right, captain, he shouldn't have left disco."
Ice then heat. Welcome to Dance.
Merde
In article <19970720235200.TAA28794@ladder02.news.aol.com>, axlpaulsen@aol.com (AxlPaulsen) writes:
>Would anyone know of companies that feature adult dancers?
The Sunday New York Times had an article yesterday about a woman who went back to dance after an injury paralyzed her legs. Her troupe is called Infinity (?..I put the paper out already and short-term memory is dicey at best in my condition) and is made up of dancers who are in wheelchairs or over 40. [!].
OK so I'm like in a mongo class last week, OK? and the teacher, she's like sooo totally fresh? In whose presence I'm desperately trying to act, like casual? Gives this gnarly stretching routine at the barre and she's like;
"Oh, and Keith, you can just stretch on the floor if you want; I don't want to kill you with this".
And I'm like, not sure whether it’s that I’m, you know, the only dude in the class, or the only one who's like reeeallly old, or that the four or five babes who're total wannabes already dropped out, but it puts these little cracks in this like, delusional state that gets me through four advanced classes a week?
Ok, Ok, so I do the barre stretches, you know? Arabesques and all. Omigod. I'm like: "I'm. Gonna. Lay. On. Tha. FLOOR?" Just kick a little dirt on me while I'm down there and read the, you know, waddayacallit, 32nd Street Psalm? Hellloooo?
You have to tell yourself it's all relative, I guess. Anyone who's not doing 6:00 penchee's is apt to look pathetic to a 22-yr-old soloist. I would love to see what Infinity does in its choreography that might help the other 99.9% of the human race feel that we're part of the show. Frankly, in 1997 American ballet has a lot more openings for us lamers who couldn't run a whelk stall than it does for more etoiles; the art needs involved audiences and potential audiences are looking for involvement.
I told her to have a nice weekend as I was leaving and she told me to go home and rest up. grrrrrr. Suzie, quick, is there an outpatient procedure you can get in Hong Kong or something to boost your arabesque? Graft a moose bicep to the back of your thigh?
Vive la danse toute de meme!
Keith "The 1,000 Year Old Dancer" Knox
JA Moran <jamoran@analon.com> writes:
>Anyone have any good hints for exercising while traveling or on the road?
Yes, I have an EXCELLENT hint. And you don't even have to send for my videocassette. You invariably will have the items you need for this exercise right in your hotel room; a yellow pages and a phone. Lift the yellow pages, then lift the receiver. Call the nearest ballet school and find out when you can drop in for a class. In fact I call ahead for their schedule before I even arrive, just like car rental, room reservation, theater tickets, etc.
There is a ballet school anywhere you go. If you're in a country where you don't speak the language, you'll get along just fine in the ballet class. University towns, big cities, and resort areas almost **always** have ballet schools, and that covers 95% of travel destinations. If you're going somewhere other than that chances are you'll be riding burros or climbing mountains for your exercise.
You don't know where it's safe to go in a strange town; I wouldn't hang out in a stairwell at a hotel on a bet, and I'm a pretty good martial artist. Come to think of it I’m not too excited about the folks in "health spas" at most hotels I’ve been to. To me weight rooms are weight rooms whether the sign out front says Hilton or Attica. But ballet schools are never dangerous.
Most of class will be familiar, and that's good because the last thing you need when you're traveling is more surprises. And some of it will be unfamiliar, and that's good because it will teach you something new about dancing. Trust me, if you love ballet, then sitting in an expensive Nautilus machine will be just as much a waste of your life where you are as it would be where you're from. Eeeeuuuch, scummy motel pools full of screaming kids? Thankyew no. Marco Polo this, runt.
People are usually glad to see a new face. They will know you're not from there (duh) and will go out of their way to make you feel comfortable. Chances are they'll tell you where the locals eat. You will learn from a different teacher, one who isn't tired of telling you what you still don't do right, but one who will compliment you on what you do well.
You will instantly find out everything that's going on in the area in regard to dance, and you will make better friends than you would at the bar at the Holiday Inn. If you're with a business group, or your family, it will give you time away from them. Two hours away from the hotel and you will be back refreshed and ready to take on another ten hours of the lamers at the International Brotherhood of Phlebotomists annual convention. If you're touring with The Stars of Some Friends of the Guy Who Does Laundry for the Bolshoi Ballet, it will give you an opportunity to promote your show to a key audience. The five or ten bucks for the class might even find its way onto your expense account!
Almost inevitably you will meet someone who danced with or studied from someone you know. You will certainly have idols and favorite ballets to discuss. You may make friends you can visit in the future, or who can call you when they're in your town. This is an oral tradition, folks. Those friendships are vitally important to the flow of ideas and the strength of this art form. And to the development of your dancing.
If you don't find a ballet class, take a jazz class or some other kind of dance. I could not **imagine** traveling in a foreign country now without studying how they dance there. If all else failed I suppose l'd head to Arthur Murray, but I have never had to resort to that.
You know what else? When you get home the memory of having gone somewhere real will endure long after the blur of airports, lobbies, waiting rooms, theme parks, and malls is forgotten, because it will be part of your movement vocabulary.
Send me a postcard!
>, sales@rls.net (RLS Graphics) writes:
>Does anyone have any advice for a 37 year old father that has been talked into (personally, I think he really wanted to) doing a father's group dance at the his daughters' dance studio recital?
It depends less on your age than your daughter's. Under 12 you could probably do no wrong, over 12 you're an embarrassing knob, but at least you're trying, which is more than the embarrassing knob dads who don't participate are doing.
The one thing you *must not do* is go into it expecting to win everyone over. Make it clear that you are doing it for your own enjoyment. A roomful of adolescents can spot a stray adult's need for approval like a pack of lawyers can scent a class action suit. Dance is fun. The studio is your daughter's other family, so your role there is different from at home, but if you're not part of it it's you who are missing out, not she.
The whole thing sounds like a great idea. One of the girls' dads at my studio is a truly brilliant musician at the University; he rarely misses watching his daughters' classes. Some of the other fathers never get out of their cars. Which girl is clear eyed, balanced and purposeful and which can't seem to grasp the simplest move? Take a guess.
© copyright 1998 Keith R. Knox, all rights reserved.