Note: the teacher of this class is a beautiful, wonderful artist of color whom I now support, not because I know him but because he is doing good work and I am an advocate for dancers/artists. The intention of this post is to deal with me and the perspective of my generation, not to shade him.
I took an advanced contemporary class today.
Now, understand that since I’m not sure what that is—and if you can define it, please help me in my email or inbox or in the comments below—I did a series of cursory plies facing the barre and two tendus in every direction. By the time I was done, I noticed that everyone was sitting on the floor.
I sat too. The millennial, more gorgeous than even the word itself before we applied it to the generation, sort of appeared on the floor and thanked us all for coming. He said it was so good to be here and meant it. I was still skeptical. He could have been too-good-to-be-believed, like Nicole Kidman in Nine Perfect Strangers. He told the newcomers that we generally start off really chill. Then he instructed us to go ahead and pick a foot to start massaging and digging into, “giving it some love. And then move up to the ankle, work your way to the thigh…”
Wait, did this class start out with a therapeutic self-pamper? Clearly, he didn’t get punished during his training for feeling good. Wasn’t that almost grounds for termination back in the day? The reigning idea was that if it didn’t hurt a little by the end of your dance day, you weren’t doing it right. In fact, you were probably marking so you needed to do it again. Feel good? Donald is still mad at the expression “Get your life!”
And DCDC would have banished you from the building for such sacrilege.
“Now start to just move the thighs with your hands and shake them off the bone. Get the tension out, start to connect to the skeleton...”
No, no, no, I need tension. I need to stand up and organize the tension out of the legs. I need to push this way or that into the floor and figure out how to move from one to leg to the other maybe. Or do a crunch or something to tell my center to help me so that I can stand up.
“Now just send that away,” he said. And I promise you what he did next was turn his hands in toward each other over his thigh and brush the energy away from his body. A la Cleo Parker Robinson. In fact, this fine ass youngster may be a younger version of her. Or maybe Malik’s great great grandchild traveling back in time to experiment with our bodies. Just maybe.
“Let’s take our hands behind us and slump in the shoulders. Just relax and feel your head let go…”
Slump? Relax? What are these words he’s using? I’m so confused about this hedonism. Either he really does want me to feel good, or he’s an evil Xerxes kind of dude young enough to stay constantly warm (sort of like Shay) and who wants to slay me by making me have to figure it out when we stand up (definitely like Shay).
I squiggled over to downstage right. And I writhed back to center upstage and then I Madonna’ed my way back over to left middle. Now, while I’m writhing and such, it dawns on me that this young man in the draped black looking like the 24th Century’s version of gorgeous proletariat in those Dune looking comfy garbs is truly positive. He’s blending the out with the in, doing all the new age DeepakIyanlan values that cultivates positivity all the way around. Jamal, silly, it’s the dancing and the warm up that also align with feeling positive and good. It’s not supposed to hurt and send you to suffering—none of it is. So the pathway to dancing steps has to be a joyous and beautiful and therapeutic and spa-ready as the actual steps.
Stop it. Stop it all of you, with your questions about how I’m supposed to stand up and be on my legs and lengthen lines and dance through them but at least go through them as we’re “moving freely.”
“Now explore the vertical space with your hips. Find the on the second level. Take your time to get there. Remember to be honest. This is for you.”
Honest. He wanted us to commit without faking it or performing. This was an experience, a seminar, workshop. Not a class in the traditional sense. Let go of tradition.
We made our way up to standing this way. To be fair, there was much organization of what body parts to think about or “wake up” to be able to stand.
But then the first step of the phrase was a grande plie in (let’s call it) fircond position with the right arch forced and the upper body dipped over to the front left outside of the knees.
I know, I know. Sabotage.
After later watching all four groups dance the combo, the teacher asked us to be mindful of when we used accents, paying attention to whether they helped or inhibited us.
So he wants us to not stop moving.
We did it again.
He said glowing things and this: “Think that it’s not going to be so big. I want you to still cover space, but I also want you to think a bit more internal.”
So he wants us to mark?
And friends, this is when I had the “Aha!” moment. Shape and line and dynamic are not values of this generation inside of “contemporary” dance. Dancers in this time period want to feel good period. All the time. He isn’t even worried about what he’ll feel like in ten years because by then folks will be especially uninterested in whatever pain is necessary to create a line.
I did it y’all. I indulged. I felt good. And I know none of y’all want to see it on me ever. I was gloriously unspecific, Donald. I refuse to respect that sculpting, Dwight. I marked it, Lula. Let me qualify “marked” for those of you who side-eyed that last detail; what I mean is that I didn’t energize anything really. I didn’t intend anything. I just was.
It was rather splendid. Granted, my sacrum would be in my stomach if I had not done some plies and tendus in advance. But I finally understand. And my entire left glute was only slightly sore the next day. And the right one too.
I will need to take a ballet class first next time.
Or only.