"How, exactly, do you do that?" they ask..."We're dancers", we respond...But really, I prefer to think of us as graceful ninjas. Amongst our many skills, we excel at appearing superhuman in gym class and performing one person flash mobs down the grocery aisle. But that's not all we can do...
1. We can speak in foreign tongue.
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We don't speak french, yet we do. We speak French, but we don't. Enter any Ballet class and you'll hear us speak in terms far fancier than common conversation. You should know that when we coin the terms "assemblé" and "frappé", we aren't asking the barista to make us an iced beverage of caffeinated goodness. But you should also know that if we traveled to Paris without a French lesson, the only place we'd survive is the studio :)
2. We've forgotten life before flexibility.
Ask any dancer how much time it's taken to achieve their flexibility, and the answer will likely be "many, many years". Ask them if it hurts to perform said movements and the answer will surely be "no". The only problem is, we've been practicing for so long we've forgotten what life was like before flexibility. So forgive us for executing an extension while grabbing food from the fridge. Pardon us as we stand upon pointed toes to reach the sugar on the top shelf. Old habits die hard, you see.
3. We can keep a smile...FOREVER.
Here's the inside scoop, plain and simple: dance only appears easy because we've trained for years to make it look that way. In reality, we are masters of disguise. At any given moment, the bright smiles upon our faces could be inspired by a culmination of things; the sudden adrenaline rush, our love of dance...You'd never know the difference between that smile, the one hiding our exhaustion and the one exposing the Vaseline on our teeth. Like I said: art of deception, masters of disguise.
4. We alter time perceptions.
No, your ears are not fooling you, you have indeed arrived at intermission. How quickly time flies! Those sixty minutes may as well have been five! Where did the time go? I'll tell you where it went: you were distracted by that dancer who just exited and returned not ten seconds later in a new costume with different hair.
5. We can give you goosebumps.
Even as dancers, we can't quite put a finger on it...there's just something about hitting that pose, with perfect musicality, that sends shivers down the audiences' spine; something about executing thirty-two consecutive fouetté turns that leaves you speechless. Little do you know that performing for you has an identical effect. There's just something about doing what we love everyday and sharing our gift with the world that really exposes the magic of dance. Woah...I just got goosebumps.
