Dancing

Within a month of returning home, I moved to The City, where, in time, marriage, motherhood, and many unexpected career twists followed.

                                                                                                      Winging It

One Friday night, during services at my synagogue, I was seated behind the writer and director of the Men's Club Variety Show. He introduced himself to me afterward, told me my voice was beautiful, and asked if I'd be willing to participate in his upcoming production.

At the first rehearsal, he questioned the cast. "Can anybody here dance?" I raised my hand politely, recalling my formative years at the Marion Sunderville School of Ballet, as well as my times choreographing routines at college for our sixteen-person swing choir. But then I noticed mine was the only arm aloft.

"Think you could work up a few routines to go along with skits I've written, and teach them to the cast?" he asked hopefully.

"Sure," said I. "No problem."

He proceeded to assign me several routines, one of which stands out from all the others: his Borscht Belt rendition of Swan Lake.

The lead was a 60-something bespectacled woman named Golda, and her prince, Sollie, was a stout, silver-haired retired office-supplies salesman with a perpetual smile and the comedic timing of Jerry Seinfeld. Sollie square-danced every Saturday night, he confided to me at once, whereas ballet was going to be a new adventure for him. It was, though, he assured me, one he was very much looking forward to learning.

The back-up-dancer swans were eight men, all over 60, at various stages of hair loss and waistline gain, but twinkly-eyed and full of mirth and mischief and charm. They worked doggedly for me at every rehearsal and never once complained. By our fourth week, these people were so good, I invited our director and the handful of cast members who were working on a skit in the next room to come take a look.

The sight-gag of how completely un-swanlike these ten people were was uproarious. Little wren-like Golda and her gaggle of large ostrich-esque men doing tongue-in-cheek, serious-faced arabesques and pirouettes, all ramrod straight, all on the beat, and all perfectly synchronized, was schtick at its absolute finest. And, when Dress Rehearsal arrived, everything got even better.

On their tippy toes, in big, brown work boots, my swans tramped onto the stage at break-neck speed, swaddled in white thermal onesies that were embellished from the waist down with cascades of frothy white tuille.

Golda came on in what surely must have been a bridesmaid dress from the 60's - hot pink, shiny, foofy, and now shortened to the knees. It was accessorized with a pair of hot pink, sparkly gladiator sandals.

Sollie bounded forth in tights, a flannel nightshirt in Tartan plaid, and a feathered, tri-corner hat.

I've been in countless productions throughout the years; but this one was, by far, the most enjoyable, no close seconds.
Lesson: Dignity is highly overrated. If performing isn't fun, then why is anyone bothering?

                                                                                          Opportunity Knocks

During rehearsal breaks for the Men's Club Variety Show, I put my time to good use by cutting the materials I was going to need the next day at the school where I had met my mentor, Ann. I was on their Sub List by now and was called in often to work.

One night, a woman I recognized as a cast member from the "Perfecting Machine" sketch asked me why I was making dinosaurs, and I explained about the gig awaiting me in the morning.

"Would you be willing to be on the Sub List at the JCC --the Jewish Community Center-- too?" she asked excitedly. "I'm in charge of the Early Childhood Department and am always looking for good teachers. I figure anyone who can work the miracle you did with Sollie and Golda and those swans has got to be extraordinary!"

Two days later, I was called to sub there for a 12-day tour. Another month after that, the pre-school dance teacher resigned, and I was offered --and happily accepted-- the position.

Lesson: Teaching is also a "performing art" and, as such, requires talent and creativity, dedication and hard work that does not go unnoticed by those in the field.

                                                                                           This Time Opportunity Taps

The dance studio at the JCC was outstanding: enormous, with a gleaming hardwood floor, offset by one entire wall of floor-to-ceiling windows, another with a floor-to-ceiling mirror, and a third with two dance barres (a high one for adults and a lower one for children), running the entire length of the studio. Nothing I'd ever been in, even in Manhattan, compared. If only Miss Marion were here to see where her training had taken me!

Just before the new year, however, I was advised that renovations were going to begin soon, and, as a result, traffic was going to be re-routed through the Dance Studio. My classes would have to be held for awhile in one of the auditoriums.

At the end of the second week, I found a note in my mailbox in the Early Childhood Department: "Shelley, Please come to my office. We need to talk. Rose Melnick." ('Shelley' is what I was always called as a child, though my mother's version of it was a little different. I believe I was twelve before I realized my name wasn't really Larry..Linda..Donna..SHELLEY! But since everyone in the Jewish community knew me when I was little, 'Shelley' was the moniker they continued to use. Too bad for me if, after earning my Degrees, I wanted to seem all grown up and reclaim my given name, Rachelle. At the JCC, I was and would always be 'Shelley.')

But back to Rose Melnick.

My heart thumped like the bass drum in an Army band , and I could feel perspiration form on my face and neck. Although I didn't know exactly what Rose Melnick's position was at the JCC, I did know she had a secretary and a private office and was definitely one of the Powers That Be. I also knew her note sounded ominous and that I suddenly felt very sick to my stomach.

I swallowed down my fear and knocked on her half-opened door, unannounced, since her secretary was out.

"Oh, Shelley! Come in!" she invited. "Close the door, though, will you, please?" My stomach lurched.

"Sit down," she coaxed.

I did as instructed then blurted out, "Am I about to be fired?"

"What?" she laughed. "No! As a matter of fact, I have a proposal for you: The JCC is bringing Bob of Sesame Street here for a fund raiser, and I've been looking all over town for a children's choreographer. Then yesterday I'm leaving my office and I see you teaching right across the hall in the Auditorium. I can't believe you've been right here under my nose the entire time! Who knew? So would you be willing to choreograph some numbers for his show?"

She never once used the word "tap," or I would have told her right away I was unschooled in that genre. It wasn't until two weeks later, as she handed me the tapes he'd made of the songs he wanted choreographed, that she said, "There'll be eight numbers for you to do in total: one ballet, four jazz, and three tap, okay?"

While inside I gasped with frenzied horror, "MAY DAY! MAY DAY! Ah-OOOOO-gah!! ABORT MISSION!", to Rose I smiled warmly and said, "Sure! That'll be great!"

When I shared the news that night with my family, my husband gasped. "What are you going to do?" he asked. "You've got to tell her!"

"I can't tell her," I lamented. "I've already signed the contract, and my name is on all the posters. Plus a week from today we're holding auditions." I added, " Honestly, though? I feel like I can do this. I think if you can dance, you can just dance anything."

And so, with that, I went to the mall and bought tap shoes and, en route back home, stopped at the library for a how-to manual. The next seven days found me holed up in our basement, tap shoes on, eyes focused intently on the book in my hands, as I moved like the snazzy-looking girl in the progression of photographs, commanding myself rhythmically, aloud (albeit at a snail's pace), "Shuf-fle-Ball-CHANGE; Shuf-fle-Ball-CHANGE; Fl-AP-Step, Fl-AP-Step; Step-Ball-HEEL!"

A few months later, when the show was over and Rose and I were in her office, basking in the joy and success of the production, I finally confessed everything to her. She gaped at me and cried, "You've got to be kidding! I wouldn't have guessed that in a million years." And, after a beat, she added, "Actually, that just makes the whole thing even better!"

Lesson: Never allow yourself to fall prey to self-imposed limits. Geodes, after all, until they're tapped open, appear to be just plain brown rocks.