by Natasha Deen
By the time we move to across the floor, I’m sweating, my quads are trembling, and my knees are pinging.
“We’re going to do something a little different today,” says Peter. “Instead of across the floor, I’d like us to do some improv.”
My legs are trembling for a whole new reason now. Improv? Like, get up and do a dance?
Peter claps his hands. “Spread out. This time let’s see what movements you can do from one side of the room to the other, using big leg movements as your stimulus. Think kicks, battements or swings.”
Peter’s doing a count. I don’t know why. Am I supposed to do the isolation in time?
I do a magnificent impression of a tree trunk and watch the other kids.
Brittney’s doing a wicked standing leg split, and Jesse’s ninja stance is awesome. A kid in the front row does a kick into a flip.
“No showboating,” Peter tells her. “Actual isolation.” He turns his focus to me and tilts his head as if waiting to see what I can do.
Which is nothing.
The only thing in my brain is the crane kick from the old-school version of the Karate Kid movie I watched with Mom and Dad. I roll the dice and do it.
Peter dips his head, and I’m pretty sure he’s trying not to laugh.
“You’re wobbling,” he says. “Do some relevés. Five, six, seven, eight, on your toes—up, down, up, down. Hold on your toes.” Peter comes over. “Higher—extend yourself. Balls of your feet, Luc, get on the balls of your feet! Good! Lengthen your body. Imagine you’re a puppet. There’s a string going through the top of your head, and someone’s pulling you up straight. Tighten your core—”
Imagine I’m a puppet and someone’s pulling my strings? I’m Pinocchio to his Geppetto. My big toe is hurting from the weight, but I keep at it, even though I’m listing back and forth like a sail caught in the wind.
“That’s better,” he says after my tenth attempt. “But your balance is terrible. You need to work on it.” He turns and heads to another student. “And your posture,” he tosses over his shoulder. “Work on how you stand.”
I sigh and drop my heels to the floor. I’ve been standing since I was eight months old. Hard to believe I still don’t know how to do it correctly.
Peter calls a break, and I grab my water. As I drink, I lift my heels, then drop them. Lift. Drop. I keep an eye on myself in the mirror, thinking about strings in my head and inner cores.
“Bring it back, folks. Instead of choreo today, I want us to explore the Martha Graham style of dance—”
“What?” The question is out of my mouth before I can stop it. “But what about the showcase and practicing for that?” The kids are staring. Blood is creeping to the outermost layers of my skin.
“How about if we do the run-through after some Martha time?” Peter suggests.
“Uh, yeah, sure. Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“No problem,” he says. “I’m glad you’re practicing and taking this seriously.” Peter’s gaze scans the class. “In Martha Graham’s style of dance, the torso is central to movement. Your relationship to the dance is based on gravity, time and space. She experimented with the dynamic between contraction and release.”
The kids are nodding, and I’m lost.
Peter sits on the floor and spreads his legs into a split. “She loved sharp movements.” He stretches his arms to the ceiling and flips his head back. Then he pushes his upper body to the floor like he’s trying to give the ground a head butt, stops short and jerks himself back to an upright position.
I don’t know who Martha Graham is, but I’m impressed with that kind of muscle control.
His eyes are bright as he talks about her influence on the culture of dance, her focus on everyday experience as the subject of dance and how her political views influenced her choreography. “She turned down Hitler’s invitation to perform at the International Arts Festival that was to run at the same time as the Berlin Olympics,” he says. “Instead she choreographed Chronicle, which spoke out against fascism.”
Wow. Turning down Hitler? That was brave, but then to make up an entire dance in protest of his style of government? I’m googling this woman when I get home.
Peter rises to his feet. “She wasn’t about representing emotion as much as she was about becoming the emotion. That’s what I want us to work on today.”
We move to the wall while he steps into the middle of the dance floor. He cues the music, and an instrumental song plays.
I’m watching, memorizing, thinking I can get into Martha Graham. Her movements are sharp, deliberate. Hand to the sky, jerk down, back to the sky. Backward torso spin. Then something that looks like karate-chopping the air, flowing into some kind of windmill arm-torso spin.
Peter has us repeat the movements across the floor.
I’m surprised when Jesse takes a spot opposite me.
He doesn’t acknowledge that it’s me and not Brittney, so I don’t know if he deliberately teamed with me or if he wasn’t paying attention. But I’ve got Martha Graham on my mind.
When it’s our turn, I do my best to imitate what I’ve seen.
“Luc! You’re dancing,” says Peter. “You’re not a Klingon trying to overthrow some invisible enemy!”
What does that even mean? The next time, I try to scale back on the emotion and get some comment about zombie dancing.
It doesn’t get any better when Peter takes us through the choreography. As the opening chords of Jussie Smollett’s “Conqueror” start to play, I take my spot. My heart is doing a rev-stutter. All I remember from the routine is to lift my hands one at a time, go on tiptoes—one at a time but in sync with my hands—then drop my hands to my face. That’s only the first move and five seconds of the routine. What am I supposed to do with the other four minutes?
Peter’s hard on everyone, telling Brittney she has to control her turns, Jesse to put more power into his leaps, and me…I can’t seem to do anything right.
