Tuesday, August 21, 2007
As The Twig Is Bent, So Grows The Tree
There was a show in July where, for some reason or other, while I tapped away during our closing number of Act One, I fell on my ass. I wasn't even doing one of the more dangerous steps. I think I was doing a slow two foot turn, but down I went. It was shocking and humiliating, but I bounced back up as quickly as I fell and, other than a deep scarlet blush, I was fine. It just so happened that my Artistic Director, a man I greatly admire, was in the audience that night. After the show, to ease my embarassment, he kindly said to me "if nothing else, your dance teachers from childhood would be proud how quickly you rebounded and didn't let it phase you". I thought of her then. Doris Sitter. The woman who was primarily responsible for teaching me that the show must go on.
When I think of Doris, I see her standing in that space just off the stage left wing in the Peacock Auditorium, that space that was just about as wide as her body and was almost facing the stage. She would stand there during competition and watch her student's solos, a constant presence, smiling and supportive. It was both unnerving and helpful to have her there, watching over me. I wanted to badly to make her proud.
I also remember attending my first modern dance class after I moved to Toronto for college. The teacher was a wacky woman and her movements, so foreign to me, seemed ridiculous. What got me through was my memory of Doris' explaining modern dance to all of us one day in class when I was about 10. "Modern dance", she explained plainly, "was invented by people that failed at ballet."
Her strength and independance and grace was a more invaluable gift for myself to have recieved as a young girl than all the medals in the world. Too often I forget this, even when each sequin I get paid to wear and each shuffle step I get paid to do, was because of her. And I know that even though she has the air of a person that will never die, she isn't actually going to live forever, except within those moments that I fall in front of an audience to only get back up and keep on tappin'...
...without ever, once, losing my smile....
and there she will be, there she always has been. Thank you Mrs. Sitter.
When I think of Doris, I see her standing in that space just off the stage left wing in the Peacock Auditorium, that space that was just about as wide as her body and was almost facing the stage. She would stand there during competition and watch her student's solos, a constant presence, smiling and supportive. It was both unnerving and helpful to have her there, watching over me. I wanted to badly to make her proud.
I also remember attending my first modern dance class after I moved to Toronto for college. The teacher was a wacky woman and her movements, so foreign to me, seemed ridiculous. What got me through was my memory of Doris' explaining modern dance to all of us one day in class when I was about 10. "Modern dance", she explained plainly, "was invented by people that failed at ballet."
Her strength and independance and grace was a more invaluable gift for myself to have recieved as a young girl than all the medals in the world. Too often I forget this, even when each sequin I get paid to wear and each shuffle step I get paid to do, was because of her. And I know that even though she has the air of a person that will never die, she isn't actually going to live forever, except within those moments that I fall in front of an audience to only get back up and keep on tappin'...
...without ever, once, losing my smile....
and there she will be, there she always has been. Thank you Mrs. Sitter.
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