Global Writing Challenge 07.2026: Dance

 

Hello dollies, and thank you for stopping by.  It is the second Thursday of the month which means it is time for another installment in the Global Writing Challenge.  Glad you are here!!

This month's prompt  - 💃dance💃 - was suggested by Suzy at SuzyTurner.com. She will be sharing why dancing has meant so much throughout her life, and how one night on the dance floor changed everything forever.

I look forward to seeing the creative responses she and the other members of the Global Writing Challenge group come up with.  

When Marsha was teaching, her students would beg her not to sing (she still did).  But, when it came to dancing, they were all for it.  I mean, who doesn’t want to see their teacher make a complete fool of herself?  Please find Marsha’s post here, https://marshainthemiddle.com to discover all the goofy things she and her class used to do!

Sally discusses why she can play music but she can't dance to it.  You can visit her at https://www.withinaworldofmyown.com.

For this prompt, Cat talks about her ambivalent feelings about dancing.  She blogs at https://catswire.blogspot.com/.

Amy writes at https://coffeeandcocktailsatthecasa.com/.  You can check out her dance post there.

And Deb at https://debs-world.com/ is taking a brief blogging break while she enjoys vacation adventures with family. 

Tell Us About:  Dance

One of my earliest memories revolves around dance - ballet, to be specific.  Actually, I am not so sure that I remember the event as much as I have seen a blurred black and white photo or watched a few seconds clip of one of my dad's home videos.  

Daddy-Daughter Date 

I was about 2 at the time and we were living in Buffalo, New York.  In my mind's eye, it was winter and there was a Buffalo blizzard of snow on the ground.  

But it might just as well have been spring.  

For that matter, there could be 3 feet of snow on the ground mid-spring upstate New York.  Was born on Easter Sunday in 1958 in the middle of such a snow storm.

I 'remember' my dad coming home from work.  Just pulling the car up to the curb in front of the house.  And my mom (and maybe my Grandma (maternal) Rosebrough holding my hand as we walked down the driveway to meet him.  

Mom had told me that Daddy was going to take me somewhere very special - just the 2 of us.  So when we met him at the car, Daddy told me we were going to the ballet together.  Just he and I.  A daddy-daughter date - long before they were even a thing.

This may or may not be a photo from that day.  But I think it likely is - no snow, however. It seems my parents were capturing a special occasion in this snapshot.  I have a feeling my mom was pregnant with my baby sister Valerie at the time - we are two years apart - and due to deliver in just a few week's time.  Which would explain why she didn't accompany us to the ballet.  

The ballet was actually just a special activity between my dad and me.  My mom didn't share our enthusiasm for this form of entertainment.  I wish before my father died, I had asked him what ballet we saw that evening.  Perhaps I did and I just don't remember the answer.  Can I say we saw "Cinderella" as it has always been one of my favorite fairy tales?

I remember my mom always saying that my dad was so proud of how well I behaved throughout the performance.  Wasn't I such a big girl!

Dancing Through Life

Have continued to love ballet and all forms of dance since toddlerhood.  I took ballet lessons in Boston in elementary school, in Memphis in high school and in Knoxville in college.  I was always terribly shy, though, and as soon as we would begin practicing for a recital, I would want to drop out of class.  To that end, I never graduated to en pointe.  But, oh, how I would have loved to have danced in toe shoes.

In the photo below, I am about 9 and probably in 4th grade.  Notice I am standing in 3rd position.

Even today - often in the shower or standing in line somewhere - I will go through the five positions of the feet in ballet.  I pride myself in some pretty impressive turnout even now at 68 years-old.

As a tween and then a teen, I 'secretly' adored musicals and the scores from "Oklahoma" and "My Fair Lady" and "Funny Girl."  My all-time favorite would have to be "West Side Story."  I would take my parents' albums from all the Broadway musicals of the late 60s-early 70s to listen to on my Sears record player.  Oh, to be Maria in "West Side Story" for just one day!!  But, of course, that would mean having to overcome my dread of performing on stage in front of a live audience.

As a single mom in the 80s and again in the early 2000s, one of my favorite sayings was "I'm dancing as fast as I can."  Not sure if I picked it up from the bestselling book by that name by author Barbara Gordon.  Or if I heard it quipped by another equally busy, equally frazzled mom.  On days when I just couldn't go any more or any faster, I felt like I was dancing as fast as I could.

Canadian-born, American-based, feminist, cubist artist Miriam Schapiro titled her 1984 work below, "I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can."  Can't say that I had seen the painting way back then but I can certainly related to its frenetic energy and vivid colors.

[source]

How many times have I felt like the ring master and all of the acts at the circus rolled into one.

Dance Today

Sadly, PC doesn't dance. I think his brief square-dance instruction in his Christian elementary school P.E. class about did him in.  That, and his strict Baptist upbringing.  He isn't opposed to dance but just doesn't want to participate.  

We have taken country line dancing classes together several times but have never taken our twinkle toes out on the dance floor.  Maybe someday.  I keep saying that one night I am going to ask Alexa to play Journey's "When the Lights Go Down in the City" and grab PC's hand to lead him out onto the dance floor of our kitchen.

At Christmas about 5 years ago, Lauren's husband Francisco invited us to attend "The Nutcracker" ballet with their family.  It has now become a holiday tradition.  I am spellbound during the entire performance and so are Lucia and Camila.  We always dance in the courtyard afterward.

Dancing Darlings

These days I delight in the dancing of all of my grandangels.  They all have a keen sense of rhythm and a great set of moves.  Even Declan can really cut a rug.  

Of the 4, Cadence is the only grandchild to take dance.  Oh, how I loved seeing her in that ballet pink leotard and tights.  

And boy, oh, boy, could Brennyn fix her ballet buns.

Before Cadence stopped taking ballet, I had some pointe shoes decorated for her bedroom by a sweet friend and former ballerina, Patricia Johnson-Vierra.    

Aren't they magnificent?  Oh, to have danced on such beautiful shoes.  Patricia decorated a pair for me, too.  I have them on display in my loft hanging with the last pair of my own ballet shoes.

Lucia and Cami love to dance, too.  For almost every birthday, Cami asks for a new tutu and leotard.  And after every year's "The Nutcracker," she says she is going to start ballet lessons.  But hasn't yet.

You might remember that we had our first sleepover together, Lucia, Cami, PC and I, last month.  One of the girls favorite things to do when they visit is to have me put their favorite singers on YouTube on our bedroom TV and then they dance and dance.  

Sometimes, even Gabba dances, too.  

When I am feeling carefree and silly, I do this little dance that looks almost like I am galloping.  For some reason, PC gets a kick out of it and now and then he'll ask me to do my dance.  I haven't done it in quite awhile.  Maybe tomorrow I will surprise him with a jig.

Your Turn

Last night at this time, I had no idea what I was going to write for this post.  Had planned to maybe base my response to the prompt on this quote about Ginger Rogers.

But almost without my knowing, my fingers started typing a post that went in another direction.  Would still like to do a post on this quote.  It is so very true.  

Remember, Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in high heels.

~Bob Thaves, cartoonist

 

So tell me true, are you a dancer?  As a child did you take dance lessons of some sort?  How did you feel about being on stage for recitals?  The idea still scares me to death!!

PC and I have escaped again for another fishing getaway.  This time in the Gila National Forest, New Mexico.  Which reminds me, I need to write up the last posts about our trip to London and Edinburgh.  

Thank you for joining me today.  Hope you will pop in to visit the other gals writing to this Global Writing Challenge.  I guarantee if you do, you are in for a treat.

Hugs and kisses,

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