Center Stage

When I was 2 or 3 years old, my mom enrolled me in dance classes, because my best friend’s mom, Gayle, was the dance teacher in our town. Tutu and all, I showed up at class only to find that thumb-sucking was not allowed. Game changer. Obviously I strutted out of that mad house like a DIVA, and gave up on dance before it really even started. Even as a toddler, I was sassy and didn’t put up with crap like that. Not much has changed.

I re-visited the idea of dance throughout my elementary years mostly because all my friends took dance from that same lady whose daughter was our friend Ali. Everyone talked on the playground about what a blast it was, and seeing that I don’t like being left out of the party, I once again enrolled myself (meaning, my mom enrolled me) in ballet, tap, and jazz classes at the Gayle Burrow School of Dance. I stuck around that time for a year or two, muscling through it, just to prove a point.

It was all very brutal and life ruining, especially the ballet. I still remember getting toe shoes, which are a death trap for your feet. A real modern day torture chamber for your toes. I decided they were not my thing very quickly, and instead focused all of my creative dance energy on jazz…which eventually led me to cheerleading, and dance was once again pushed out the door. Stunts, tumbling and competition always beat out sequins and 4-hour long recitals in my book. And sports, slide tackles, and elbow checks always beat out cheering, but thats neither here nor there.

So as it stands, my dance career was short but significant. Some of the highlights would include the tap routine where we had top hats, bowties and canes, and Beef’s cane got knocked off her shoulders by Nicole. She raged. The polka dotted FAME outfits, and our ridiculous ballet dance where we were supposed to be birds. Birds are not graceful, GAYLE. They are agile as can be and scary as hell. And finally, my favorite - the "boogie bumpers" routine. (I have it stashed somewhere on video.) You know, I tried hard to be a dancer, but in the end,athletics was much more my “thing.”

With this being said, it may come as a shock to you that at age 23, I have once again begun a career in dance. I figure, the 3rd time is a charm right? Let me be clear with you…by career, I mean that I am taking hip hop classes on Tuesday nights. So a ‘career in dance’ is a very loose way to describe me wearing sweat pants and driving downtown to a class that I paid for. Karla and I signed up for this program at the Colorado Ballet Academy and Tuesday was our first class with Jessica, the professional dancer who is teaching us how to pop, lock, and drop the right way. She won us over though, because before I knew it I was hugging her and telling her I would come to her Intro to Ballet class on Thursday after she laughed at me for an hour. She could have drugged me without my knowing it. It’s up for debate.

The story of my first adult dance class is as follows:

Our teacher, Jessica, is this very little black girl with a shaved head, she walked in wearing a LEOTARD. That was the first blatant clue that I was out of place and out of my comfort zone. She confirmed that our athletic clothes were okay, after our wide eyes clearly noted that we were subconscious. The Ballet Academy is located in downtown Denver, and so I felt like I was literally stepping out of my real life and into the world of “Center Stage” the movie. Kids were coming in and out of there like little bad asses with their buns and all…it was all kind of surreal.

We began dance stretches (to music) which included a lot of words that I can’t pronounce, but it was enough to get me giggling from the start. These bizarre stretches lasted for like, forever. Next was body rolls to the front back and side to side which I literally lost my mind laughing. I mean I honestly could not pull it together. Mostly from watching myself in the full length mirror. Jessica was even laughing because I was laughing so hard.

So after we finished dance stretches we did sit ups and push-ups, and then took no time to jump right into learning a CHOREOGRAPHED dance. On the first night! No ice breaker games, or free-dance, or evaluation of skills. Straight into the big leagues. She was counting to 8 over and over and over again, and teaching us in slow motion and then would say “Ya got it? Okay let’s do it with the music.” We never had it. Not once. Not to mention she taught us in slow motion and then we were required to perform like we were in fast forward when the music started. That was a joke because we thought it was going to be the same speed. She set us up for failure. For the first few times I just kicked my legs around and threw my arms up trying to mimic what I was actually supposed to be doing, and resorted to free style when I didnt know what I was actually supposed to be doing. It was brutal.

I am not exaggerating when I say we were halfway through the dance before I really figured out how to do the opening move. In my defense, the opening move was hard as hell. Your arms and legs were supposed to move in opposite directions, all moving at the same time. Like one leg sliding and the other leg like bending at the knee and moving in and out. And arms, I don’t even know what our arms were supposed to do, but it was supposed to end with one of them up and one of them down. That’s the opposite of EVERYTHING athletics has taught me for my entire life. I have never felt MORE uncoordinated in my life. And I like to think I am fairly coordinated. This is completely different.

So for the rest of class she just kept teaching us more, when we didn’t even really get what we had already learned. But I didn’t want to be the girl that pointed that out to a professional dancer. So I vowed to keep up. Jessica laughed at us a lot and then made us do it without her, which was a joke because until that point I had my eyes locked on her for the entirety of the dance. So we did it again and again and again and by the end we were kind of doing it right. At least to a point that she was satisfied. She probably had to lower her standards.

I was sweating to death.

So then she had us split up into groups of 3 so she could watch us for real. She picked one person out of every group to dance again at the end. She picked me. So that was the highlight of the class because you know how I love winning. Even though I still sucked. Whatever. A win is a win.

I am going to shoot you straight – We loved every minute, (me and my friend Kar). I mean it was way harder than we were thinking, but who cares we were on top of the world. Afterwards we went outside in the crisp winter air and ran down the street in downtown and laughed and jumped and screamed because I think dancing gives you endorphins. Also could have been a result of the alleged drugs. Whatever it was the best thing that’s happened to me since sweat pants.

So next time you see me, make sure you ask me to show you my moooooves.
Hip hop, ya don’t stop y'all.