Re: Being an Adult Dancer (or trying to)

I'm so frustrated with dancing as an adult. Primarily with ballet, although this has limited applications to other styles of dance. I have performed other styles as an adult though, and ballet is definitely the worst ageism wise. 

Before getting into my rant, I was a pretty serious ballet dancer in high school. Never was professional level, but I have been taking dance lessons my whole life. I stopped performing after high school, but kept up with classes and performed different styles in college and post-college. It's not a priority anymore, but I don't consider myself to be an adult beginner by any means.

I've been trying to find somewhere, some studio, where I can perform in the Nutcracker again (or any ballet but that's the most widespread). And it is so hard. From looking online, your only options are if you go to a smaller studio that happens to put on its own production and takes its students. If you live somewhere that has a professional company that already puts on the Nutcracker, you're out of luck because odds are they're taking all of the audience. Or if your studio focuses entirely on the pre-professional kids, also out of luck because less resources go to the adults.

Since I'm in graduate school, that's more or less where I'm at. I still take classes through the university but since I'm not a dance major I can't perform anywhere (I'm getting my PhD in genetics for context, I'm not in the dance school). I start looking for something, anything, in the area that 1. has auditions where you don't need to be a student there, and 2. takes adults. There's nothing! So few places do this.

I found exactly one studio that's 2 hours away from me and says it takes community members. I reached out to confirm, and the woman on the phone said that "there's plenty of roles" and that since I'm 2 hours away they could "give me a part where I wouldn't be needed every weekend." And I thought that sounded perfect.

Audition comes, I drive 2 hours, do the audition, and drive back the 2 hours. From my perspective, it went really well and the students they had there weren't that much better than me. Casting announcement drops and I get a whole email saying "Congrats! We are so proud of all of you" and I didn't get cast. At all. All of the people I auditioned with have at least 4 roles each and not a one could be spared for me.

I'll be honest, I feel a little like I was hustled into paying the audition fee. Because they probably decided they wanted to prioritize their own students, or the distance would mean I couldn't attend enough rehearsals, or there's something that they knew in advance would limit me and they still encouraged me to audition anyways! What a waste of my time.

I've been like low-key in a depression since then, and my heart super hasn't been in dancing since that. And I'm terrified that if I reach out and ask what happened I'll get told any number of silly things from "my body type was wrong" to "you wouldn't be able to attend enough rehearsals." Because what's the point, I can do this thing my whole life and I'll likely never get on a stage again. Ballet is just such a young person's game, there are so few resources if you want to continue past the age of 18 non-professionally. I wish that this would change, but I doubt it.

This Is Beautiful: Apple Picking

 It's fall and that means it's cider mill season! Just got back from an orchard where we picked apples and got hot cider and a bunch of donuts. I love excuses to eat apple cider donuts, they are so good. And with the leaves finally falling, it really feels like summer is over and fall is here! It's lovely. Best weather at this point too when it's still pretty warm so you don't need a ton of layers but there's a bit of a chill that just energizes you! It's fall time babayyyyyy!

“Black Powder War” by Naomi Novik

This is the third installment in the Temeraire series, which I am definitely hooked on (you can read about the first book here and the second one here). It continues to expand the world of Temeraire, and develops Temeraire’s revolutionary thoughts which I am so here for.

Opening of the book has the squad in China, where their ship gets busted so they have to fly over land. As a result Laurence picks up a guide, Tharkay, who remains a bit of a mystery throughout the book, sometimes seeming sinister and other times helpful. They make it through the desert and from there get to Istanbul where their mission is to obtain 3 dragon eggs for Britain. From there it seems like a bit of a mystery as the officials there say that they cannot give them the eggs as the British ambassador has taken off before the payment was finalized. Laurence does some digging and decides to simply steal the eggs as they were paid for and finalized. They make off with the eggs and from there end up in Austria fighting off Napoleon. The albino dragon Lien has joined Napoleon and seeks to crush Temeraire and co for killing her captain. The egg holding a fire breathing dragon hatches so Granby finally gets his own dragon, and Tharkay saves the day by bringing back a group of feral dragons they befriended earlier, and the book ends with the whole squad heading back to England.

