On Dance – Intro (Hip Hop w/Chio at Broadway Dance Center)

A week ago Wednesday I took my first ever dance class, at the Broadway Dance Center in NYC.

I’m pretty coordinated when it comes to sports, simply because I’ve played them (a lot of them) my whole life. But when it came to dancing, I’ve always felt just plain dumb (physically).

So, being that I want to learn to master my body as much as possible for purposes of being a good actor, I enrolled in a beginner’s Hip Hop class.

The thing about these kinds of classes is, you really need to have someone legit teaching them, or you run the risk of feeling stupid (at least that’s how it works for me).

Chio, our teacher, was bloody brilliant. She had skills, she had style, and she had a dynamite personality.

And she was one of the most genuine people I’ve ever met. Which, right away, is pretty much the first thing I look for when I try to get a sense of who someone is. I’m not very particular when it comes to this and that, but if you’re genuine, and you’re passionate, and you have the courage to trust in and be yourself, you’ve already scored mega cool points with me. But I digress.

Most of all, she loved dancing, and that showed through every second we were there. Even before class started, she was leaning in against the window to observe the previous class’ choreography, like a kid ogling ice cream flavors.

Her choreography wasn’t spectacularly dumbed down, I don’t think (can’t really say, given my zero prior experience).

Her teaching style: drill-sergeant dictatorial, but affectionately so, and in an incredibly encouraging way. Every once in a while she would make fun of us with an exaggerated caricature of an imitation to illustrate how ridiculous our moves looked sometimes, but she’d always follow with an, “It’s gonna be okay. It’s gonna be okay.”

With simple instructions (sometimes incorporating street analogies) and temporarily isolated body motions, she broke it down for us.

I’m not gonna lie, I still sucked. Majorly. Dancing is incredibly difficult for me, and I think it’s because I think too much.

I live too much up in my head.



The writer in me is constantly noticing everything around me. I pick up the vibes, the individual struggles and triumphs, the flow of the session. And so on.

But with dancing, at a certain point it’s not about intellectualizing things, or finding a rational explanation that underlies it all. That’s largely useless, in fact.

Just dance.



Trust in your body’s intelligence, your body’s smarts. Remember, we are creatures of the mind, yes, but we’re also just animals, to some degree.

“You and me baby ain’t nothin’ but mammals

So let’s do it like they do on the Discovery Channel.”



-Bloodhound Gang

Alright, the subject matter is a bit different, but the point is there. Actually, if you’ve seen “Shall We Dance,” you might then make this connection:

“The rumba is the vertical expression of a horizontal wish. You have to hold her, like the skin on her thigh is your reason for living. Let her go, like your heart's being ripped from your chest. Throw her back, like you're going to have your way with her right here on the dance floor. And then finish, like she's ruined you for life.”



-Jennifer Lopez as hot dance teacher Paulina

I mean, it was a pretty absurd movie, but JLo did give some pretty good advice to lawyerly Richard Gere:

“Leave it. Leave the light. Don’t say anything. And don’t think…And don’t move, unless you feel it.”



You see? Sometimes we should shut up (verbally), shut down (mentally), and just express ourselves.

I believe dance holds enormous potential for helping people overcome depression. With this in mind, I've decided to start a series of posts on Dance, of which this is the introductory post. Check back in for more in the Dance series as I explore this potential, and as I (hopefully) learn how to dance!



Status update: I went back for my 2^nd class yesterday night, and I made exponential progress.

I still suck, significantly, of course.

-David

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