I'm the one with the broken arm. Which, I should add, I sustained while horsing around outside a dance studio in suburban NY with a friend's little sister (not pictured.) Obviously, this did not keep me out of the recital. I also kept the costume far past the time I grew out of it (though wisely ditched the hair bow. I know it was the 70s, but come on, giant madras plaid hair bow? Bleh.) because, hey, sparkly tutu. Even at that age, I had my priorities straight. This is also photographic proof that my DH is indeed correct - I am part Weeble...and I digress.
While it is true that every episode of Dancing With the Stars or So You Think You Can Dance gives me a serious case of wanting to be a twentysomething professional dancer, having a heroine who is exactly that in my time travel ms is the closest I'm going to get to that aspiration. Though I do recall the fellow audience member at the SYTYCD third season tour who asked if my buddy and I were dancers...but then again, we were close enough to ascertain that said audience member had found the bar as well as the barre, so nuff said there.
The beginnings of my interest in dance probably began at the age of three days (I have no idea if my biological mother got her frug on while I was in utero) when my parents brought me home. Since NYC has the most dancers per capita in the world, maybe I breathed in something at that tender age. Also, the building we lived in then was home to several retired entertainers. More likely, it comes from my father, who was prone to cutting a rug at very slight provocation. As soon as I got big enough, he drafted me. As in I remember being in a movement class when I was in preschool. I also remember an argument with another student (we had to work in pairs) about whether our routine should include arm flapping (I was pro, she was con.)
Lessons continued throughout elementary school, the good ol' ballet/jazz combination, "jazz" meaning "tap," as did my drafting as Dad's partner. Because Dad's style of instruction was extremely intuitive, it wasn't until I started watching the dance shows that I had any idea what specific moves and even some dances were called. It was only later in Dad's life that he shared with me that as a young man, he'd wanted to become a professional dancer at one point but his father strongly discouraged that. Which only proves one needn't be a pro to have fun. Good lesson there. Seeing A Chorus Line live on Broadway during a school trip also had an impact and quite possibly had the very first seed of my dancer character starting to form.
All of that is the long way of answering my own question with: because I like it.
Also because I like it (and I'd feel guilty for posting without a clip) the other video from The Guild. Dancing may not be the main focus in this one, but it does make me happy.
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