In my Ballet class we have four guys; three of them are even straight. The amount of males in our group is considered highly abundant, given that some ballet groups have had to borrow male dancers from us to put on performances. And the scarce supply of male dancers could have something to do with the prejudices regarding the discipline. The proportion between male and female dancers is always very uneven, and I believe there are plenty of reasons why guys would dislike this activity: Stretching always seems tedious to them, having to point their toes all the time could be a challenge, and certain positions might not be as adequate for their anatomy.
But the rest is fun; Guys tend to be really good jumpers and this is where all the excitement is: in the air! Also, because their legs are stronger, they do all the hard jumps and get to spend more time out of the ground than us girls. We, instead, have to deal with standing on pointe or getting dizzy with various pirouettes. But the only thing I wanted to say here is that guys CAN become dancers. Even guys who start out from scratch can get good as long as they have the will to put up with our training, and as long as they attain to the dress code. But here might lay the problem…
One of the main reasons why guys get scared away from taking Ballet is that they are required to wear tights in every class. No, no sweatpants or shorts; one is required to wear tights so that the teacher can see one’s legs. This is not a problem for girls usually, unless one of us is having an “I –hate-my-body” day. But men seem to resist it highly. Chris for example used to take karate and is trying Ballet now, the first time he came to class our teacher asked him to get himself a pair of tights.
“Can’t I just wear long shorts?”
“No. I can’t see your legs with shorts.”
“Can I wear short shorts?”
“No. But you can start out wearing tights with shorts over them, if this makes you feel more comfortable.”
Three months later Chris was not only wearing tights, but he was also buying leg warmers in different colors to match his shirts. Still resistant to the abuse though, one evening after my teacher had yelled at him for not stretching properly, he mentioned to me that: “First she makes me wear tights, and now I have to do the splits?!”
Some are less resistant to the tights than Chris though. Demarcus started out looking like a basketball player in sweatpants, and now he stands like a dancer and seems to really like how is body is starting to look. This morning in class he told my teacher:
“I have a new ballet outfit with new leg warmers!”
“Good Demarcus, you will probably look great.”
“I’m gonna look sexy!”
Yes, not all of the guys are bothered by the classical dancer dress code. Jonathan for example has this thing for wearing bandannas, which to me make him look like an extra in the movie “Flash dance” but to him look very cool, and Brian tends to wear bright green leg warmers that go up to his knees, over purple tights.
No, I’m not going to finish this entry by making you guess which one of them is gay. I will only say that in the end it is all about the dancing.
In the Ballet world not everything is what it seems.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Sunday, November 11, 2007
The only real things I seem to have learned so far are:
1) It's okay to hate hanging out with large groups of people. You don't have to go out and pretend to love being in crowded rooms or be interested in lowest common denominator conversation that you never participate in anyway because you get so anxious when you know lots of people are listening and your head just goes blank and you don't even have anything you want to say but you want to say something just so you won't be the only person who isn't saying anything and you spend all night thinking of something to say but nothing seems right and you go home without having said anything at all and wonder why the hell you bothered to go out at all because you knew it would turn out like this. It's perfectly fine to not have the need to go to a place where the music is so loud you spend all night waiting to get home and take some Tylenol and go to sleep just because that's what people are supposed to love doing so much.
You can just stay home.
2) High school doesn't matter, really. After you leave no one will ever know what grades you got or how much you skipped class or what your SAT scores were or whether or not you had anyone to sit with at lunch. No one will give a fuck if that stupid asshole everyone thought was so cool told you you were a lesbian or if no one ever asked you to a dance that you didn't even want to go to anyway because you hated everyone at your school and they all thought you were a lesbian, and you knew it would suck and you'd have no fun, but you wanted someone to ask you and you wanted to be the sort of person who had fun at dances even though you sort of hated the kinds of people who did.
3) High school is the worst time of human life and anyone who says differently is lying to you.
4)College is not that hard. College has many advantages over high school such as optional attendance and the abundance of weed for Philosophy majors and occasionally professors who are incredibly passionate about what they do, which can be contagious ( but at least high school was free.) Do not go to college if you don't know why the hell you are there, especially if it is a private school; college should not be a $25,000 daycare center. Go do something else. If nothing else let me tell you that working full-time for minimum wage and finding that the body can be sustained on a spaghetti-based diet will usually give you the inspiration you need to find some kind of direction.
5)A BA is an expensive piece of paper and nothing else unless you get it in one of very few useful subjects, none of which interest you in the least.
6)One night you will lie awake and come to the actualization that many people whom you have shared long talks with, whom you have cried with, or whom have seen you naked will have nothing in common with you anymore or live three thousand miles away from you. This will make you very very sad. You will try to move forward and focus on new people whom you will be able to share long talks with, cry on their shoulders and who will see you naked. But you will make sure they all remind you of the ones you have left/have left you behind.
7)Wasting years of your life doubting your sexuality will only make you shy and repressed. There is nothing better than having your gay best friend drag you to a Gay bar one night, and he wears an eighties wig while a drag queen show goes on all night and men wearing cowboy hats have sexual intercourse on the VIP room, to remind you that you are not as weird as you thought you were.
