ballet
oh for heaven's sake! do people really move that gracefully? oh god, yes! and others ice skate at the world class competition level. and some dive at the Olympics skill level. yes, people can move that gracefully but you and I don't. we forgot to practice, and then to do it as a discipline. imagine! from the time you're four or eight or twelve, you always move as if bones weren't a part of moving, just the motion. that by the time you're eighteen, you spend all day in classes or in practice, or in competition, or - oh praise! - actually dancing! suppose you don't have time to learn to drive a car, or to rock'n'roll, or to spend hours shopping. suppose dance is your life, and in second place is the politics of the dancing institutions. and then suppose you go out and run across the stage like humans only run when they dream! suppose halfway across it, you leap, and you hang there so even Michael Jordan is jealous and gravity wonders, "what the hell?" suppose you never open your mouth, but you work with about fifty other people flowing onto and off the stage and somehow tell a story that makes the audience cry and then damn near jump for joy! suppose at the end of a performance, you and those fifty or so people flutter to the front of the stage as if humans and butterflies had mated, then bow as if music had taken human form. oh god, yes! I appreciate ballet!
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