The Dance

Annika has taken to dancing. She dances when Lily dances, when music is played, when you say the word "dancing" in an excited, sing-songy voice. She stands up in her high chair and sways side-to-side, looking altogether pleased with herself. This, in spite of the fact that much of the rest of the world seems to be speaking in grim, hushed voices, that I can't remember the last time I danced, really danced--not just wiggled around a little with the girls--which is a shame, now that I think of it.

And it reminds me of how I always feel when I see a ballet. When I watch ballet dancers perform, it is as though my body has a memory. I feel it in my muscles and joints, in my bones: the way it felt to move like that, to be in a place where moving like that was the entire world in a movement, where nothing outside a small room with barres on three sides, a mirror on the fourth, existed.

It's funny; I can remember one specific moment from one specific class over thirty years ago. I was raised on half-toe, my left leg in passe, and the pose was perfect. It felt different than it ever had, and I held it, held it after the music had ended, after the other girls had finished the subsequent motions and relaxed, as they watched me, brows furrowed, and our teacher watched me, knowing smile, knowing, I think, what was happening, letting me stand there, not frozen but by choice suspended in this perfect place, until finally--and not because my leg gave out, or I lost the pose--I decided it was time to let it go.

It is said that a person never forgets how to ride a bike. I maintain that you never forget those moments, when your body does exactly what you want it to, the way you want it to, when it is an instrument, a vehicle. Dancing, in general, is about joy, not precision or perfection. But there is joy in the art of dance, the artistry of dance. My most joyful memories of ballet are of motion, constant motion, learned so as to be completely automatic, allowing for the expression in the movement, the suspension of deliberate thought, the body over the mind, as it were.

I'm not sure how this came from Annika loving to dance, except that when Annika dances, it is with and from a place of joy, and I hope that she never loses that manifest joy.