Pretty in Pink at 7

My oldest is 7. She’s very intelligent, fairly proactive, very polite and kind. She’s a sweetheart. In January, she started taking ballet at the local community center. She didn’t like it very much. It’s her first personal exposure to a performance art, and she’s an individualist. It really upset her that her teacher didn’t let her wear a necklace her grandmother gave her.
Last Monday was the dress rehearsal. My wife took her. The class is usually an hour, and they’re back by 5:30. They got home at 8:30. After they got there, she did her bit, and then she stayed to watch all the other classes perform. The Tuesday when I got home from work, she was all dressed – pink tights, leotard, shoes, elastic band in her hair, and glitter on her hair and cheeks. Pink to the gills.
After dinner with Nana and Papa, we all went to the community center for the performance. I had our little guy (turns 1 next month), our 2 year-old was with Papa, and Nana had our oldest boy. My wife had the video camera. The first group was the “tip-toes”. They were 2-4 years old. Very cute.
Then came beginning ballet. I took 2 terms of ballet in college, so I was very excited about her debut. She had a very serious face and she watched the teacher, who was seated on the floor just in front of the stage, intently. During one sequence, she executed a plie, a change of foot position, and an arabesque beautifully. She’s never looked so graceful before; she was stunning.
Trying to figure out now why it was so important to me, I think it’s the idea that she is mature enough to decide when to put away her individuality and follow direction. Probably anyone reading this knows I spent a lot of my youth and early adulthood doing theater. It was absolutely crucial in developing who I am today – and it came at the time in my life when I was starting to consciously define who I would become. To think that one of my children is closing in on that stage and is approaching it seriously was a wonderful moment.
For anyone to perform for a large, unknown audience in a harshly lighted gymnasium with a stage and folding chairs, they have to be a bit of a performer. That is, they need to understand their relationship to the audience: everyone in the audience is equal. Waving to mom and dad ruins the illusion. They also have to understand their physical relationship to lighting, other dancers, curtains, etc. They have to have the ability to stay cool when they miss a step. They have to be able to think, include the audience in their thoughts, and exclude any fear of negative perceptions.
It takes a lot of skill and maturity for anyone to be able to do all these things well; anyone who can’t won’t be a good performer in a traditional theatrical/dance setting. That my daughter can do it is exciting to me both for her growth and because I hope to be back on the boards in another year or two.

Quick story along the same lines from my professional life: I went to Atlanta for a week long training in managing projects. The class was broken into teams. I was lucky enough to be on the good team. The final deliverable was a proposal to an “investor” regarding a theme park. Early in the process, the investor had asked that we deliver someone on the team named Jim in addition to the project plan. She was a flirtatious investor. He became Jim “The Deliverable” Henson (last name changed to protect the innocent). He decided to do a strip-tease as part of our presentation. We found something for him to dance to, and he figured out how to do it without being offensive. He put on a pair of normal shorts, then his briefs, then his jeans.
His first attempt at the dance wasn’t very good. He looked like a guy in his 40s with no stage experience pretending to be a stage guy. I explained to him that if he thought he looked stupid, he would look stupid. He had to not act, but had to do it for real. The next time through, he was believable. It was an amazing transformation. I worked with him 1:1 later, on hips and shoulders, orientation to the investor and the audience, hand gestures, etc. He was the star. You just have to make the mental adjustment to not be “an actor on a stage” but to allow yourself to be (just for a moment) “the person doing the thing”.