Tap Dancing and Other Failures

When Susanne attends her granddaughter's annual dance recital she recalls an earlier recital when she had wished she had practised more diligently and was as cute as the littlest performers.

Join her as she talks about oil boom days and Edwardian construction in this dance down memory lane. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Welcome to the Happy to Be Canadian Podcast. I'm Suzanne Spence Wilkins, a writer who lives in rural southwestern Ontario, Canada. Each week I share an original, very short story that will have you laughing and reflecting on the simple moments of our lives. Now, on to today's episode. Happy to be Canadian, episode 58. Tap Dancing and Other Failures. My granddaughter's dance recital was last Saturday. She is nine, so she's in the middle ages of the dancers. The event reminded me of a photograph. Even though I haven't seen it in years, it is embedded in my memory. In the picture, I'm close in age to what my granddaughter is now. I'm about to go inside for my dance recital. I can still feel the butterflies in my stomach. I'm wearing a costume that my mom had sewn to match the pattern given to all members of the tap dancing class. It is a two-piece outfit that shows about three inches of skin around my tummy and back. It's funny how all dancing outfits, no matter which decade they are worn in, push the boundaries of daily fashion. The sleeveless top comes to my midrift, and the bottom is a loose-fitting brief with an attached, very short ruffle skirt that encircles my hips. On my head is a cardboard tiara that has been covered with the same costume material. It is a shiny rich purple satin splashed with gold laminated polka dots, the size of dimes and nickels. I'm smiling with the caution of a prisoner going to their execution, but still wishing to be brave for the family. My arms are tight against my torso. I remember wishing that I had practiced my routine with more dedication. I'm standing in front of the Bothell Town Hall. The precise squareness of the bricks and straight lines of the mortar set it apart from the other familiar brick homes and buildings in the area. The hall hearkened back to more glorious days in the small town. Both was an oil boom town in the mid-1800s. There was plenty of opportunity as the town's population soared to 7,000 people, making it the biggest community in Kent County. But when demand for oil decreased after the cessation of the American Civil War and American owners felt threatened by unrest in the area, production dropped. Fires and more fires consumed the oil boom buildings until the town dwindled to under a thousand people. The town hall, built in 1915, looked like it was clinging to those days of early grandeur more than half a century after the boom had busted. Constructed during the Edwardian times, with its square symmetrical shape enhanced with columns, impressive porch entrance, and oversized rooftop moldings, the town was similar to many libraries, railroad buildings, and other public structures built in the first couple of decades of the twentieth century. The buildings with their many windows decorated above with oversized keystones let much more light inside compared to the Victorian structures. The hall, like many in prosperous towns, had a theater on the second floor. From the main entrance at the back of the hall, the floor sloped towards the stage at the front. Two aisles split the hundred and seventy seats into three sections. It was dark and smelled of being closed for most of the year. Every week we practiced our dance moves in a room on the lower level of the town hall, and then once a year we would rise up to the big underused theater on the top floor to present our annual accomplishments. I was thinking of how ominous it felt all those years ago while I was watching the young dancers this week. They ranged in age from about three to eighteen. Of course, everyone loves the little kids, no matter who they belong to. There is often one who is so stage struck that she cries and needs to be picked up by the instructor. Another one will know most of the dance steps, and a few more will watch her and be just a beat behind as they echo her moves. Others will make an occasional movement like a twirl or a clap or the jump at the end. A couple will stand still, staring out into the audience through the length of the song. Those are usually the two that run with joy to stage laugh when the music stops. All of the little dancers will receive a resounding round of applause. While the middle-aged dancers show lots of talent with their practice, diligence, and love of dance, they aren't quite as cute as the little ones. They try to follow the beat and be in sync with their compatriots. Most times they do, sometimes they don't. They do always gather together with exuberance at the end of their performance for their planned group pose. My granddaughter has explained to me that she doesn't like any dance routine that doesn't end with a pose. And I have to agree. The senior dancers have profited from years of practice and dedication. Legs flying backwards and forwards, splits in the air, somersaults, and fancy coordinated footwork are entertaining. Some of the moves made me wonder at what age do dancers lose that flexibility? There is probably a scientific formula for that, but I don't know what it is. Over the years, dancing lessons have changed. Today the styles the kids learn are lyrical, hip hop, and jazz. When I took lessons, there was tap and ballet, and for the older girls, jazz. Gloria Bondi School of Dance had a satellite locale in Bothwell. Gloria Bondi was a lifelong dancer. She was about 20 years old when she launched her namesake dance studio in Chatham in 1948. With all the babies being born, she was right on time to offer lessons in the small city and eventually other locations. She moved with grace among her students, only a few coming close to imitating her posture and movements. I wasn't one of them. And all these years later, I have retained the five basic positions for ballet, but could not string them together into a dance, nor can I think of any tamp dance combination other than shuffle ball change. I'm also older than the point when a young dancer's flexibility disappears. But I remember the thrill and the terror of stepping onto the stage in front of a packed house of parents and grandparents. And that is worth the donation price of admission to the annual dance recital. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Happy2Be Canadian. If you would like to receive an email each Saturday morning that features new short stories and more, you can sign up on my website, www.crazy8barn.com. If you would like to meet me in person and discover another way that we tell our rural stories, please join me at a Barn Quilt Painting Workshop at our beautiful eight-sided barn in Palmyra, Ontario, along the north shore of Lake Erie. You can find me on Facebook and Instagram at Crazy8 Barn. If you are an Apple podcast listener and enjoyed this podcast, I would appreciate it if you could leave me a favorable review. And that lets Apple know that Happy to Be Canadian is a valuable podcast and it shares it with other potential listeners. I'm Suzanne Spence Wilkins, and I'm Happy To Be Canadian.