Dance fever

Only six weeks until the recital and only five more classes to finish my dance! Yikes. I'm hoping I can teach the rest of it by next week. Oh I cringe just writing that. If I can at least teach it by then, though, we can spend the rest of our time cleaning it up. We're behind where I thought we would be by now, but the rest is easier. I'm finishing it with more walking and ripples to cut back on motions and to take up time. It should still be pretty cool once it comes together. At least, it looks that way in my head. I'm still surprised at some of the things that they think are difficult, but I'm trying to understand. Maybe I'll adjust something.

I went to the adult hip hop class tonight, which is so much fun! We're putting together a little dance to an old school Destiny's Child song called "Bugga Boo." Today we added one of my favorite hand gestures, "the phone" (not to be confused with my other favorite, "the finger"...okay, I don't actually use that one). There's a part in the song that says "You don't have to call as much as you do," and that's where the teacher put in the phone thing, twice! For real.

There's a chance that I'll make up the recital dance for the teachers and one of the adult dancers because the owner is pretty overwhelmed right now, but I haven't really volunteered yet. I would love to just make something up, no holds barred, and I could with the other two teachers...except that the other dancer from the adult class is pretty new to the whole thing. Once again, I would have to hold back a little. It's sort of frustrating because I would otherwise actually be able to create a dance that I would not be forced to simplify in some way.

Ha, maybe I'll do a solo...um, no. I don't think I will ever be able to do that. When I'm dancing with at least a couple other people, I can pretend that everyone is watching them the whole time. Wait a minute, what am I even doing on a stage, ever? I don't even like being looked at as I casually walk down the street or whatever. Well, go figure.

P.S. A new study finds that certain species of parrot and even one species of elephant can keep time and move with the music. Scientists recently proposed that vocal mimicry is the key to this ability. For both mimicry and dance, you're listening to a sound and constantly monitoring both your output (the vocal sounds you make or the tapping of your foot) and the sound coming in through your ears. The data suggests that some of the brain mechanisms needed for human dance originally evolved to allow us to imitate sound...I'm a bit confused, though, because it did not explain why some people with the ability to talk could not hear or move to a beat if their lives depended on it. :-/