Something the Prince Never Knew

My daughter dances.

Let me rephrase that. My daughter is in a dance class. She does whatever the instructor does. But, you have to start somewhere. She's only four years old; expectations must be kept reasonable.

Some time ago, the instructor sent home a sheet with her that announced there would be a Daddy-Daughter dance number in the recital. My child said would you, I said of course I would, and so she and I started going to extra practice nights for this dance.

Now, the choreographer printed off sheets of dance steps for the dads to learn their dance from, in addition to us walking through/dancing them during our rehearsals. I really enjoyed the rehearsals, and we would practice it at home with the sheet. Over, and over, and over again, like good dance students, until we could do it without the sheet.

Recital weekend came. In fact, it was just this past weekend. The regular students (like my daughter) were scheduled to perform in two different recitals. Hers happened to fall on Saturday afternoon and Sunday evening.

The first item on the Saturday program was the Daddy-Daughter dance. I knew my part (admittedly, it was only one verse and one chorus), and she did her part with minimal cues from me. Afterward, I took my seat, and she went back to the dressing rooms.

For the rest of the show, I watched each class perform two routines (tap/jazz and ballet), with the  "competition" teams each doing three. For the younger girls' numbers, the instructors stood in the wings and demonstrated the dances there, and the girls would look over if (when) they forget what came next. My daughter spent a good deal of time looking at the wings to figure out her next move during her dances (she is in the youngest class, most of her class did this).

In the interest of full disclosure, I don't know a whole lot about what makes a dance "good". I know it's athletic, I know it's rhythmic, and I know there are certain postures/poses to be held/struck. I don't know what posture/pose fits any given dance type, or what makes one dance better than another.

What I do know, is fun. I recognize fun, I pursue fun, I create fun...if anyone could be called an expert on fun, it'd be me.

I realized there were some girls dancing, who were not having fun. I am not sure why they were there, but it was obvious they were not there for fun. I also saw other girls who were having so much fun, it oozed from them. It was infectious! Once I noticed this, in each dance I saw, I sought the dancer(s) who danced with joy.

Like I said, I can't talk much about good dancing...but those girls having fun convinced me: their dancing was "good", and they were loving every second of it.

By the time the Sunday show came, and I got on stage for the Daddy-Daughter number, I had decided I was not going to think about the steps. I was going to have fun, and everyone that watched us would see that I could not imagine anything more fun than dancing with my little girl. So I smiled at her as the curtain opened, and we danced as if no one was watching.

And I hope to have the opportunity to do it again.

Until another time,
Salt