Image by Michael Piesbergen from Pixabay

I have been thinking about the topic of resilience all week.  Every day requires a new plan, while a pandemic forges forward, felling the human family in alarming numbers.

If I were still performing or teaching dance, I would have less choices in my response. Just stay home.

In Sedona’s world, this surfer girl in pointe shoes, her dance world, her high school,  would be closed. There would be few, and only local, surfers on the beach near her home.

She could still do her evening run with her black lab, but without her neighbor Laurence. At least not within six feet of her.

She would ruminate about how rich her family is, and how useless the guilt she feels about that is. Her family could barely get through a day without their long time housekeeper and skillful chef.

She is still a child, and would yearn for the fantastical world she experienced where such an illness would be swiftly overcome.

Below are some quotes from an article I read today, that sums up what I’ve been thinking all week. I don’t usually quote so much from others’ material, but it is perfectly expressed, so I will.

The full article is here in DANCE Magazine..

“During COVID-19, Dancers Must Reframe What It Means to Be Resilient

Mar 19, 2020

...”Broadway went dark, opera houses across the country were forced to shutter and dance studios started closing down.”…

…”Dance artists are resilient. We show up for work sick. We dance through pain. We rehearse when cities shut down for holidays and weather. We survive on meager wages. When one job falls through, we use creative immediacy to develop new opportunities. I have always been extremely proud of the resilient attributes of those who work in the dance field, until last Friday.”…

…”Dancers are taught from a young age to push through physical challenges. And we also develop a thick skin to help us deal with the emotional hurdles presented to us throughout our careers. But the challenge with the resilient dancer mindset is that we don’t always think through our expression of toughness beyond the world of dance. We urgently push through situations that others wouldn’t even consider, perhaps due to the urgency of our shorter careers.”…

I remember when I and another dancer Cindy Fisher, many years ago, performed with pneumonia and bronchitis, over a two week period.

Backstage, we placed cough drops in designated spots, so we could pop them in our mouths as soon as we ran off stage. We bought different colors so we wouldn’t get them mixed up. 

Because, no coughing like that backstage, right?

This week I go into the grocery store with a cough drop in my mouth. I have seasonal allergies and the pollen count is high.

I can just imagine the few folks in there scattering, if I were to break into a fit of coughing. I might be asked to leave!

We must shop, and some of us shop for others. We try to limit our outings. 

I wear gloves. I wipe down everything I take off the shelves. I have sprayed the shopping cart with rubbing alcohol. I tell the bag girl “don’t touch my stuff!” and bag the produce myself.

She looks offended. Sorry. 

I’m taking this food to someone who is always confined at home. We live in a town that doesn’t have a hospital – just a glorified ER unit. 

My health insurance company emailed me to stay home, with no offer of a test for this Covid 19 virus. They have mailed me other lab tests, unsolicited, which I view as great marketing, and ignore them. 

So where is my Covid 19 self-test? The lag in testing in the US, which I read described recently as “the first rich failed state”, is incomprehensible. The “we can do it better” attitude deplorably misplaced.

But that’s another topic. I wanted to share my thoughts about the resilience of dancers, and shared Barry Kerollis’ instead.

Thank you Barry.  

What I Did On My Summer Vacation 1960

The universal school task in September, right? 

In the many schools I attended, we were not given a book list to choose reading material from to read over the summer.

So we didn’t have to write a book report. This was because so many families moved, randomly, that such assignments were pointless.

In late August 1960 I and my friends – about half a dozen in the neighborhood – had been on the summer vacations with our families and returned.

We were now in that part of the summer when the vacay factor was wearing thin.

I got a couple of friends together and proposed we produce a dance show.

We didn’t have a theater. 

We each chose a three minute excerpt from a 78 vinyl record of Chopin Etudes. Piano music.

We began our choreography, with the space limitation in mind. We didn’t know exactly where our show would be performed.

Rehearsal Space

Rehearsals were in our basements. We rehearsed together, helping each other with ideas.

The basements were cool enough, yet we had light due to the highly placed tall windows with deep wells.

Costumes

I chose a simple practice tutu. The performance tutu my mom had made me, 24 layers of tulle, a boned on the inside and sequined on the outside piece, seemed way over the top for this event.

The practice tutu was black, and pulled on like a pair of pants, over black tights and a black leotard.

Out of a catalog. 

The part that mattered was the row of colored scarves tied along my arms, and a fan.

I was a fish, and the fan provided the underwater movement of rippling fins, as I moved slowly, turning, bending and rising.

My friend’s garage was the stage.

The door was pulled up by two helpful audience members. 

There were the two rows of bridge chairs, eight seats, waiting for the show.

Not a bad turnout for a hot summer afternoon. The lemonade was free, and cold.

The scratchy recording started. (The two dancers not on stage were the stage hands).

The sound was too low. I could hear the trucks on the nearby highway and the buzz of the small planes overhead.

I wasn’t looking forward to school starting the next week. So, the show was something O.K. to do.

Two weeks after school started, my family moved to a tiny town about an hour’s drive south of the big base.

There was no ballet teacher.

The next two years were a grind. 

What did you do on summer vacation when you were 10?

This account was a seven minute writing exercise at a Writers of Kern meeting.