Monday, May 28, 2007

One Day We Shall Look Back on This, and I Shall Blame You

The season of shame is over. With summer’s advent we say goodbye to that most dreaded of events - those two hours when every sane parent prays for an asbestos scare or a teamster strike – that one scheduled activity that may haunt us and our progeny forever – summer is when we say goodbye to the Dance Recital.

The Dance Recital is as close as most of us will ever get to structured child abuse, and we should all be ashamed. Every late spring we find ourselves, ninety minutes early, clutching a bouquet of cheap flowers in noisy cellophane, depositing the grandparents in seats just close enough to see movement and color but far enough away not to notice the kiddie burlesque abomination about to unfold in front of them, while we wrestle with a video camera from 1993 with the detachable sound cone and boom mike. Meanwhile, your wife is trying to wrestle your daughter into some sort of taffeta sequined ball gown chopped at the knees and staple a plastic bowler on the bewildered kid’s sweaty head. You stay safely away, knowing your child’s muffled cries from beneath the non-breathable fabric will only fill you with more guilt.

Then, the lights go down, the music comes up and you glance at the program to see what this year’s theme is. But it won’t really matter because there are only so many ways you can tie together Thursday’s Hip Hop III Advanced with Monday’s Pre-K Fish Hop and Tumbleriffic class. Oddly, both work perfectly in such annual themes as “Dance Around the World,” “Dancin’ USA,” and “All Growed Up! Look at Me!”

The dancers’ names and outfits may change year after year, but every dance recital has the same cast – the fish-eyed kid who’s got to be hiding gills underneath that spangly top and jazzy skirt; or the tarted-up 8th grader who does a pre-dance pole routine while all the dads immediately distract themselves by the expiration date on their camera’s batteries. Nothing like staring at the ceiling while AC/DC’s “You Shook Me” blares over the auditorium’s speakers – you know just one glance at the stage and you’ll either turn to salt or take one huge step closer to becoming just like your pervy uncle Clint, who’s probably in the balcony right now filming the routine for posterity. Or the three-year old with the thousand-yard stare who has no business being in public much less in a poodle skirt and bobbie socks in front of hundreds of strangers. She’s been there since dawn, with the other polka dot chain gang, and she’s consumed twice her weight in Sour Patch Kids and mini Krackle bars. Just as the music starts for her first number, Our Little Pumpkin gets shoved onstage, stares offstage while every adult points and yells at her, and then, mercifully, Pumpkin is yanked off by the dance instructor’s assistant, who patrols the stage like a Stalag 17guard.

Or the chubby kid who is, by far, the best dancer in the building but those peanut cluster bars taste sooo good after practice that you really can’t blame her. Or the poor jug-headed child with ears the size of manhole covers – sadly, no neon sunbonnet or tribal headdress will hide those appendages, and the crowd gasps whenever the child leaps, fearing she’ll take flight, those enormous wings on her head lifting her to the rafters. No dance recital would be complete without the little girl who just doesn’t have the beat, stumbling around like she’s had a few shots backstage, only the stiff tautness of the gold-lacquered bodice stretched across her belly keeping her from hitting the floor and staying there until “Natural Woman” ends and the guards drag her offstage.

Each dance is relentless in it persistent howl of bizarre mediocrity, and I find myself praying for Albanian separatists to burst through the doors, ready to take us all hostage – but they’d see the lack of rhythm, the ill-fitting costumes and the torturous interpretation of Hall and Oates’ “Maneater” and they’d hightail it out of there, their grenades and dignity still firmly intact.

There are some in the audience who seem to really be enjoying themselves – the same parents who never miss the new Kidz Bops CD and who think nothing of car windows slathered in stickers. There’s no doubt that if you’re cruising down the highway, cranking “Banana Phone” your lateral vision obscured by the many moods of My Pretty Pony, you can’t wait for Dance Recital season.

Another truth of these events is how often the dance instructors find themselves onstage as well. OK, we get it! You Love Dance! That’s why we drag our kids to your studio next to the GNC store at the mall near Osco Drug – because you love it so much. But do you need to find yourself in the middle of every other routine? Maybe you should stop shouting from the wings – you’re no better than the little league coach who tells every kid what to do on every pitch and batted ball. “Step two and shake your bum,” “Throw it to second base. SECOND BASE!” “Hop step two and sashay. Sashay! Come ON!” "Listen! Why won't you LISTEN?"

“Hey Mickey” followed by “Sea Cruise” followed by “Let’s Get This Party Started” followed by the theme song from The Aristocats . . . I’m sure this recital is being simulcast in Purgatory, and as the adults come out for the final dance – usually an awkward tap dance with our brave dance instructor and academy owner/operator leading the charge front and center – it strikes me. The only reason we’re doing this is because there are seven or eight grown women who won’t let go. They loved dance so much as children that they’ve created an entire universe in support of their habit – a universe filled with weekly lessons, absurdly priced outfits, cheap flowers, video cameras and gaudy lipstick, not to mention shoes, sequins, hairspray, leotards and a DVD to relive this horror any time we want. No one ever told them they really didn’t have any rhythm and that unless you’re on Broadway, sweetie, them tap shoes ain’t good for nothin’ but killing bugs. Just like the psycho soccer dads, loony hockey moms and third base coaches from hell, these people are doing this for themselves. The kids are just a means to an end. And if that entails you forking over hundreds of dollars and dragging your kid to lessons twice a week for 47 weeks a year while Pumpkin covers every last free space on that backseat window with a Strawberry Shortcake sticker, then so be it – that’s really your problem to handle – just don’t be tardy picking Pumpkin up or it’s a $15 late charge.

Well, I think my daughter’s done with dance. Sure, she’ll miss it a bit next fall, but by the time spring rolls around and she’s outside with mud in her toes and sun on her face, she’ll barely remember the forced labor two-step jamboree we made her endure last year. But, if in twenty years, as we find ourselves in a shouting match over Thanksgiving dinner, our little girl blaming the dance recital and our ignorance for her shortcomings as she shouts about how her Beachside Tabouli Shack business model would work if we’d only never let her dance in a recital, at least we’ll have the DVD.