Not for the first time, an expert raved today about the shape of my feet. They are odd, square-shaped, short, and have caused me no end of travails in finding comfortable shoes. I have searched endlessly for wide shoes, and even resorted to paying exorbitant sums to a Russian cobbler who still remembers how to make shoes. I suffer intolerable pain from corns and squeezes.
Yet connoisseurs adore my feet. I once auditioned as an accompanist for the ballet teacher Carmelita in Los Angeles. She found my reading and transposition skills wanting, but as I left, embarrassed and disappointed, she began raving about my arches.
Today, I visited a podiatrist who, after deciding that I had broken a toe, said that I had the exact foot of the dance genius Martha Graham. Such a foot, she said, didn't come up more than once every three years in her practice. She predicted that if I were to take a jazz dance course I would be the best in the class merely because of my feet.
I adore dance and have taken numerous dance classes, and usually am identified as a "ringer." At the university, I usually opted for dance electives because they were so easy and enjoyable. Dance steps are easy for me, no matter what the ethnic origin. I am always told that I should be dancing, even performing, when I venture into a class.
Regrettably, I chose piano over ballet when I was six years old. How simple my life would have been if I had gone the other way. At 5'4", I would never have made a ballet dancer in the Balanchine era, but if the Ebson School in my hometown Pacific Palisades had only offered jazz, how happy I might have been.
1 comments:
I nodd in agreemeent. Although the world no doubt would be worse off for the lack of your touch on the ivory keys....... i remember you spinning and twirling ever so gracefully like an Elven Dervish to the tunes of Gladstar. My advice on this matter (for what value it may have) is: dance, dance, dance.... play, play, play..... Enjoy. PLM
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