Welcome!
You’re reading DanceChatt, a publication for reflective writing about dance in and around Chattanooga. In this week’s DanceChatt I reflect on a topic I’ve been tossing around in my head awhile. I hope some readers will be moved to respond with their own stories.
This fall looks to be rich with dance events in Chattanooga. The Pop-Up Project, Chattanooga Ballet, Ballet Esprit, and many others have performances slated. Barking Legs’ 30-year anniversary celebrations in November offer several nights of dance. And that’s all before Nutcracker season begins. If you want to share a review or reflection on a performance, reach out.
Finally, some changes are coming to DanceChatt. You’ll notice one right away: I’ve paused paid subscriptions indefinitely. I’ll talk more about that for our six-month anniversary this November.
When to Stop Dancing
This spring, a dancer about 20 years older than I am told me in detail about a solo performance she’s putting on this fall or winter. Or maybe it’s several performances.
She discussed how she’s pulling her vision together. How she’s mixing disciplines. The physical training she needs to embrace to make sure she has the stamina to perform those works. I don’t know a thing about her upcoming performance, but I remember her certainty. Of course you dance. You always dance.
Also this spring, a dancer about 20 years older than I am described to me how I’d know when I didn’t want to dance anymore. “You’ll just know.” I hadn’t asked the question, though her remark fit in with the general flow of the conversation. Three of us sat there: a young dancer in her early teens, me, and this elder. Maybe the young dancer had asked me, “How long will you keep dancing?” and I had no answer.
But maybe that wasn’t it. Still, I remember the message. There will be a time to stop, and you’ll recognize it. The older dancer had experienced that moment clarity in her own life, and she told us about the instance of realization.
But what about me? What about you, reader? I can’t answer for you, but maybe it’ll be helpful to read where I am now as I work through it.
Am I someone who stops never, at all?
Am I someone who stops and knows when?
Am I someone who just doesn’t know, a rudderless person who shilly shallies herself into old age?
Probably the last, since I’m asking these things.
The last few weeks I’ve been off my balance — you know, using the working leg as a bit of a kickstand in tendu, or not using it as a kickstand but having to work at not using it, or some combination of forgetting and remembering. This affects everything, how I cross the floor, how I shift my weight to lift a leg, how easily and how high I can lift the leg, and a lot more things, too.
It snuck up on me and I noticed it sneaking up but I didn’t quite realize how far it had snuck until the cat was all the way up the tree.
So to speak.
I can tell you what it’s not: weight (I’m about the same as always), injury (I’m fine), strength (I’m adding heavier weights to my workouts this year anyhow).
I want to say that my brain no longer knows how to address parts of my body it used to address just fine; it’s unwiring or rewiring itself. Or the receptive parts just aren’t listening. I tell myself to do the things, and they do happen, but not all at once, and not in a very coordinated fashion.
In class the other night one teenager talked about persistent back pain. The mistress replied with a list of possible causes, ending with a broader one: “Your body’s changing. It’s completely disorienting. As your torso lengthens, for example, you’ll have to learn to move all over again.”
We’re always learning ourselves all over again.
Later we were doing our grands battements in the center, two in each facing — croisé devant, à la quatrième devant, and so on. And the part of my mind that was troubleshooting all the muscles that might not be doing what they were doing to be on my leg was much louder than the part that told me what positions to move through and how to transition smoothly through the facings.
So I focused harder and the lights spun and I realized I was about to fall down. I stepped to the side, then out of class, but I stayed disoriented for a while.
And coming out of the general lightheadedness, I thought: Well, this is one part of old that I won’t get out of by brute-force building more strength, or more stamina, or more flexibility.
I’m going to have to start all over with this body that just isn’t responsive to my intention as it was five years ago or three years ago or six months ago.
And what does that mean? It’s a kind of constant rejiggering, I guess, but also — from the outside — a kind of exercise in the surreal. Stirring soup with a spoon that’s slowly turning to rubber, then melting. When are you no longer stirring soup?
Now from an artistic point of view I’m all about creating the surreal. I love watching surreal dances. But the artists in class around me might not share the same goals, ammirite? Ballet lends itself to the following of rules, not the flouting of them.
But then the next day I started the most monster of monster periods ever, so maybe it was just that. Guess I won’t know til I try again, right?
I am curious. What is this me that I’m becoming? How do I know unless I test it? Again, and again, and again —
But maybe it’s not fair to the community. Why are you bringing Matter into a space dedicated to Form? (You wretch.) Take your exercises in the surreal elsewhere.
This conversation ain’t over yet, folks. I’ll come back to it later.
About the author
Jenn McCormick is a writer, editor and dancer working in Chattanooga. She shares her dance writing and guest works on her blog, DanceChatt.
Join the Chatt
Join the conversation! If you’d like to contribute a guest blog to DanceChatt, send an email to jennelisewebster@gmail.com.
Until then, keep dancing.
— Jenn McCormick