“Maybe it’s too hard,” says Peter. “Maybe we should do something simpler.”
I know what he’s doing, because Coach does the same thing. It’s a reverse-psychology move. He tells us the play’s too difficult. Then we try harder because we don’t want to be the guys who couldn’t do it.
The studio kids are no different.
“We can do it.”
“Give us some time.”
Time. I thought I’d used mine wisely in practicing, but today’s session seems to prove I just can’t do it. This is the third class. There should have been some improvement, but if Peter’s comments are true, I’m not gaining any ground. The voice is back in my head, telling me to give up. Or try another studio. And this time, it’s more than a whisper.
“I’ll think about it,” says Peter. “We’ll see how you guys do next class, then go from there.” He ends the session. I head to my bag.
“Hey.”
I turn to face Brittney.
“You were good out there today.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
She laughs. “Okay, but you were better, a lot better. Keep practicing.”
“Don’t let Peter get in your head,” says Jesse as he comes up. “He’s like Oscar the Grouch. Grumpy and usually talking trash.” He glances over his shoulder at the clock. “Come on, B, that smoothie won’t wait.”
They turn to go, but I stop them. “Uh, listen, I want to say sorry about that first day. I was late and in a bad mood…I acted like a jerk, and I’m sorry.”
They nod. “Thanks for the coffee,” says Brittney.
I grab my bag and head for the exit.
“Luc, wait.”
Oh man. I turn, wary, to face Peter. “Yeah?”
“What’s your cell number?”
I give it to him.
“Okay.” He’s concentrating on his screen, his fingers tapping on the keyboard.
A few seconds later, there are four bings on my phone.
“These are some videos that might help you,
” he says. “They break down some of the more complex movements we’ve been practicing.”
“Oh, wow, okay.” I open my phone and check the links. “Uh, thanks.” I meet his gaze. “But today, I thought I sucked.”
“You did.” He claps me on the back. “But you sucked forward. I respect that. See you next class.” He pivots and walks to his office.
Huh. A smile tugs at my lips as I head to work. And the voice in my head is quiet.
Nine
“We talked about Martha Graham last class,” Peter says after our warm-up in Thursday’s class. “Today I want to talk to you about Katherine Dunham.”
A couple of kids in front of me whisper excitedly to each other, but the name means nothing to me.
I’ve spent the last two days watching the videos Peter gave me, then doing my best to mimic what I see. Today I’m going to suck it up and buy a big mirror to lean against the wall in the basement. I’m not thrilled with the thought of watching myself mess up, but I have no one to spot for me, so I’ll have to use the mirror to gauge my posture and movement.
“Katherine Dunham invigorated modern dance,” Peter says.
The videos Peter had sent me talked about the history of contemporary dance, how it was born from ballet and set out to embrace a less rigid style and allow the dancer more freedom of movement. That’s as much as I’d gotten before I moved the tracker to the spots where I saw dancing. I respected Peter’s wanting me to understand the history of contemporary dance, but I wasn’t looking to do this professionally. I only wanted to learn enough to help my football career and quiet down Coach.
“She was born in Chicago in 1909 and didn’t start dancing until her late teens.” Peter looks directly at me as he says this.
I’m trying to catch the hint. Is he telling me that if a woman who didn’t start dancing until she was almost an adult could do it well enough to have influenced the entire genre, I need to work harder? Or is he trying to help me stay positive? Like, Hey, man, she didn’t start until she was older, and look how far she got. There’s hope for you.
“After she graduated with a degree in anthropology—” Peter’s gaze is back on me.
An anthropologist who became a dancer? How is that relevant to me?
“—she traveled to the West Indies to study anthropology and dance, and that’s when her life shifted. She came back and infused modern dance with Caribbean influences—limb isolations, flexing of the torso—”
Once again I’m completely lost. I lean into Jesse and whisper, “Why’s he talking about modern dance in the middle of a contemporary class?”
“Contemporary dance is influenced by a huge range of dance styles,” Jesse whispers back. “That’s what makes it so incredible.”
“Oh.” I tune back into Peter’s lecture.
“Dunham used her troupe and her stage to protest segregation and civil rights. Shows such as Southland brought the issue of lynching to the stage—”
My brain whirls to imagine what this would look like. I’m definitely searching that out online tonight.
“—and her work for racial equality has been credited with inspiring the Brazilian law that forbids racial discrimination in public places.”
I’m doing the math on all of this and feeling—once again—like dance is handing my butt to me. The fact that I know nothing about dance history makes me feel like a Class A dunce. Up until now, I’ve figured dance was all tutus and twirls, leaps and spandex. But it’s more than my small-minded definition. I’m going to go back over those videos Peter sent, and this time I’ll sit through the narration and voice-overs.
“Today I want us to play with her style of dance.” He cues the music, and a reggae-calypso song pushes through the speakers.
He brings one knee to his chest. Then the other knee to his chest. Both feet down, large chest roll, then some kind of jumping-jack thing—except it’s right hand up, bring it to the left foot as the left foot comes up, then do it with the other hand-foot combination…and then I’m lost on the steps. But I’m loving the music and the energy.