6) Most sex you have in your teens and twenties will be stupid. One day you will be sitting at a Diner with your friends and over coffee you will make a list of the people you have had sex with. You will forget someone. Only the forgotten name will not be constant, it will rotate, and you will wish you had known this earlier and spared yourself a lot of nights laying on the floor sleepless, crying into a telephone, swearing how some boy/girl will be the death of you and swearing it again in bad poetry.
7)Talking about your experiences as if you are experienced often gives the opposite effect.
8)You do not have to have a career or a house, never less a husband to start with the child-bearing operation. At the same time, you do not have to have published your first novel or signed your first record deal or had your first solo exhibit at the Met by the day you hit 18. It is best to not peak too early. Look at what happens to child actors; the rest of your life will just be spent hoping for a spot on an E! True Hollywood Story.
9)Just because everyone from your high school is currently learning how to perform triple bypass surgery or winning law suits while you wouldn't even trust yourself to use your toaster doesn't mean you are a failure. Really. (I'm not really that sure about this one though)
10) One day you'll meet someone who makes you want to do cartwheels and write dirty things in foreign languages on the insides of their arms. While meeting someone who makes you feel so fucking good is awesome, it will simultaneously magnify everyone else's shortcomings and you will get angry that they didn't do THIS or they didn't support THAT or they never cared about THIS because now someone DOES and before you just weren't brave enough to expect it.
11)Being fucked-up is not the only way to be interesting,i t is just the easiest.
12)Sympathy and caring are different words because they are different things.
You can just stay home.
2) High school doesn't matter, really. After you leave no one will ever know what grades you got or how much you skipped class or what your SAT scores were or whether or not you had anyone to sit with at lunch. No one will give a fuck if that stupid asshole everyone thought was so cool told you you were a lesbian or if no one ever asked you to a dance that you didn't even want to go to anyway because you hated everyone at your school and they all thought you were a lesbian, and you knew it would suck and you'd have no fun, but you wanted someone to ask you and you wanted to be the sort of person who had fun at dances even though you sort of hated the kinds of people who did.
3) High school is the worst time of human life and anyone who says differently is lying to you.
4)College is not that hard. College has many advantages over high school such as optional attendance and the abundance of weed for Philosophy majors and occasionally professors who are incredibly passionate about what they do, which can be contagious ( but at least high school was free.) Do not go to college if you don't know why the hell you are there, especially if it is a private school; college should not be a $25,000 daycare center. Go do something else. If nothing else let me tell you that working full-time for minimum wage and finding that the body can be sustained on a spaghetti-based diet will usually give you the inspiration you need to find some kind of direction.
5)A BA is an expensive piece of paper and nothing else unless you get it in one of very few useful subjects, none of which interest you in the least.
6)One night you will lie awake and come to the actualization that many people whom you have shared long talks with, whom you have cried with, or whom have seen you naked will have nothing in common with you anymore or live three thousand miles away from you. This will make you very very sad. You will try to move forward and focus on new people whom you will be able to share long talks with, cry on their shoulders and who will see you naked. But you will make sure they all remind you of the ones you have left/have left you behind.
7)Wasting years of your life doubting your sexuality will only make you shy and repressed. There is nothing better than having your gay best friend drag you to a Gay bar one night, and he wears an eighties wig while a drag queen show goes on all night and men wearing cowboy hats have sexual intercourse on the VIP room, to remind you that you are not as weird as you thought you were.
6) Most sex you have in your teens and twenties will be stupid. One day you will be sitting at a Diner with your friends and over coffee you will make a list of the people you have had sex with. You will forget someone. Only the forgotten name will not be constant, it will rotate, and you will wish you had known this earlier and spared yourself a lot of nights laying on the floor sleepless, crying into a telephone, swearing how some boy/girl will be the death of you and swearing it again in bad poetry.
7)Talking about your experiences as if you are experienced often gives the opposite effect.
8)You do not have to have a career or a house, never less a husband to start with the child-bearing operation. At the same time, you do not have to have published your first novel or signed your first record deal or had your first solo exhibit at the Met by the day you hit 18. It is best to not peak too early. Look at what happens to child actors; the rest of your life will just be spent hoping for a spot on an E! True Hollywood Story.
9)Just because everyone from your high school is currently learning how to perform triple bypass surgery or winning law suits while you wouldn't even trust yourself to use your toaster doesn't mean you are a failure. Really. (I'm not really that sure about this one though)
10) One day you'll meet someone who makes you want to do cartwheels and write dirty things in foreign languages on the insides of their arms. While meeting someone who makes you feel so fucking good is awesome, it will simultaneously magnify everyone else's shortcomings and you will get angry that they didn't do THIS or they didn't support THAT or they never cared about THIS because now someone DOES and before you just weren't brave enough to expect it.
11)Being fucked-up is not the only way to be interesting,i t is just the easiest.
12)Sympathy and caring are different words because they are different things.
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