What thought comes to your mind if I say “dance?” Would it be something you do? Or something you watch? Or, if you are like me, something you turn around and run from?
I attended a dance recital the other night. Women love it when you say, “We’re going to a dance recital.” It was well done, and helped a local Valley couple to compete internationally. The strength and stamina demonstrated by professional dancers is amazing. Someone up above made some of us dancers, and others, well, just others.
I was afraid someone would invite me to trip the light fantastic. I had occasion to walk across the dance floor and almost tripped just doing that.
If you Google “Snoqualmie dance” you get a lot of hits. There is a lot of dance culture here in our Valley, from instructional ballroom and Latin dancing — very seductive — to square dancing, to all types of rhythmic, coordinated, dance floor movements.
When you say “dance,” I figure that includes even big screen musicals — and I don’t care for big screen musicals. I can’t see a story’s plot carried very well if you have to sing about it.
“Sweeney Todd” is a fine example of why I don’t care for musicals. It’s hard to get into a musical when it involves cutting someone up in giant puddles of blood. But even Julie Andrews, skipping through a field of daisies, singing “The hills are alive!”… Bah, humbug.
Of course, there are exceptions to every opinion. I have a secret musical, the only one I like. It came out last year. It is the musical “Mamma Mia,” with Meryl Streep. The critics hated it, I loved it, perhaps because it featured the music of Abba. That’s Abba with a short “A.” Recently, I have heard people pronounce the word “Ahba,” with a long AHHH sound. Wrong! I was there, I spun their songs over the airways in a previous incarnation. Anyway, “Mamma Mia” is the only musical, recently, that I have enjoyed.
I can’t help thinking about musicals and dancing, and my own melodious background. I grew up in Seattle — not the culture center of the free world, but a place where there are lots of opportunities to pursue a musical career. I remember my poor ol’ granny trying to help me get started musically. I took, in no particular order, lessons in guitar, violin, piano, saxophone, banjo and harmonica. None of those caught on with me. I did advance to being able to play “Silent Night” with both hands on the piano. I couldn’t do it now.
My wife and I were charter members of the Experience Music Project and one slow day we decided to see what it was all about. Up on the second floor, we discovered the sound rooms. There were six or seven soundproof rooms where you got a lecture and the opportunity to practice your musical ability with a variety of instruments. The voice is an instrument, so there is a room devoted exclusively to vocals.
Eventually, you work up to where you can play and even record your music, with friends or whoever you may run into. After spending several hours in one after another of several different instrument rooms, my spouse made me promise I would never again touch a musical instrument with the intention of making music.
If you are a Valley resident, and you are suffering through one of our infrequent (Ha!) rains, when you can’t hit the garden without feeling like you are drowning, or take a stroll around the block without dodging puddles of indeterminate depth, and it’s just too wet to plow, then look to your yellow pages or Google. There are many places in our beautiful surroundings to expand your cultural education and learn a few dance steps in the process. Your spouse will love you even more today than he or she did yesterday (isn’t that a song lyric?).
Now, when my spouse goes to work, I put on a pair of noise reduction headphones, crank the home stereo up to max, kick back and enjoy the sounds. On rare occasions, I may be seen dancing around the den when I know I’m by myself.
• Bob Edwards is a member of the SnoValleyWrites writers’ group. He lives in North Bend.
