Professional Dancer

I won’t be adding it to my resume any time soon, but I got paid to dance! An acquaintance of the dance studio wanted line-dancers to shoot a music video. I love line dancing, but I’m terrible at learning them and remembering them.

It was originally choreographed at single-time, which was very, very fast. She re-timed it at half-time, which was much easier. It’s also the only reason we could do so many takes. The single-time version would have had us all passed out on the ground after the fifth time through.

One surprising thing: After a few kicks, there is this box thing (“jazz diamond”, iirc). I found it difficult and complained that I hated it. The Laird pointed out that my steps were too big, which was why I couldn’t get it done in time. I also thought to myself, “I wonder if I’m sabotaging myself by hating this step?” I changed its description in my head from “that horrible box thing” to “that cool step that I have the privilege to learn.” Suddenly, I had no problem with it. Weird, eh?

On line dancing: I like almost everything that has a group of humans doing something aesthetic and coordinated. We’re such unruly and ungainly creatures, that watching a group of people do something together is just neat. Orchestras stun me – they not only look coordinated, they sound coordinated. It’s amazing.