The soundtrack to my dance career

In the mid 1980s I was taking an adult ballet class at a local community center, and a group of us regularly went out to dinner after class. When the 1985 movie "A Chorus Line" was released, there was much discussion of the pros and cons of the movie versus the movie and the Broadway production from which it was adapted. I remember our instructor, Eva, was highly disappointed in the movie, but I've forgotten exactly why. Having not seen either version I didn't have much to contribute to the discussion. I soon acquired the soundtrack on CD, and later the movie on DVD, but still haven't seen a live production.

At various times during classes or rehearsals I've found myself hearing tracks or seeing snippets from this movie in my head. One recurrent scene where a male dancer is looking down at the stage as he dances. Zach yells, "Boy in the headband, keep your head up... Headband, head up!" The dancer responds by snapping his head up, but two seconds later he's looking down again. Yeah, I'm guilty of this too frequently, though I'm trying to break myself of the habit.  As one of my instructors likes to say, "The floor and your feet are still down there even if you're not looking at them."

This past Saturday I went to The Washington School of Ballet's open house. In years past I've been known to give gag gifts to my instructors, like the huge Bubba Mug I gave to an instructor who frequently complained she hadn't had enough coffee before class. Since I'd previously been introduced to the director of TWSB's adult program I thought it would be a grand idea to give her a Hogwarts sorting hat. Thinking she might place it in the studio where the demo classes were being held I arrived right at the start of the event. As you might expect, though, things were chaotic and the hat never made a public appearance. I received both a very nice email and a personal phone call the next day thanking me for the gift, which was really nice.

The primary purpose of attending the open house was to see if I might be able to squeeze into the Intermediate group in their Adult Program Concert. I'd signed up for the demo class for Advanced Beginner and Intermediate level dancers, which left me with 90 minutes to kill. One of the studios had been set up as a social space with refreshments and a video projector showing the previous year's concert, while several of the adult volunteers wandered around chatting with attendees.

Another of my goals in attending the open house was to find out whether the rehearsals were sharply focused on preparing for the performance, as with the pro company I worked with last year, or was it combined with a significant instructional component. The volunteer I spoke with was part of the Advanced Beginner group, and he assured me the rehearsals included was a good bit of instruction. As much fun as it was working with the pro company this is one of the things I'd found myself wishing for, though curtain call before a couple hundred paying audience members is heady stuff.

While chatting I got to watch each group's performance. I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting. The Advanced Beginner choreography seemed simplistic to me, while the Intermediate group's was more complex but nothing really challenging. This reinforced my desire to be in the Intermediate group if I dance with TWSB, and raised the question of whether I'd rather try for another supporting cast role with the pro company.

As the time for my demo class approached I changed into my dance gear and spent 15 minutes or so stretching. This was scheduled as a 30 minute class, and I didn't want to go in cold. When the scheduled time came we found the previous class (Beginner I/II) was running late. Finally we got in. As the instructors assigned us places at the barres in alphabetic order, the melody of "I Hope I Get It" began to play in my head.

The class itself is something of a blur. We managed to compress both barre (one side only!) and centre into maybe 25 minutes of frenetic activity. I thought I did fairly well, though my issues with petit allegro arose because of the pace of the music. Maybe they go this fast in their Intermediate II classes, but this was far beyond what I saw in the Advanced Beginner class two weeks ago.  Tamás's evaluation afterward was a serious disappointment, though he did suggest I take an Advanced Beginner class with him so he could get another look.

Now I'm in a quandary. Can I slay my petit allegro nemesis before the Adult Program Concert auditions next month? Or should I audition for supporting cast with the pro company the weekend after? Both? Neither? All I can say is I'm glad it's only my ego on the line and not my livelihood.