Ain't No Ballerinas in Hiphop

Send us Fan MailHi,Thank you for listening. Think of someone who might like it and please, spread the word.Here's the blog that goes along with the newsletter.Written, narrated, and enginneered by,Jill BadonskyThe Script :I’ve always identified with Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale, the ugly duckling story… maybe that’s why I don’t eat duck or why I should. I wasn’t exactly a swan born in a family of ducks, I was more like say, a penguin or a frog floating by on a lily pad. Point is, I didn’t belong with ducks especially deeply conservative ducks, not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I wasn’t, which made it a bit lonely.  I don’t think I’m alone in feeling lonely for this reason .When you feel you don’t belong in your family, a strange thing happens because you’ve been imprinted with a I don’t-belong kind of radar because not belonging feels familiar so you may find yourself subconsciously gravitating toward places to feel you don’t belong because we like the familiar.   Speaking of…  A few years ago, I thought about taking a hip-hop dance class.   My background is in ballet, but for some strange reason, I love hip hop music.     There was a class close by at a place called Culture shock.  Signed up, got some shoes, and, I changed my mind. Yeah, too much of a … culture shock. I’m thinking there will be kids jumping and spinning and executing complicated choreography all in sequence and I have problems with the Macarena among friends  Hiphop would mean I’d feel klutzy, embarrassed, and possibly in need of hospitalization.   So …  back to the Stairmaster with the penguins   The hip hop desire didn’t want to go away though. But every time I thought about going, I imagined people lots younger than me with caps on backward, pants half-mast saying, “yo  “Yo.” I was overthinking it… I thought, so one day I just went.When I got there, there were a bunch of young people with backward caps and pants half-mast, including the teacher.  But soccer moms and white college girls were there as well.  There was a woman at least five years older than me and another one in the first row, two moves behind everyone, so I thought yo, maybe I have a chance of fitting in.    Then I looked in the mirror…  Everyone else’s head in the class ended at my shoulders.   In other words, I was in a troupe of stocky, shorter people, because hip-hop works best and looks best when you’re short and stocky. In the mirror’s reflection, at 5’9” my head looked like a giraffe in a jungle picture where the giraffe’s its head is awkwardly sticking up above the rest of the herd, and I thought… I’m in the wrong herd, I don’t fit in.  Or do I? The woman next to me looked up at me with a look on her face that said, “No, you don’t fit in”. I thought… I should go. But I stayed, despite the hip hugger mishap. I forgot was wearing waist high big girl panties and hip huggers.  I looked in the mirror and two inches of pink underwear were sticking out of the top of my hip black dance pants.    I turned pink too, I’m not sure why… but I left them that way.  They were like a billboard that said, I SHOULDN’T BE HERE.Then, Miss Trina Lyons entered the room. Miss Trina Lyons was the hip-hop teacher who moved like a movie queen in the most self-confident style of breathtaking, beat-perfect-precision hip-hop I ever knew possible. She started leading a dance move where the herd was turning in a circle with arms in a stiff gangsta-tude swing.  In the mirror I saw that my ‘tude looked a lot like Marsha Brady with PMS.  I cracked a smile and one second later, Miss Trina announced to the class, “I don’t WANT nobody smilin’!  This Support the show Upcoming art and creativity programs www.themuseisin.com