“What is this? Katherine Durham?” I ask Brittney.
“Dunham. It’s Afro-Haitian dance.”
“It’s very cool.” I lean in and whisper, “What’s he doing? Can you give me the steps?”
A quick frown wrinkles her forehead. “I can give you some, but contemporary is different than something like ballet or tap. Some movements in contemporary don’t really have terms. It’s about the action.” Her head’s bopping to the music. “Okay, we’ve got isolation, isolation, wide second position, spotting, contract, release, undulations. This isn’t in order, you know. He’s moving too fast.”
It’s awesome, like judo put to music. When Peter finishes and before he can get us into across-the-floor formation, I ask him to do it again.
He shrugs and gets into position.
I grab my phone and hit Record as he moves through the choreography.
When it’s our turn, I’m first in line, along with Jesse. I’m going to get it wrong and look like an idiot anyway, so I may as well go first and get it over with.
Peter walks us through it.
I bring my arms up and out, parallel to the floor. In time with the music, I bend my elbows and bring my hands to my chest, then push them out again. I glance in the mirror. Spaghetti arms. I do it again, but this time I pretend the air is twenty pounds as I push my hands back parallel to the floor.
The contraction and release of my biceps and forearms give weight to the movement, and the reflection in the mirror looks a hundred times better than before. I push my chest out, bring it back in like a vertical chest wave. Then I do it again as I pretend I’m high-stepping on hot coals.
The names I give the movements would probably make the studio kids laugh, but I don’t care. It helps me to keep up with Peter and to get the steps right.
We get to the knee-to-chest move. I pretend there’s weight pushing me up and down, and the movement looks sharper, tighter. Arms back up, push out my chest, roll it back in like a snake wave. That must be the undulation Brittney mentioned. I push the thought aside and hurry to keep time with the music and the movements. There are a couple of quick-step movements—kicking my heels out and then to the side—that leave me breathless, but I love the footwork. I can imagine using it to get around a difficult offensive guard. Same thing with the kick and turn. That could work when I have to deke around a player. I go through the rest of the steps and get to the other side.
Peter nods for Jesse and me to clear the space, then motions for the next pair of kids to start.
“That was decent,” says Jesse. He grabs for his water bottle and hands me mine.
“Thanks.” I can barely get the word out. The choreography Peter had us doing was big movements, quick kicks and side steps. I’m as winded as when I run the track.
“You’re getting better,” he says. “It seems like you’re really getting into it.”
I gulp my water and nod. “I get together with my football buddies and play. You know, keep in shape for fall. You wouldn’t believe how much better I am.”
“I believe it.”
“But I’m not where I want to be.”
Jesse shrugs. “It’s practice.”
I shake my head. “No, it’s more than that.”
“Not really. If you can walk, stand, hop and kick, you can dance. You just have to get it into your muscle memory.”
“Well, I think my muscle memory is Swiss cheese.”
He takes a long sip of his water. “You want some help?”
I straighten. “You’ll give me some tips?”
“I can do that, but I can also practice with you.”
There’s a moment of shocked silence. Jesse actually helping me is more than I’d hoped for. “Uh, yeah,” I stammer. Then I grin. “Man, that would be awesome.”
He nods, satisfied. “Me and Brittney will whip you into shape.”
“That’s great. Thanks.”
J
esse gives me a grin. “You suck like a high-end vacuum, but you try so hard. I hate to admit it, on account of what a jerk you were to us at the beginning, but you’re inspiring.” He punches me on the shoulder. “In, like, a car wreck kind of way, so don’t get all egotistical about it or anything.”
“I’m the most humble car wreck of a vacuum you’ll ever see.”
He laughs, and we go back to watching the across-the-floor exercises.
* * *
I get home after work and sit down to dinner. Mom and Dad are halfway through their pot roast and mashed potatoes. Dad hands me the platter of grilled asparagus. “Things are looking up,” he says. “You made it home before dessert.”
“I told you I’d make this work.”
“We had a few new clients sign up today.” Dad lifts his fork of gravy-laden mashed potatoes, watching me carefully. “That means adding another house or two to your route.” There’s a deliberate pause, and then Dad asks, “Is that going to be a problem?”
“Nope. I’ll get it done.”
“You know the bylaws forbid us from working after ten at night.”
I roll my eyes. “I haven’t been that late.”
“Just giving you a heads-up.”
I stack my plate with food and lay into the asparagus. “By the way—and thanks for asking—the dance class is going well.”
“Of course it’s going well,” says Mom. “You’re an amazing athlete.”
“And dancer, according to Dan Hughes.” Dad glances at Mom and hits me with a sly smile. “Something about seeing your pirouette when you were packing the clippings.”
Heat rises in my cheeks.
“Are you practicing while working, or are you just that happy to have a summer job?”
I keep my head down and stuff a mouthful of meat and veggies into my mouth. “Didn’t think there’d be a problem with multitasking.”
“Son, you can whistle, shimmy or mambo while you work as long as you work and get the job done.” He pauses. “On time. If practicing is delaying you—”
“It’s not!”
“Then we’re fine.”
“Luc, I’ll need the car all next week,” says Mom.
