One day when I was a senior in highschool, during my AP Music class, I got a call from the office. There was an emergency and my sister needed me to call her.
This was the problem: Melanie worked for LeAnn at the dance studio teaching the littlest kids, and she had to choreograph a dance for one of her classes (about 8 years old). The song LeAnn wanted her to use was You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile; they'd even picked out the costumes they wanted to use. The emergency? LeAnn wanted Melanie to show her the choreography by that evening; Melanie had gotten a lot of the dance but was stuck in a few parts, so she wanted my help. I didn't have any trouble getting checked out of school, so Melanie picked me up and we worked it out.
The way these little-kid song and dance routines work is usually like this: There's some music that's sung, so you try to do actions that match the words but still look like dancing. Then there's a middle, instrumental section that, in this case, would be tap-dancing; and then there's an end bit where the song is sung again. So we came up with a really cute routine for the singing parts; the tapping stuff would be easy to fill in later.
That night, after the regular classes were done, Melanie and I did our dance for LeAnn. She loved it. "This is too cute for little kids to wreck it!" LeAnn said. She wanted to do it herself, with Melanie and me. She chose a different song and choreographed a dance for Melanie's class herself, so that we could do Never Fully Dressed.
Since Melanie and I were both at the studio every night, we would just stay after classes for about half an hour and work on our dance with LeAnn. Together we choreographed the non-singing part, and figured out how to take our bows at the end. It was fun—and it was way cute! (Actually, I wish I had a video of it to post for you.) Anyway, it was a BIG secret; nobody else in the studio knew we were doing it. Even at the dress rehearsal we waited until everyone else had gone home before we practiced it on the stage. LeAnn went so far as to make up silly names for us to put on the programs: Tillie Thun daThize, Tara Ra-Boom-Deay, and Boris L. TaDeth; that way no one would know ahead of time who was doing this dance. (Although I suspect that when we actually performed it people figured out who we were. LeAnn would have been an obvious guess, Melanie was eight months pregnant, and I was very well-known at the studio too.)
I cannot possibly describe in words the amazing feeling of being on the stage, and the feeling of everyone loving you in that moment; it is like magic! The moment we entered the stage we were a big success; people were laughing, and the applause at the end was terrific. Magic! That was the most fun dance I've ever done!
This was the problem: Melanie worked for LeAnn at the dance studio teaching the littlest kids, and she had to choreograph a dance for one of her classes (about 8 years old). The song LeAnn wanted her to use was You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile; they'd even picked out the costumes they wanted to use. The emergency? LeAnn wanted Melanie to show her the choreography by that evening; Melanie had gotten a lot of the dance but was stuck in a few parts, so she wanted my help. I didn't have any trouble getting checked out of school, so Melanie picked me up and we worked it out.
The way these little-kid song and dance routines work is usually like this: There's some music that's sung, so you try to do actions that match the words but still look like dancing. Then there's a middle, instrumental section that, in this case, would be tap-dancing; and then there's an end bit where the song is sung again. So we came up with a really cute routine for the singing parts; the tapping stuff would be easy to fill in later.
That night, after the regular classes were done, Melanie and I did our dance for LeAnn. She loved it. "This is too cute for little kids to wreck it!" LeAnn said. She wanted to do it herself, with Melanie and me. She chose a different song and choreographed a dance for Melanie's class herself, so that we could do Never Fully Dressed.
Since Melanie and I were both at the studio every night, we would just stay after classes for about half an hour and work on our dance with LeAnn. Together we choreographed the non-singing part, and figured out how to take our bows at the end. It was fun—and it was way cute! (Actually, I wish I had a video of it to post for you.) Anyway, it was a BIG secret; nobody else in the studio knew we were doing it. Even at the dress rehearsal we waited until everyone else had gone home before we practiced it on the stage. LeAnn went so far as to make up silly names for us to put on the programs: Tillie Thun daThize, Tara Ra-Boom-Deay, and Boris L. TaDeth; that way no one would know ahead of time who was doing this dance. (Although I suspect that when we actually performed it people figured out who we were. LeAnn would have been an obvious guess, Melanie was eight months pregnant, and I was very well-known at the studio too.)
I cannot possibly describe in words the amazing feeling of being on the stage, and the feeling of everyone loving you in that moment; it is like magic! The moment we entered the stage we were a big success; people were laughing, and the applause at the end was terrific. Magic! That was the most fun dance I've ever done!
LeAnn, Melanie and Me
I love this picture; it always makes me smile—so I guess I am always fully dressed when I look at it. ;-)
4 comments:
I saw this dance. It was funny, clever, outrageous and so silly--the whole rest of the recital was so serious that this number made the show look like a jewelry store displaying a butternut squash.
And you SO upstaged Melanie and LeAnn! You are the biggest ham I ever saw.
No wonder I love you!
Bruce always did like ham. :-)
Since my mom was 8 months pregnant with me does that mean that I was a big success too and that everyone loved me as well? :)
I guess it does. :)
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