Bum bum bumbahdahdum, la la la la la laaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh laaaaaaahh goes Tchaikovsky. It is the second time this week that I find myself watching the nutcracker while the little girl I nanny for twirls and jumps in front of the screen. The snowflakes grande jete perfectly across the snow and then relevé up onto one toe in a perfect arabesque. What is the obsession that some little girls have with ballet? “Rachie,” I ask, “why do you like this movie so much?” Rachel leaps over to me and then says “I like all the costumes, my favorites are the candy canes. I also like the chocolate dancers and the Chinese tea dancers because when they come out on stage he comes out of a box and jumps really high. But I would want to be the Sugar Plum Fairy because she tells the story. When she dances everyone watches her because they can tell she knows a lot and she tells them all the things she knows about by dancing it all.”
A few days later I asked my friend, a dance major at UCSD, some questions.
Q: How does dance compare with other art forms like literary works, paintings, music, photography, films, theater, ceramics?
A: Dance is the same as any other art form. Every artist has something within them that needs to come out and be expressed, some of us put it on paper or canvas or stone or movie screens or like me movements that last only a moment. It just depends on the dialect of art we speak. Though I think dance is a bit more abusive to the artist physically compared to other arts. Dance, I think, can often be like an abusive relationship - especially ballet. You do it and it just eats away at your body with joint problems, bruises, blisters etc. But you love it so much you can't leave it. Ha ha.
Q: What does dance give you?
A: Dance gives me happiness, bruises, knots, a story to tell, a challenge, deeper knowledge of how my body and mind work together, peace, a debt to UCSD, high self esteem, low self esteem, a desire to share my passion, insight into other cultures and backgrounds and life styles. I really think dance is a culture that can be shared by anyone.
Q: Do you ever get any weird reactions when you tell people you are majoring in dance?
A: Oh yes. It's sad really. I've meet many people who, after hearing my answer to my major, give this expression and make a sound as if I had just told them my grandmother died. The, "oh I'm sorry to hear that" or "good luck with that" look. A few were actually surprised that it "was allowed to be a major". These reactions, I'm sure, came from people whose parents told them from the start that they had to be doctors or lawyers and nothing else. Hopefully in the end I'll be the happier one.
Q: Do you think dance, along with the other arts, is crucial to a well-rounded education as well as to self-awareness in general? Do you think public education is lacking in that way?
A: Art in all it's forms is crucial to a well rounded education. Ages ago Greeks believed that you had to live a balanced life. For example, you had to do well in art/dance as well as math and living otherwise meant something was wrong with you. I really wish the education system these days thought that way. There are so many hard science students that take dance for the "easy A" and can hardly function. I wonder sometimes how they can walk from one class to another with out falling down a hill. One of the professors asked us to improv across the floor and a few of them couldn't process that. They said "No, I need you to do something so I can copy it". This just made me wonder how they will ever be able to think for themselves. Everyone just wants to copy and paste to get threw life it seems. Also, there is a school in LA, you can find in online if you google "everybody dance," that incorporates dance into their curriculum and the students there tested in some of the highest scores in the nation.
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