Ballet Homecomings and Second Chances

Tainan 2012 at my daughter's first and only recital

A breakthrough, answered prayer hit me this evening. After my ballet class (I recently started again after 25 years) Z says to me she really wants to take ballet!

 I forced her for a few years during preschool and kindy (Read Biker Ballerina) I started when I was 3 and it was the best thing my parents ever did for me. Of course I wanted her to feel that magic. 

Her paternal grandmother danced with the most  prestigious Academy in Paris. It's in her blood. Even on a physiological level, she's built for it more so than I am with her long legs, creating these long lines. (At puberty I stopped growing tall at 14 and just grew wider). 

 This  studio around the corner from my home requires the girls to take 2 hour classes twice a week. And its not cheap. It will make a serious dent in monthly finances. She already takes flute 2x a week  (her choice).

 But I'm not worried, my Dad was the best example of Providence and juggling bills in action.  With 5 kids, 1 whom is disabled and constantly under the knife; somehow my Dad paid for 13 years of dance classes (ballet, tap and jazz) 4 nights a week. I was a better tap dancer than ballerina but I could still do endless pirouettes and I loved to jump. What joy!

My first tap recital

When I turned 16 my folks said I had to choose between a car (and thus a part time job) or dancing. Obviously I chose the car (and worked at Subway). Its a decision my mother now regrets (they never asked my brother to give up basketball). So at this age I was pretty much was smoking weed and partying with my friends. Looking back I was probably filling the massive void of not dancing with ganja and hiking. I made "growing up" synonymous with quitting ballet, and I didn't exactly "grow up" particularly trouble free . I wasn't going to be professional after all.

Ever since, ballet was like this sensitive, painful area I ignored for years. I dreamed about it all the time, dreamed about pointe shoes. Of course I never quite dancing entirely, When I was 18  I started to take Nigerian dance with this little old man from Nigeria (who happened to be my father's coworker) and this amazing drum circle, as well as Flamenco and Mexican folk.  When I moved to Tainan my gyms had some amazing teachers for Latin and Striptease (there's nothing worse than a terrible yoga or dance teacher). But they moved on and I never did.

I pretty much gave up hope that my daughter would want to take classes again. I cant say I inspired her in anyway either. But last night an older jiejie (sister) was practicing in the lobby where Z does her homework, and she got bit by the bug. Its never too late. There's some University students in my class that are complete beginners and they keep coming back for the same reasons I do.

Tutu time, 5th grade

The teacher speaks in Mandarin with occasional English, but it isn't necessary, all the ballet terminology (in French) is the same. Dance teachers are all the same, they demonstrate visually and we visualize what our bodies must do until muscle memory takes over. 

As for me, I still remember all the steps, but the little muscles that TRX or yoga can't get to are having to work after many years of neglect and I'm dripping in sweat, sore the next day. If only it was twice or three times a week, and some tap classes, my body would change dramatically. That alright, my spirit is being fed. Now that I'm dancing again, I am connecting with the most jubilant part of my childhood. For that 90 minutes I'm in this intimate sanctuary, like people must feel at church. I can't believe it took me so long to restore what was once so meaningful.

Closing, "Yee-haw" to our country inspired tap dance

Now that my daughter is impassioned to start (which is nothing short of divine intervention, a miracle) she will try her first class Monday night. I just hope she gives it a chance. I am going to stand back and not live vicariously through her. I am already back in ballet slippers myself, I got my own thing going on.  I just hope after Z playing her recorder for 4 years and graduating to the flute she has the maturity to realize anything worth doing well, takes intention, time and loyalty.

I'm like a rubberband

I am not a Sia fan, but when I watched these dancers on SNL I was moved. The choreography is a bit of a parody, but I thought there were moments when it was breathtaking, the execution was spot on.

It reminded me of myself and Z, being a single mom, with my daughter. The sometimes intensity of just us, no other family in this alien world where we are the aliens and this kantikoy of dependence and independence, the changing stages of her growth as a child and me too, constantly adjusting.

As for the lyrics, it reminds me that to love and parent, you really have to be fighting for peace against a world that is violent and totally at war with innocence. "Fighting for peace" is a bit of a contradiction lived out at times, the drama of choosing your battles. When the voices tell you its worth the fight and discomfort, loss of friendship or when God says, " Put down your sword...Don't be afraid I have already conquered the world."  The real war is just to maintain my peace and rest in that place of Grace that tells me the battle was finished before I was born. I return to that equilibrium, Light.

To chose to be a parent (because for me it was a choice), it came from a place of optimism. Despite the world being so vicious, there is Hope (hence one of her names). 

"You did not break me
I'm still fighting for peace"

The world hasn't broken me yet, Z has yet to see me fall apart as this dancer does dramatically, but my daughter and I do have this at times a mythological interplay of dancing archetypes.

"I've got thick skin and an elastic heart
But your blade it might be too sharp
I'm like a rubberband until you pull too hard
I may snap and I move fast
But you won't see me fall apart
'Cos I've got an elastic heart"...

Biker Ballerina

My daughter had her first dance recital the other weekend. Sadly she doesn't actually enjoy ballet class and often complains about quitting. Of course I wont let her, I tell her she can quit when she is 18. I'm not trying to live vicariously through her, I did more than enough dancing when I was a kid (I took ballet and tap and jazz for 13 years, M-F) and I can see how it teaches discipline, coordination, grace and flexibility. I'm waiting until her class becomes more interesting, its hardly ballet at this stage, more like body movement. I'm hoping as its gets more into technique, it will become more interesting to her. Anyway, at least both of agree that dressing up and putting on stage make-up before a show is fun.

Last year she did not want to perform, so this year I was happy for her. It was kind of an ordeal. One Saturday afternoon devoted to photos, another devoted to rehearsals and finally the final performance.

So much is lost in translation to me between my broken Mandarin, my daughter's teachers and other mothers. I thought I understood she didn't need her costume for the rehearsal (she did) and so every mom asked me where her costume was and I had to explain 17 times, its at home and I'm too tired to go and get it. (Then their look of shock and awe, but your kid is visibly upset she is the only one without her costume--its just a rehearsal.)



For her rehearsal I was able to film her whole dance in its entirety, unlike the actual performance where they made me stop recording. I still opted not to buy the overcharged DVD and we left after her performance to join a neighborhood Moon Festival BBQ. 

There was some drama the other night when I picked her up from ballet class. I had my scooter motor running and I just got off it to say hello to a mom and then before we knew it, Z was on the scooter, it fell over to the left side and she was freaking out, screaming and revving the ignition. I tried to ungrip her hand from the ignition, but she was white knuckling it and I had to literally lift her and the scooter up off the ground before she let go, and I turned off the key. All of use moms were a bit freaked out. She tried to drive it and if she would of balanced it, it would of gone through 2 moms, 3 ballerinas and the glass door of the dance studio.  I just thought after 4 years of practice and reminding, she already had it down not to ever touch the ignition.

 Needless to say she will never do that again. As for doing another recital, I am looking forward to the sequel.