As we hobbled out of the Blumenthal in ill-advised but oh-so-lovely shoes, my 20-year-old daughter said, “I’ll never again in my life see such incredible bodies.”
I’m pretty sure she was right.
Leaving another fabulous Alvin Ailey performance, I couldn’t help feeling oddly surprised that we weren’t flying. After all, we’d just seen irrefutable evidence that humans do, indeed, take to the air in dizzying, boundless, lighter-than-air flight.
The highlight of the evening was Twyla Tharp’s frenetic choreography set to David Byrne’s score in The Golden Section. If you thought Talking Heads was a wet finger in the socket, wait til you see thirteen dancers moving together with exquisite precision, AND performing thirteen separate simultaneous dances. Premiered in 1983, the thrill and adrenaline rush of this piece is as addictive as Ben and Jerry’s Dublin Mudslide.
I was 28 when I finished my last dance class and switched to yoga, knowing that I was never going to be another Twyla Tharpe. Linda Celeste Sims, pictured above, danced ravenously for two hours, her own balls able to eject from the wood floor with muscles as powerful as a spring-loaded board. Me? I struggled to walk two blocks in heels. My wimp quotient is boggling.
Not only was I never going to be a dancer, but I was actually struggling to walk in shoes. And there we were — inching down from the sixth level of the parking garage with improper footwear, the balls of my feet straining in agony on the clutch.
But it was okay — it was temporary, and I had just spent an evening in paradise that I’ll never forget.
Oh yeah, and about those incredible bodies . . . .
I was six when I first slid my pinkies into the much-more-comfortable soft leather ballet flats and learned to lie on my tummy, arch my back, and touch my head to my toes.
I was a young teenager when Edward Villella made it clear that dancers were the most highly trained athletes, their own leaps and relevés far above the ball-tossing hordes.
I was seventeen when I saw Judith Jamison dance Cry, an exhausting and emotional fifteen minute solo that burned her mind-boggling image into the eyes of dancers worldwide.
I was twenty-something when Robert Blake (while he was still cute and crime-free), leaned over toward Johnny Carson and said, “Marry a dancer. Sex doesn’t get better than that.”
Apparently not.
Linda Celeste Sims had danced ravenously for two solid hours, her own balls apparently able to eject herself from the wood floor with muscles as powerful as a spring-loaded board. The best I did was walk two blocks in heels, and I whined.
My wimp quotient is boggling. But I will ALWAYS love to dance.
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Pam Goode Writes 