the dancer in me

I really, really enjoyed my Christmas present.  Mr. Kenobi got us tickets to see Riverdance, giving us both time together and an experience that matched me well.   You see, Mr. Kenobi married a dancer, and he found the perfect present for his bride.

Maybe you know I'm a dancer.  More likely, you do not.  I seem to be many other things these days, but dancer is far from most descriptions.  The truth is, I grew up dancing, and I've never really stopped.  Oh, I've stopped wearing leotards & pointe shoes, but I've never stopped dancing.  A dancer never ceases.

My first steps were probably taken in a ballet studio, where I spent most of my first 20 years.  I trained, performed, and even taught a bit in college.  This art was never simply an interest or activity, it was part of my genetic makeup - my heritage.  My grandmother danced. My mother danced.  They both taught and inspired countless students to use their bodies as instruments.  As the third generation in this line, it seemed my destiny to teach to the next generation of dancing Dakotans.  

It was not meant to be.  I never pursued the extensive training or accolades of my mother.  While neighbors and students assumed the studio and leadership would pass along to me, I knew otherwise.  Possibly, I knew it wasn't my calling, and I loosed my heart from that dream.  I planned to move off to the big city - at the time, I pictured myself an architect in New York - with little to do with tiny slippers and tutus.  While that picture has changed, I'm certainly a long ways from the music of that studio.

Yet, as Mr. Kenobi and I sat in the Opera House, and the lights washed the stage, my heart kept time with the music.  I wasn't simply a spectator in a cushioned seat.  No matter that I can't jump or twist to keep up with the principal's nimble footwork.  My mind melted, and those around me faded from peripheral vision.  I was in the performance - my feet moved in tension and rhythm, my torso stood straight & tall, and I spun and soared with those dancers.  When the young, Irish lads competed with the street-smart tappers, I felt the tension.  When the girls leaped with ease, I was with them.

This is the beauty of art.  This is the power of knowing the discipline and appreciating the performance.  Perhaps everyone feels this way when they go to a live show. Perhaps everyone returns home to dreams of quick steps and effortless pirouettes.

Perhaps. 

They don't share my entire experience, though.  Questions float through my dreams: What would it be like to have gone that direction?  What would my life look like, if I were training young artists?  What would I do with that studio?  What would my kids know of living in the music?  What would I look like in a leotard? (okay, maybe I don't really want to know that!)

It's not regret I feel, but it is wonder.  

When wonder is let loose from the stranglehold of regret, it becomes imagination.  

When imagination becomes an experience, it's art.  

And when art is set to music, it is dance.

"Let them praise His name with dancing..."