Animated pieces of rubber surgical tubing

I went back to the Wednesday studio tonight -- wow, it was packed. Miss Noodle was absent, but there were several more pasta-girls to take her place, and as I was watching combinations and waiting for my turn I noticed that the noodle thing is kind endemic to the studio. So I started taking closer note of the teacher. She's a noodle type too; better technique of course, but there's this squirmy, wiggly thing going on there.

When I was a teenager, our local free weekly paper had a review of Flashdance (remember, I'm over forty) that ran as long as the movie was playing in town, and since I grew up in Seattle, and it rains all the time, people watch a lot of movies and popular movies could play for six, seven months. So I remember this review very clearly, because I read it every week as I was being a little bun-headed poser in a coffee shop near Cornish (my ballet school). It went something like this:

An animated piece of rubber surgical tubing works in a factory, but only wants to dance, dance, dance, which for no discernible reason, she is permitted to do.

That "animated piece of rubber surgical tubing" bit cracked me up, weekly, at the time, and it floated to the surface of my memory as I was watching one particularly limber lass busta move tonight. It's a funny style, so unlike the strait-laced thing I grew up with and also that I still think of as being "good" ballet. But it has its attraction.

 I have a theory about it, too: a lot of these gals are "contemporary" or "lyrical" dancers and a lot of them have also done a ton of hip-hop, etc., and those particular genres of dance, with their competitions and their dance squads and so forth, really emphasize insane flexibility and a kind of acrobatic virtuosity. Then, if you watch a more "modern" classical ballet company, like NYCB, you notice that their dancers also have these super-dramatic gestures that exaggerate classical forms. Thus, allonge is super extended, hips and shoulders out of square, and my favorite is the move that looks sort of like you're ripping off your shirt as you carry your arms from first to en haut. Of course, when Wendy Wheelan or Sara Mearns does it, it's elegant, restrained, just a hint of the mannerism that gives flavor and style, but when most of us amateurs try it on, it goes all crazy for us.

I think it's pretty obvious I'm a bit of a ballet snob. Not that I think I'm all that as a dancer (look, I'm just doing this for fun at this point, girls), but rather I've watched a lot of ballet and I've formed my taste over many years and many performances by many dancers, and what I've come to think is that the technique is what keeps ballet from descending into utter silliness. When I'm in class, I'm thinking about form all the time, not in the mean way I used to when I was a kid, but in a kind of analytical, exploratory way -- I think I learned that approach from all those years of yoga, which taught me to listen to my body rather than to try to just boss it around. That's what keeps it from getting boring and/or frustrating, I think. And when I pay to see ballet, I want to see dancers who are just there, completely channeling the classical form, even if they're asking their bodies to do things that aren't standard steps or gestures. And a lot of this lyrical/contemporary stuff lacks that core. Not all of it, by any means. Just a lot.

So what fascinates/concerns me about Noodle Studio is how mannerism (in the art historical sense -- not only am I over forty, but I am an art history professor, so you'll have to deal with my jargon, I guess) seems to be the style, rather than an element of style added to the mix.

I must say, it's really fun. And while I am regrettably dissimilar to rubber surgical tubing, I like when for no discernible reason I get to just dance dance dance!