With Mom’s passing, everyone in the family has been reviewing her life, and also our own lives. Why? Because we’re looking through decades of pictures to find the best ones for her Celebration of Life slide show. Among her many pursuits, Mom was a life-long dancer, both tap and social dancing. She loved tap, and had fond memories of dancing with her brother and her friends when she was a school girl, so naturally she wanted Ann and I to enjoy that experience, too:
My Life in Dance: An inauspicious start, 1965.
That mouse sure looks like she’s having fun.
Thanks for the snark, Lily. You know as well as I do that mouse was far from a ballet enthusiast. Ann was (as they say in show business) putting in the nickel, though. Check out her arms!
Why did Mom put us in ballet if she loved tap?
Good question, 9, and I just ran a query on that. The local studio that taught both ballet and tap opened a few months after the recital. Ann had been taking ballet for three years at that point, so Mom kept us at the same studio. I was in class another two years. The second year recital featured our class as white bunnies who were chased offstage by rake-wielding dancing farmer girls in cute red and white gingham dresses. The year after that, we were something that I didn’t quite understand- -trees, maybe?- -with droopy earth-toned net skirts over our leotards.
We were terrible in that one! The other kids in our group were scowling at us on stage!
We didn’t know the dance because we resisted practicing at home. I am much more professional in my approach theater.
Suffice it to say, ballet was not our passion. But we loved dancing to the American Top Forty, and, Lily, you know how much we love school dances!
My Life in Dance: 10 years later, at the PTHS Junior Prom with Tim Rondeau. Thanks for a very fun evening, Tim! RIP, my friend.
Who’s that boy in the picture?
You know him, 9. That’s our classmate, Tim Rondeau.
He’s very nice, of course, but I don’t think of him in the way that I think of- -I mean, I only think of Tim as a friend.
Relax, Lily. The two of you are friends in this picture, too. You’re at the dance with Tim because he’d already bought a ticket to the Junior Prom but his girlfriend- -Diana, I think her name was?- -came down with the flu. So he called the day of the dance and asked you to go, because you like to dance and he does, too. It was really fun!
Fast forward to 1994, when I started tap at that other studio that was still around thirty-nine years later, and beyond! Mom started tap lessons at the O’Meara Dance Studio ten years before that, and was a very respectable member of the advanced adult class. Did I practice for the recitals? You bet I did, at home and at work and in the grocery store aisles. And Mom was my mentor as well as my mother. She gave me loads of coaching, drilling me on complicated combinations as we danced side-by-side in her kitchen. Episodes from our six years of dancing together have appeared in recent blogs, so here I’ll summarize with a group photo:
My Life in Dance: Mom in the center. Our costumes for a huge production number to “42nd Street” that included ALL the tap students, both kids and adults, at the O’Meara Dance Studio. Late 1990s.
During this era, I was a guest performer in another studio’s recital, but not as a dancer: as an actor. Studio owner and dance teacher Mary Lou Sanelli liked to feature dance-related pieces by local actors as a part of the show. She gave me free rein to create a comedic monologue in my fictional personae of Dr. Elizabeth Barry Trimble, PhD, who presents her lecture, “The History of Dance” (1). She breaks dance down into two categories, Social Dance and Theatrical Dance, which she quickly re-labels as Anti-Social Dance. Here’s an excerpt:
“Ballet is clearly a dance of attitude—bad attitude. For a start, French is the international language of ballet. If that isn’t enough to make a modern-day ballet dancer snooty, he or she will further be indoctrinated into this rude art by the basis of ballet technique—turn-out. Who could possibly feel gregarious with each leg rotated outward from the hip joint till the feet form a 180 degree angle on the floor?
Further, ballet is a sexist art. The more demanding steps of elevation are considered the special province of male dancers. On the female side of the ledger is pointe work. Pointe work obviously enforces attitude, as we all know it is rude to pointe.”
Do I detect a hint of emotional baggage here?
No, just doing my best to be funny. For research I read about half-a-dozen books on the history of dance. This gave me the information I needed to warp the subject in a pejorative and somewhat inaccurate way. Which brings us to the present.
You mean you’re still making goofy speeches about dance history?
Not that, specifically, but I’ve had a wonderful time this year as an adult actor with the students of Washington Ballet Academy (The Sleeping Beauty and Alice in Wonderland). This opportunity came to me through, of all things, an adult tap class and our guest appearance in the Dance Studio of Walla Walla’s production Snow White. Thanks to Caleb Leitch (who taught and choreographed at the Dance Studio of Walla Walla back then), founder, director and choreographer at Washington Ballet Academy (https://www.washingtonballetacademy.org/ ), for tapping me (pun intended) for these exciting performance experiences!
My Life in Dance: With fellow tapper Kendra Golden, ready for our special appearance as pastry chefs in Dance Studio of Walla Walla’s “Snow White”! June, 2022.
A major joy of my life in dance is observing the hard-working, determined and talented student dancers grow in their art. Though very much in the periphery of their evolution, I am genuinely proud of these kids!
Sounds like they practice at home. A lot!
And possibly in the grocery store aisles of Walla Walla, too. . .
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- The History of Dance, by Elizabeth Barry Trimble (Susan Abraham © 1999)
