March 27, 2002

My HNRS 203: The Human Situation class is very special. Because it's an honors class, we don't study art so much as make it. This is because we learn best by hands-on activities. If you don't believe me, I'm sure you can find an education grad student's dissertation that proves it beyond a reasonable doubt.

Thus, instead of merely studying such things as “Rococo paintings,” we actually paint, sometimes on windows. And, instead of studying “dance,” we actually dance. Or, pretend to dance and hope nobody's watching. That's what I was proudly doing when we had our dance experience in the Reynolds Communication Center this past Tuesday.

The room that was selected had everything necessary for a dance experience – a bar just high enough to keep you from getting your heel over it, a large wooden floor covered in an interesting variety of dust and lint, a CD player capable of blasting “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” at volumes normally reserved for air-raid sirens, and, of course, a large wall-length mirror installed by the university specifically for showing people like me how silly we look when we try to grand plié.

The fun began innocently enough – we were instructed to remove our shoes and place them in a large pile in front of the door so that no one could escape. Then, we each took a place at the bar, except that I was the last person to get a space, so I had to go all the way to the “other bar” on the opposite wall, where it was dark and lonely and had the skeletal remains of males who had tried to perform an arabesque still clutched to the bar. Fortunately, a few other students had mercy on me (were instructed by the teacher) and joined me there so I wasn't so conspicuous.

Now, let me describe this girl, who we'll call “Julia,” who had the difficult task of transforming awkward and graceless honors students into awkward and graceless honors students with severe leg cramps. I say “girl” because even though she discussed the numerous times she had changed majors she looked like she couldn't have been older than 14. However, don't get me wrong. She had the energy of a preschooler. She talked fast, demonstrating dance steps with incredible rapidity after explaining that she would “go real slow” so we could get it. I guess it might appear “real slow” if you were a hummingbird. However, to understand how I felt, just imagine yourself as a three-toed sloth, you know, those animals that cling to a tree and reach for a piece of fruit while the sun and moon alternatingly race through the sky at 700 mph. Then imagine that you have a really bad leg cramp, and “Jamiroquai” is playing. That's how about I felt.

The routines were simple. We first went over three of the five standard ballet positions. In first position, you place your heels together and splay your toes out like a pigeon. (But you have to keep your butt tucked in or you might look silly.) In second position, you plant your heels about shoulder-length apart, but keep your toes splayed out. In fifth position, you try desperately to figure out what Julia's doing then fall over.

Then, after the rest of the class had the positions mastered (immediately), it was time to plié, which can only be done properly in italics. If you don't know, a plié is a dance move in which you bend your knees while keeping the rest of your body absolutely upright, all making it look as effortless as falling asleep in “Architecture & Assembler.” (Just so you know, the word plié is French for “intense thigh pain.”) I learned that there are two kinds of pliés: the demi plié, in which you go down partway, and the grand plié, in which you go down until you hear your quadriceps make a painful snapping sound. We did something like 32 of these things, after which Julia would remark, “Wow, I feel like I'm cheating y'all. When I was doing dance I would do 12 billion of these every morning and here we are only doing 32!”

Naturally, there was a chorus of “No, that's all right, really” from all the various male people. Except for Suzi's boyfriend, who had come to watch but not participate, and so spent most of the time laughing hysterically.

The grand finale of all this was a short piece of choreography involving cryptic instructions such as “around the barrel,” “sashey,” and finally, “run run run run run LEAP!” The leap part was the best, because there wasn't enough room to really do it properly, unless you wanted to go flying into all the spectators positioned precariously at the end of the room. Fortunately for Suzi's boyfriend, several people did, in fact, want to.

Having exacted the necessary punishment from us, she allowed us to take our shoes from the door and leave in peace, reminding us to stretch before we went to sleep. I remarked softly to myself that I would be fortunate to make it back to the dorm room before I went to sleep.

And that's how my dreams of becoming the next Mikhail Baryshnikov were stomped into the floor. I'm sure if you'd been there, you would agree that ballet is not my thing. I know the unfortunate people in front of me after “run run run run run run run LEAP!” certainly do.