My earliest and most sustained ambition was to be a dancer — specifically a ballerina. After five years of childhood dance lessons, I realized I was no good at learning steps. Many years later, I identified my disability as a very poor capacity for kinesthetic learning; my brain simply could not observe a teacher doing dance steps and translate the same movements to my own body.
My inability to learn dance steps has always seemed like a cruel joke of nature, and there’s still a tiny part of me that feels as though I was meant to be a dancer, but my body and brain won’t cooperate. I probably could have confronted my disability; after all, I’ve seen auditions and performances of dancers who are deaf, who are amputees, who have scoliosis. But I didn’t, so it seems unlikely at my advancing age that I will ever be a dancer.
But I love dance and gravitate toward watching dance as entertainment. I’ve written before about my love of the reality dance competition “So You Think You Can Dance” (in fact, now that I look back, I see I also wrote about my dance ambitions and kinesthetic learning deficiencies). This show has a level of heart and authenticity that separates it from many other reality competition shows.
One indicator of how special this show is: Its personnel have initiated today’s National Dance Day, a day to get people moving and appreciating dance. Popular show choreographers Tabitha and Napoleon (a.k.a., NappyTabs) even designed a dance number that the masses could learn and perform for today’s celebration.
So what does all this have to do with story? Most of the dance numbers choreographers give contestants to perform on the show have a story behind them, and the judges to a large extent evaluate the numbers based on how successfully the contestants communicate the story. When the numbers have no story behind them, they are, in my opinion, less successful and memorable. Last night, show judge Adam Shankman, a director and choreographer, told one contestant to let the story drive the dance — that keeping the story in mind as he danced would inform and enhance his dancing.
The stories behind the contestants — and how much the audience knows about those stories — often play a strong role in how successful they are in the competition. This year’s most popular dancer, for example, is Kent, a hayseed from a tiny Ohio farming town — who dances like a god. Two winners in recent years have been street dancers with little formal training. A contestant who is a favorite with the judges and a wonderful dancer is less popular with viewers because we learned very little about his backstory during the audition phase of the competition.
Today I celebrate National Dance Day and the show that inspired it, as well as the dancer deep within me — and all the stories that propel dance into the dazzling art form it is.