This week my ballet teacher busted out some Cherry Poppin’ Daddies for a petite allegro combination in class. I probably would have hit the beats better to Vivaldi, but boy was I having fun.
Back when I was in Beginning Ballet I, I was also taking an intermediate swing class at the college. I had one teacher nagging me to pull up and tuck down my tail bone in my plié while another instructor was shouting, “Shannon, sit into your swing outs. Shame on you. You haven’t done that in long time.”
The joys of cross training.
I spent my afternoon at the barre trying to remember the rules and my evening on the dance floor at the grad trying to forget them. Even now, all these years later, a good jazz beat comes through the speakers and I feel my ballet form slip a little. I can’t help it. It’s music you want to melt into.
Swing was my first love in dance, thus the handle “swingbug.” Though to be honest, I’ve been considering changing that name. I don’t swing dance much these days, for a variety of reasons. There aren’t any dances in town anymore and there are some things that are just hard to do with a babe in arms. It just sort of fell out of my life. I found ballet and it filled that void for me. I’m known as “stitchbug” on most of the fiber craft sites that I frequent, and that seems to fit my lifestyle a bit more as I’m consistently tangled in thread and winding yarn into balls while I’m running back and forth between my other hobbies.
I was never very good at swing dancing. Good enough to impress people who didn’t know any better, but that’s all. I’d wager I’m a little better in my ballet flats. It sure is fun though. And it had been a long time. When Miss Cara queued up Zoot Suit Riot, I found myself wishing for the first time in recent memory that I had a dance partner around who knew a little lindy hop. (Chezza, where are you when I need you?)
Dancing skills arrive in chunks, a lindy instructor once told me. One day you’re on the dance floor and you realize that you stopped counting out the beats and phrases, even in your head. And then one day you realize you got through a dance without missing a lead. And then one day you realize that you just caught a break. You slip into the music over time and then turn around and realize that you’re living in it. That you’re dancing in it, not to it, if you can dig the difference.
The thing is that you never really lose that part of it, I don’t think. Your address may change but that place you come from is always the same. Change your shoes and change your dance floor, your form may (will) get sloppy and you may forget some steps, but you can still hear that music from the inside – even if it is neo-swing and not the real stuff.
So it might be piques and pirouettes instead of swingouts and suzy-q’s, but when that music came on, it still felt like home to slide into for a minute.
I guess I’m still a swingbug after all. I still live here, I just don’t come home often enough.