Alright so we are a little short on the action in this book, but there is a lot of traveling which is cool to see because then you see the towns along the way. Feels very “Game of Thrones” in that way. There are also some cool characters that get added, such as Tharkay and the feral dragons. You definitely see the rest of the world, and I thought the glimpse we get of Austria and Turkey were a lot of fun, although we aren’t there long enough to get a true picture of it. It feels a little untethered with all of the traveling around, but with the smaller crew it still feels close so it doesn’t matter as much.

Temeraire is determined to get back to England and liberate the dragons there. Laurence is trying to dissuade him best he can as he doesn’t think that Temeraire will be successful, at one point saying that they have to defeat Napoleon first, but Laurence is slowly warming up to the idea. I am fascinated by this plot point because it means the author has to reckon with how you change society to make others more accepted. There are some parallels for humans, for example a big point is that infrastructure needs to change so that huge dragons can navigate streets. Humans need to be less scared of dragons too, making a sort of case for a disability parallel or other marginalized groups. I think it’ll be so cool to see how this progresses.

I am excited to see them head back to England in part so that there are more consistent characters. Having characters appear for only one book is a little frustrating, but I’m hoping with this next book Tharkay sticks around for longer. I’ve mentioned previously that characters keep dying without much fanfare, and with this one it felt less like that because the crew was smaller so you can’t kill them off without implications.

I think that’s enough for now, but onwards to the next installment! It is great to dive into a long series that really has me hooked, I have not done this in a while.

This Is Beautiful: Fight Night

 So went to my first play of the academic year, and it was a lot of fun and also thought provoking! "Fight Night" is a play about elections, and it manages to be incredibly political while not mentioning politics at all (that's how it was described to me and I was confused but that statement is 100% accurate now that I've seen it). 

The play has 5 candidates, and you start by voting for which one you think looks cool, then they start talking about values and things like that and you keep voting. The first round they are able to combine votes though, and there's other surprises like a blind vote and such. I was curious how much actually changes when you vote though, with the combining votes they could get the same person off every time. And by the end the candidates were all suggesting different ways of doing things that seemed distinct from what they said earlier on. I'm not sure. But it doesn't make you think about voting, and the importance of voting too. 

Anyways I'm a huge fan of art that you can participate in, so this was cool for me. And its clearly making a political statement, so can't fault them for not trying to say something. Ended up being a cool night out!

“Throne of Jade” by Naomi Novik

This is the sequel to His Majesty’s Dragon which I wrote about previously (you can find it here). This follow up comes right on the heels of that book, and also deals with some consequences from the finale of the first book.

As Temeraire has been revealed to be a Celestial dragon from China, we get dropped into a meeting that several British officials are having with Chinese officials with Laurence in England. Laurence has been separated from Temeraire as they negotiate whether to return Temeraire to China or not. Of course the British officials don’t want to, but they also do not want to anger the Chinese officials since the relationship between China and England is not the best. This eventually ends quite predictably with Temeraire getting annoyed, grabbing Laurence, and flying off. He returns to the other British dragons just in time for a fight, which Laurence joins in since he’s basically going to be accused of treason after this.

After the battle, they decide to send both Laurence and his crew with Temeraire to China. Laurence even gets his previous second-in-command from the navy to sail them there. And they have to take the whole Chinese delegation with them. The Chinese prince tries throughout the voyage to get between Laurence and Temeraire by feeding Temeraire Chinese food, which is much more elaborate and similar to what humans eat, so Temeraire takes a liking to it. He also enjoys learning poetry that dragons in China have written. Laurence survives a few attempts on his life as well, although he cannot prove anything. Throughout Hammound, the translator from Britain, tries to spin all of this in a way where they can get a British embassy in China and they butt heads quite a few times.

Once they get to China, the most striking thing is that dragons are treated essentially like people. They can go where they like, spend money, write, and everything. The Chinese prince turns out to have an albino Celestial dragon, a sign of bad luck. The others avoid her, but despite that dragons roam throughout the streets and don’t cause any alarm. Temeraire sees this and loves it as he has been pining for more freedom in England. Things come to a head when a gang tries to kill Laurence and his crew, Temeraire was off with a lady dragon and gets mad, so when the next attempt on Laurence’s life comes in the middle of a performance, he kills both the assassin and the Chinese prince. The albino dragon is enraged but the death of her companion causes her to stand down. Laurence is then adopted by the Chinese emperor to both cause the Celestials to stay in the Emperor’s family, and gain some favor for Britain in China.

