Before there was ballet and soccer and ice skating, there was tap. Almost every kid in the 50s and 60s, boys and girls alike, took a tap class and my sisters and I were no exception. We went to a small dance studio in Brooklyn called "Tip Tap Toe" [groan] and danced to period favorites like "Ballin' the Jack". (Even in my brief period of innocence, something about that title sounded dirty to me)
While my sisters continued on, I eventually said the six-year-old's equivalent of "screw that noise" and quit. I must have known that my parents would drag out the 16mm reels year after year to howl at my sisters in their various recitals replete with ridiculous satin and tulle costumes.
Apparenly not permanently scarred by that particular humiliation, my eldest sister decided to start taking tap again this past year. When I went to visit her in February I watched her in class and I was impressed!! She did great. I took a video and this is a still from it:
This past weekend, she went to visit my mother for Mother's Day and demonstrated the routine that she will be doing in a recital on June 1st. My mother watched attentively for the entire 10 minutes (an accomplishment in itself), and then said "Cute. Don't quit your day job."
No comments:
Post a Comment