Just some random thoughts, really

We’re doing a step challenge during the month of March at my office. We’re on little teams. They’re so little, it’s really just partners. Two of us against a whole bunch of other twos. The challenge isn’t compulsory, but I thought I might as well do it because it’ll get me off my ever-expanding rear end and moving around for a change. I get the feeling I’m going to be hopping from one leg to the other while waiting for my coffee for the foreseeable future to get my step count up… I did ascertain last Sunday morning that walking around my ‘block’ is 1.46 miles, so that’s not nothing.

It’s not much, but it’s not nothing.

Also, since dance steps are technically steps (I mean, it’s in the name), I intend to strap my phone to my arm and jeté and shuffle off to Buffalo and watch the numbers rise.

Oh, hello. That’s a segue.

In other active news, my Wednesday ballet class is sadly no more. I was the only person who showed up religiously, and it was rare that more than one or two others showed up at all, so I certainly understand why it doesn’t make sense to keep the class going, business-wise. Also, our instructor got poached by the advanced teen class on Thursday (in the nicest way possible, really), and I don’t blame her one bit for jumping ship to go and teach them instead. And before you suggest it, no, she can’t do both--not with a ‘for real’ job and two kiddiewinks of her own, no. I actually have a personal invitation from the director of the studio to join the Thursday class, but I’m on the fence about it. It’s the 15-18 set, and it’s not as though I think they’ll be horrible little bleeders--far from it. I’ve met or at least observed all of them in one way or another and I know they’re a very sweet group. I just remember how shitty it was to be that age and dancing, and how any time a grownup showed up at one of our classes we were all appropriately polite but secretly wished they would just go away. Mind you, the adults who showed up to our classes weren’t usually particularly skilled dancers, and I don’t fall into that category--I could keep up with the teenage contingent just fine, and in a couple of instances I know my technique is actually superior--but it’s their class, you know? I’d be intruding on their territory. I don’t want to be that person.

I’ve researched alternatives, so I know what else is available to me to take in lieu of my original class, so that’s something, at least. There’s another dance school one town over where I’ve taken classes before, so I checked their schedule and did a few test classes this week--a tap class and two ballet classes. They’re likely my best bet for ballet. I don’t have to take their tap class because the Thursday tap class I have been taking is still very much on the schedule, but it’s always good for your technique to be exposed to different styles, so an additional tap class would definitely be good for me in that way, and also for my waistline.

We won’t talk about the effect on my wallet from a possible two additional dance classes per week. Shh, let me lie to myself.

There’s another thing about the dance studio I’m likely going to shift some of my classes to that I’ve always silently appreciated. They have moved since I last took classes with them and are in a brand new building in a space above a Men’s Warehouse (“I guarantee it!”). Their old location was also above a storefront. This kind of setup would be par for the course in larger cities like San Francisco or New York, but I live in Quintessential Suburbia. We go out, not up. So it’s an unusual place to go for dancing lessons to begin with, but the real point here is that the studio is upstairs.

A ballet school. Upstairs.

The musical theatre buffs have caught on by now, I know, but for the rest of you, I shall elucidate. There is a very famous musical called A Chorus Line that ran on Broadway from 1975 to 1990--at that time, it was the longest running show in Broadway history. There is a song in the show called At The Ballet which is sung by three of the female cast members as they tell their stories of how they got into dance, and all of them started with ballet. One of the lyrics from the song is:

Up a steep and very narrow stairway
To a voice like a metronome
Up a steep and very narrow stairway
It wasn’t paradise
     It wasn’t paradise
          It wasn’t paradise
But it was home

I always had a hard time deciding which of the three characters who sing this song I most identify with, because there’s a little of me in all of them, but since it’s unlikely that I’ll ever be in a production of this show, I’ll simply be content to hum this song to myself every time I ascend that steep and very narrow stairway.

Original Broadway Cast recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USZipy6VzgA Just for fun. :)