By far the most interesting part of the book is the contrast between the treatment of dragons between England and China. As a reader, it is revealing to see this and realize that yeah, dragons don’t have freedom in England. But you don’t question it too much in the first book because you’re still learning about the world so Laurence’s assumptions are your own. Seeing Temeraire get slowly radicalized and then enthused about returning to England to change the treatment of dragons is really exciting to see, I’m most interested in seeing how he decides to pull that off back in England.

The other aspect of the book that is slowly bothering me more and more is the treatment of characters within the crew. We are given snippets about them, some characters just have names and others have more of a personality, but the bulk of the ones that die have little more than a name. It feels a little frustrating as a name gets dropped and you don’t have a context or a background to pair it with. When a character is killed off with just a name, it feels like you either should know more about them to mourn them more, or just shouldn’t know them at all and not have this burden with it. I just wish it went more one way or another, are these throw away characters or are they actual people we should be upset over? And since they’re all essentially in the army it isn’t uncommon for characters to end up dead or drowned but there also doesn’t seem to be a real decrease in the number of people in the crew anyways.

I already got the third book in the series, I’m excited to see where it goes from here! It has been a while since I got this into a series so this is really nice.

This Is Beautiful: Sick Days

Bear with me a little on this one, I ended up getting a cold last week that absolutely knocked me on my ass. I was down for the count Thursday and Friday. I think because it's the first semester I was teaching without a mask on, I got my first real cold in a while, and my body just wasn't used to functioning with that.

Anyways, this is beautiful though because 1. I can take time off without losing money. I'm a graduate students so I'm not making a ton but that isn't decreased by this. And also, I think I just really needed a day to lay on the couch? It wasn't like, a fun day on the couch, but it did force me to do that.

So yeah, take days off when you need them/can take them. It's good for you. 

“The Search” by Gene Luen Yang

I think this is the first time that I picked up this graphic novel of the Avatar universe (see here for the prequel to this). In some ways, this is the follow-up to the series that fans want after the animated show ends since it deals with what happened to Zuko’s mom.

The book starts with Zuko getting the gang back together to travel with Azula to the town that their mom is from. Azula is cooperating on and off with them, with the gang arguing that she’s too dangerous and Zuko trying to work with her and save their relationship. Along the way they meet another brother/sister pair who is looking for a spirit in the woods that can heal the brother’s face. Aang speaks to the spirit and the spirit agrees to one favor, which is when Azula cuts in to get information about their mother. It’s revealed that the spirit gave their mother a new face and altered her memories to not remember Zuko and Azula. The spirit disappears without helping the other pair, causing Aang to follow it and enrage the spirit. They smooth things over eventually, and the brother’s face is restored. They then head to where Zuko’s mom is to restore her memories. This way, they are able to repair a relationship between a brother and a sister, and a mother and a son.

This book feels much more… complete than The Promise. The Promise was primarily plot driven to update people on what the characters are doing post show. You would expect this one to be much of the same, given that so many fans want to know what happened here, but it’s got so much more going on thematically.

Relationships within families play a huge role. There’s the obvious ones like Zuko/his mom, but there’s also sibling relationships like Zuko/Azula and Sokka/Katara. Azula manages to escape in the end, leaving her without a redemption and also without repairing her relationships to either her mother or her brother. But it highlights the different parallels really well between the broken and the supportive relationships.

There’s also identity and how faces and memories construct a person’s identity. Zuko’s mom is still his mom, even if she doesn’t remember it. But once her memories are restored, you see her appearance change as she looks more stately. Same thing with the brother having his face restored, he clearly becomes more of a character who can speak for himself after that.

I need to make time to look at the rest of the graphic novels, but for now they work really well in between when I’m waiting for other books since it’s a quick read. But it is amazing that I haven’t gotten to them all yet and how good they are!