Music Box Dancer
My daughter, called in these fora by her household nickname of Miss Chief, just turned 5 years old. She has spina bifida, which essentially means that her lower body is partially paralyzed; she walks with braces that support her ankles and a pair of tripod canes. Miss Chief has an older sister, not disabled, who has taken dance lessons since she was three years old. This is a very long intro to what I think is a very wonderful story; please bear with me.
I have this personal policy: I never tell Miss Chief she cannot do something. I will occasionally tell her she is not allowed to do something, but that is another matter.
The result of this policy has amazed Miss Chief's doctors and therapists and even me. We were told she would need a wheelchair; she's five years old and has never had one. We use a stroller occasionally. We were told she would never climb ladders. We believed that to the point of building a specially-equipped swingset without a ladder for her. For safety reasons, we have by now had to tell her that she is not allowed to climb the ladder to get into sister's bunk bed without Mommy or Daddy present.
Stuff like that.
When we lived in another state, and Miss Chief used a reverse-walker instead of the canes, her big sister's dance teachers were very anxious to get a hold of her; they thought they could supplement her physical therapy with dance lessons. I told them that when she turned three, I'd let them try. Then we moved away, and Big Sister's new dance school, when approached, gave me a disdainful look and a cold shoulder when I suggested that I might like to enroll disabled Little Sister for therapeutic purposes. Well, they told me, maybe if she took a private lesson, and only if one of their teachers were willing, which they really didn't think was likely.
Miss Chief's physical therapist, when informed of this disappointment, undertook to find her a dance school. She set Miss Chief (and Big Sis, who didn't like that other dance school anyway!) up at the dance school where her own daughter trains. The owner of that dance school told me, "Put Miss Chief in the preschool class, we'll see how it works out."
Which is all I asked for, ever. A chance.
The outcome was, Miss Chief loves dance. Other kids cry and cling to their mommies; Miss Chief is very impatient for me to get her dance shoes on. Other children stare into space and don't try; Miss Chief goes at whatever she's capable of, with a will the teachers can't get out of the other kids. Other kids don't want to be there, really; mom makes them go. Not Miss Chief. She wants this.
And then we came to recital. STand up on stage in front of hundreds of people and dance.
Here is how Miss Chief's very first dance recital went (see, long set up for wonderful story):
Today was both dress rehearsal and recital for dance -- Big Sister's FIFTH, Miss Chief's FIRST.
This morning at rehearsal, Miss Chief stood like a statue during her ballet number, and Big Sis's ballet number was a disaster -- they rearranged them in the schedule but didn't get the word out to all the parents, so there was a lot of running around hunting down dancers, and then the music was wrong and they couldn't get it right. They'd send the girls on stage, then the music would be wrong, then they'd pull them off stage and let somebody else go while they tried to fix the music, send them out again, lather, rinse, repeat, about three times and finally they kind of sort of danced to the wrong music, but were confused and out of synch.
We told Big Sis, just dance. Whatever music comes on, just get out there and dance. We begged Miss Chief to please, please, please do her twirls for us. She said she would.
And then we went to recital.
It was Big Sis's first year to dance without a teacher to cue her (for the little kids, their teacher stands in the orchestra pit and cues them). She and her classmates performed beautifully! They knew their routine so well, that you couldn't tell their tap class from the competition teams. They were fantastic! And when their ballet routine came up, the music was still wrong -- and it was different wrong music than they'd danced to in rehearsal -- and they got out there and danced anyway, and were just gorgeous! You could see very brief instants of hesitation, as they listened for cues that weren't coming the way they expected. But it may be that I only even noticed them because I knew what was going on.
And then there was Miss Chief.
Miss Chief's tap routine was a hula dance. Grass skirt and all. You should see the child hula! She can shake those hips, baby! and tap those feet! But ballet . . . There are four points in their dance where they twirl around ballerina-style.
Miss Chief did it twice. Laboriously, more slowly than the other kids, with her canes holding her up, but she did it. And both times, the crowd applauded thunderously. More, she did second position with one arm, and did the little prancing ballerina step more than once, and . . .what is it called when they pick up one foot and put it against the opposite knee? She did that. She did arabesques. She danced.
I cried.
Her daddy cried.
People stopped us in the hallway to tell us that they cried.
Daddy reports that when he went to collect Miss Chief from backstage after her ballet routine, the woman handing her out (whom he did not know) said to him "She twirled around!"
Miss Chief 's physical therapist, whose daughter, you remember, also dances at that school could hardly contain herself. She hugged me, and she's not usually demonstrative, at least not in her professional capacity. Well, toward Miss Chief she is. But everybody loves Miss Chief . That kid has such personal magnetism it verges on a superpower, I swear.
Extra sweet: Miss Chief made the collage inside the front cover of the program, where they had an assortment of snapshots from throughout the year. This was in addition to her class pics, and the half-page ad I bought that has a portrait of each kid, and one of both kids.
And the dance school's owner saw to it, at the end, that Big Sis, who has only been a student at her school for one year, got a five-year trophy, because this is her fifth year of dance.
The only disappointment of the night: Big Sis missed it. She was lined up backstage when Miss Chief danced her ballet, and didn't get to see it. Their classes practiced in front of one another throughout the year, but according to Big Sis, Miss Chief would only do her Hula tap, and never would do her ballet, so Big Sis had never seen it. When they rearranged Big Sis's routine, they
moved it closer to Miss Chief's, such that she missed it backstage. She wasn't inconsolable, but she wasn't happy, either. Her teacher had promised to take her to the wings to watch, but it got missed in the general confusion.
She will get to see it on the video.
