On Dance Recitals, Backbends, and Epiphanies

Tucking laces into ballet slippers, fluffing tulle, fastening bobby pins. It’s all part of that familiar spring ritual: the dance recital.

My six-year old performed in her first-ever recital last week. As she lined up in a hallway against a row of lockers with her fellow dancers before taking the stage, I thought she might be nervous, and I offered to stay with her. Some of the other mothers were staying.

Instead, she motioned to me as if shooing away a fly.

Go, go, go, her fluttering hands told me. I’m fine.

 That’s my girl. “I do by-self” may not have been her first words, but they were close.

I returned to my seat and waited. I wasn’t nervous for her, exactly. I assumed she knew the dance reasonably well. And no matter what happened, or how well the group performed (or didn’t), the audience was likely going to be smitten with the sight of five and six-year old girls in sequins, tutus, buns, and ballet slippers performing against the backdrop of a starry night and bright crescent moon, skipping and jumping to a Disney tune about dreams.

The event, however, did bring back some not-entirely-pleasant memories from my own childhood. To simplify, the equation boils down to two fundamental truths:

1. I love dance

2. I can’t dance

In the writing courses I teach, we might talk about how this could be considered a paradox. It would certainly at least pass the Alanis Morissette definition of ironic.

I took dance for four years, from about the ages of 5 to 8, at a small studio on the edge of our subdivision. The whole place seemed exotic to me in a wonderfully interesting way.

Our dance teacher wore tights—a grown woman in tights! She usually wore black, too. She was not the warm and fuzzy type, but she was not unkind. She had a dark tan and a big laugh. Over time, my mind has ascribed to her traits I know were not real—a vision of her standing in her black leotard, elbow resting on the grand piano that stood in a corner of the room, with a cigarette and a cocktail—but they seem like they should have been.

I tried. I really did. But even from the start, it was pretty clear that I was not catching on to things as quickly as the other girls.

My attempts at ballet resembled the famous Abbott and Costello skit more than attempts at ballet should:

What was first position again? Wait? Is everybody moving on to second? Are we supposed to be on second? Why am I still on first?

 Still, I pressed on. Ballet. Tap. Finally, in third grade, I added tumbling.

I blame Nadia Comaneci. As one does. I had loved watching her performance in the Olympics. My friends, who were going to take the class, probably had something to do with it, too. Some of them had been doing running round-offs for ages, while I could barely manage a cartwheel. One of my friends could even do handsprings—if you’re an eight-year-old-girl, there’s always that one friend who can blow everyone away with her handsprings—a whole bunch of handsprings, actually. In a row.

Maybe if I took tumbling, I would catch up.

Alas, by the time our recital rolled around that spring, I was still miles away from a handspring. Even my cartwheel had remained stubbornly impervious to improvement.

Still, on the night of the big performance, I was optimistic. It was all going to come together at just the right time, like the scene in a movie, with a triumphant end.

I was wearing a periwinkle blue tumbling outfit with Olympic rings emblazoned around the collar, and I just loved it. My long hair was in braids that had been pinned up on top of my head—special occasion hair, to be certain. And I would be performing to “Tomorrow” from Annie. Tomorrow, for Pete’s sake!

The sun will come out, indeed!

Except it didn’t.

None of my passes on the mats, a series of slow and unsteady round-offs and front walkovers, were what I hoped they would be, though the audience clapped, I’m sure. The slightly nervous, well-meaning, kindly, “well at least that little girl up there with her fancy braids is trying” sort of applause that one gets when one is doggedly determined and visibly failing.

And then came the back walkover.

I was supposed to get myself in position by doing a backbend. That part I managed. Then, I was supposed to kick a leg up and over my head. The other leg would inevitably follow. I kicked. My leg went up, up, up . . . and back down. Nope. Didn’t make it.

Well that was embarrassing.

The audience was watching. My classmates—who had been flying and whirling past me in a blur of competency—were waiting to use the mat, lining up behind me.

That’s okay, I thought. I’ll try again.

I looked up at the bright stage lights, suspended so impossibly high above me. I was aware of the dark audience that watched beyond the stage, to my right.

Brave little Annie was singing her big brave song.

I just stick out my chin, and grin, and say . . .

Annie had moxie. She had pluck. She could do this. I had moxie. I had pluck. I could do it, too.

Except I couldn’t. My leg, it seemed, had not gotten the memo about the moxie.

Somewhere in that place, my back arched, my hands on the mat, my uncooperative leg stuck and suspended in midair, staring at the faces of my classmates waiting in line behind me (their exasperation plenty visible, though their faces were upside down)—it began to occur to me that I might not be the next Nadia Comaneci after all. I might not even be the next Annie.

I do not recall for certain how many attempts it took for me to get that leg over my head. Somewhere between 3 and 17 is a fair guess. Let’s just say it was three.

It may not have exactly been a moment of triumph, but I did take away a few valuable lessons that I have come to think of as “The Great Backbend Epiphany.”

First, like Kenny Rogers said, “You gotta know when to fold them.”

We get fed a lot of rah-rah “don’t quit!” advice in our lives. And often that is valuable. Certainly, it’s good to try. I’m a big fan of grit.

But once you’ve given it a good shot, and the thing that you are attempting is causing more pain than pleasure, it’s probably time to move on.

I want my children to know this.

Perhaps more importantly, I want my children to be able to recognize the difference between wanting to want something, and actually wanting it. Because there is a difference.

I realized after that recital that I had always liked the idea of being a dancer and the atmosphere of dance. But not the actual dancing. The world of dancing seemed beautiful and mysterious and enthralling. The actual dancing, however, caused me to feel little more than anxiety.

Life is short. Doesn’t it make sense to do things we actually enjoy? If someone had given eight-year-old me a list of choices of how I could spend my time, dancing would have been far down on that list. What would have topped it? Reading, watching movies, listening to music, writing, and drawing (pretty much the exact same list I would make today, as it turns out).

I have continued to appreciate dance through the years, in my own way—mostly by watching movies and reading books about dancers. In fact, I just finished the wonderful Astonish Me by Maggie Shipstead.

It was fun to attend a dance recital again, especially one that did not involve my having to attempt a back walkover.

I do not know how many years my daughter will take dance or if she will turn out to have any ability for it, or how much she will enjoy it. But I do know that she will, inevitably, have a few of her own backbend epiphanies throughout her life. I hope when the moment comes, she is able to face it with courage and wisdom. And a Broadway soundtrack never hurts.