new york: pt 2

If you have read anything else here (translation: you do not exist. nobody reads this blog) you know that I'm a bit emotionally and mentally traumatised by dance. I've been fine on-and-off for a while, and I guess I sort of thought about new york bringing back ghosts, but I didn't think anything would bother me that much. Well, let's just say I was wrong and that many a tear was shed in new york.

The first broadway show we went to (The King and I) was at the Vivian Beaumont Theater, which is next to Julliard and Lincoln Centre. In that area there's like the opera house, this giant circular fountain, another theater, and the New York City Ballet. Now you've gotta understand that that is where I always thought I'd end up with dance growing up. That's just what you do. You go to summer intensives and go to SAB and then end up at NYCB. Obviously that never happened, but there's your oh-so-tragic backstory for the protagonist (ME!).

So anyway, I give my friend my camera and go to get a picture in front of it. (My theatre teacher goes, "go that way! get a picture under the actual sign") And when I go to stand under those simple metal letters labeling it as the New York City Ballet I just burst into tears. Like, tears. I calm down enough to get a picture where I'm smiling, but then we go on to the theater to see The King and I. And I can't. stop. crying. I feel like it was a combination of a few things, but mostly just being near NYCB and Julliard and New York and Theaters everywhere and I wanted it so badly. I wanted that future where I was tall and thin and beautiful and talented and dancing everyday in the blinding stage lights for audiences. I wanted that future, and being immersed in it but from the wrong side of the stage like some bizarre nightmare was a little much for me.

And then there's The King and I, where one of the most famous songs is "Shall we Dance?" and the choreography for "Small House of Uncle Thomas" is beautiful and precise and so vibrant. And there's me, sitting in the back top row in jeans that press into the fat on my stomach and hair that hasn't been pinned up or hair-sprayed in months and muscles that aren't in shape but they ache to be on stage. I cried through almost the entire show (that's right, like an emotional idiot.)

While we were in new york, it would hit me at weird times. Sometimes I'd see a woman with her hair up in the subway and she'd look like a dancer and it would hurt. I'd feel my thighs chafing together as we walked and I'd remember every glance in those floor-length mirrors where I hated everything I was, and I'd feel weak for not keeping myself from becoming the fat reflection I've always been terrified of. Oh, and then there was the tour of radio city music hall, and going backstage was familiar in the way that all backstages are to those who have grown up in them. And we met a rockette who was tall and thin and dancing for a living and I wanted to be her so badly I can't describe it. She told us about the height and weight requirements of it and I was crushed all over again, reminded that I was forever going to be a 5'3" girl with giant calves.

But new york opened me up to broadway dancing. To dancing and performing I could enjoy without being a 5'10" 110 lb ballerina. It reminded me why I loved dance and that I'll be hard pressed to try and live without it. So thank you, new york. You've been a pal.