What's most important in the big scheme of things is that Daddy, who was in a head on collision on Thursday with a guy driving on a suspended license who pulled into his lane, and totalled Daddy's truck, was there to see it too; what if he hadn't been? Hooray for big, tough, Chevy trucks and equally tough little girls!
I have this personal policy: I never tell Miss Chief she cannot do something. I will occasionally tell her she is not allowed to do something, but that is another matter.
The result of this policy has amazed Miss Chief's doctors and therapists and even me. We were told she would need a wheelchair; she's five years old and has never had one. We use a stroller occasionally. We were told she would never climb ladders. We believed that to the point of building a specially-equipped swingset without a ladder for her. For safety reasons, we have by now had to tell her that she is not allowed to climb the ladder to get into sister's bunk bed without Mommy or Daddy present.
Stuff like that.
When we lived in another state, and Miss Chief used a reverse-walker instead of the canes, her big sister's dance teachers were very anxious to get a hold of her; they thought they could supplement her physical therapy with dance lessons. I told them that when she turned three, I'd let them try. Then we moved away, and Big Sister's new dance school, when approached, gave me a disdainful look and a cold shoulder when I suggested that I might like to enroll disabled Little Sister for therapeutic purposes. Well, they told me, maybe if she took a private lesson, and only if one of their teachers were willing, which they really didn't think was likely.
Miss Chief's physical therapist, when informed of this disappointment, undertook to find her a dance school. She set Miss Chief (and Big Sis, who didn't like that other dance school anyway!) up at the dance school where her own daughter trains. The owner of that dance school told me, "Put Miss Chief in the preschool class, we'll see how it works out."
Which is all I asked for, ever. A chance.
The outcome was, Miss Chief loves dance. Other kids cry and cling to their mommies; Miss Chief is very impatient for me to get her dance shoes on. Other children stare into space and don't try; Miss Chief goes at whatever she's capable of, with a will the teachers can't get out of the other kids. Other kids don't want to be there, really; mom makes them go. Not Miss Chief. She wants this.
And then we came to recital. STand up on stage in front of hundreds of people and dance.
Here is how Miss Chief's very first dance recital went (see, long set up for wonderful story):
Today was both dress rehearsal and recital for dance -- Big Sister's FIFTH, Miss Chief's FIRST.
This morning at rehearsal, Miss Chief stood like a statue during her ballet number, and Big Sis's ballet number was a disaster -- they rearranged them in the schedule but didn't get the word out to all the parents, so there was a lot of running around hunting down dancers, and then the music was wrong and they couldn't get it right. They'd send the girls on stage, then the music would be wrong, then they'd pull them off stage and let somebody else go while they tried to fix the music, send them out again, lather, rinse, repeat, about three times and finally they kind of sort of danced to the wrong music, but were confused and out of synch.
We told Big Sis, just dance. Whatever music comes on, just get out there and dance. We begged Miss Chief to please, please, please do her twirls for us. She said she would.
And then we went to recital.
It was Big Sis's first year to dance without a teacher to cue her (for the little kids, their teacher stands in the orchestra pit and cues them). She and her classmates performed beautifully! They knew their routine so well, that you couldn't tell their tap class from the competition teams. They were fantastic! And when their ballet routine came up, the music was still wrong -- and it was different wrong music than they'd danced to in rehearsal -- and they got out there and danced anyway, and were just gorgeous! You could see very brief instants of hesitation, as they listened for cues that weren't coming the way they expected. But it may be that I only even noticed them because I knew what was going on.
And then there was Miss Chief.
Miss Chief's tap routine was a hula dance. Grass skirt and all. You should see the child hula! She can shake those hips, baby! and tap those feet! But ballet . . . There are four points in their dance where they twirl around ballerina-style.
Miss Chief did it twice. Laboriously, more slowly than the other kids, with her canes holding her up, but she did it. And both times, the crowd applauded thunderously. More, she did second position with one arm, and did the little prancing ballerina step more than once, and . . .what is it called when they pick up one foot and put it against the opposite knee? She did that. She did arabesques. She danced.
I cried.
Her daddy cried.
People stopped us in the hallway to tell us that they cried.
Daddy reports that when he went to collect Miss Chief from backstage after her ballet routine, the woman handing her out (whom he did not know) said to him "She twirled around!"
Miss Chief 's physical therapist, whose daughter, you remember, also dances at that school could hardly contain herself. She hugged me, and she's not usually demonstrative, at least not in her professional capacity. Well, toward Miss Chief she is. But everybody loves Miss Chief . That kid has such personal magnetism it verges on a superpower, I swear.
Extra sweet: Miss Chief made the collage inside the front cover of the program, where they had an assortment of snapshots from throughout the year. This was in addition to her class pics, and the half-page ad I bought that has a portrait of each kid, and one of both kids.
And the dance school's owner saw to it, at the end, that Big Sis, who has only been a student at her school for one year, got a five-year trophy, because this is her fifth year of dance.
The only disappointment of the night: Big Sis missed it. She was lined up backstage when Miss Chief danced her ballet, and didn't get to see it. Their classes practiced in front of one another throughout the year, but according to Big Sis, Miss Chief would only do her Hula tap, and never would do her ballet, so Big Sis had never seen it. When they rearranged Big Sis's routine, they
moved it closer to Miss Chief's, such that she missed it backstage. She wasn't inconsolable, but she wasn't happy, either. Her teacher had promised to take her to the wings to watch, but it got missed in the general confusion.
She will get to see it on the video.
What's most important in the big scheme of things is that Daddy, who was in a head on collision on Thursday with a guy driving on a suspended license who pulled into his lane, and totalled Daddy's truck, was there to see it too; what if he hadn't been? Hooray for big, tough, Chevy trucks and equally tough little girls!