Authors: Kristi Lynn Davis
The workshop was taught by members of The Works. The gorgeous girls, in their beautiful leotards, were so light and thin that they’d surely fly away like a feather if you blew on them. I wished I were thinner and had smaller breasts so I could go braless and wear lovely leos like they did, but I’d be Bouncing Betty B-cups unless I strapped myself down in a straitjacket. There simply wasn’t room for boobs in the world of serious dance.
All the classes had live piano accompaniment, which was such a treat. My favorite musician was a cute, young, blond guy who sang the most mellifluous, soothing, nonsense syllables while playing. His voice and music were heavenly and inspirational, nothing like dancing to recorded music. It was like Brie versus the Cheez Whiz I was accustomed to. His magical melodies transported me into another realm of feeling and expression.
And yet, even with the inspiring accompaniment, I sometimes felt like the worst person in class, given my lack of modern dance training. The dance combinations were physically and mentally challenging and were taught at lightning speed. I had to focus and concentrate completely at all times.
There was one particular performance class I didn’t care for in which we had to walk solo around in a circle, expressing on our faces our motivation for circling. We were then directed to increasingly accelerate the speed. “Something is pulling you. What is it?” probed the teacher. “There has to be a reason for you to dance. Show your motivation.” I dreaded having to take my turn walking and then running the circumference of the room while being critiqued. I was not good at emoting unless I was emoting unadulterated bliss; for my entire dance career to date, I had pretty much plastered on an obnoxious, toothy smile. Feelings were not my forte. “What exactly is my motivation to dance?” I pondered. “I do it because I must. What else would I do?”
Jenny and I were in different classes because I was a beginner and she was more advanced. But we’d meet at lunch break and run upstairs together to rehearse with the seven women and three men who comprised Mirmdance. In our performance bios, Miriam summed us up as follows (The extra descriptions in parentheses are from me.):
The Men:
Compact Powerhouse (small, cute, muscular guy I never really talked to)
Southern Gent (sweet queen with a strong southern accent)
Snow White Male (my college friend Adam, who always sported a trendy scarf and toted a big bag of Chinese junk food)
The Women: Koala (short, Jewish gal who cooked sauerbraten, journaled about her dancing, and dated a Chinese guy from Chinatown)
Trinidadian Jazzarino (flaming-red-haired temptress with six-pack abs)
Impish (petite brunette)
Resembles a giraffe (tall blond)
Ivory Girl (massage therapist in the making)
She’s got legs (my leggy friend Jenny)
All American (me)
The cast of characters fascinated me. I especially couldn’t wait to go to rehearsal just to see what new contraption the Trinidadian Jazzarino, Sharla, was wearing. She absolutely oozed sex. In place of a traditional leotard, she would wrap her slim, toned body in an assortment of twisted rags that just barely covered the private parts. She was so creative with clothing, she could have taken garbage bags off the street and found a way to finagle them into haute couture. Everything looked good on that woman. And she looked even better in practically nothing.
Unfortunately, I got cast in “Lucy’s Future”–the squid-monster piece that was supposedly about female sexuality. (I discovered that modern dancers call a dance number a “piece.” It sounded strange to me: a piece of dance?) Appropriately, Sharla the sex-goddess played the lead, Lucy. I also danced in “99 Reasons to Wear Condoms,” a provocative piece set not to music but to narration about how AIDS spreads throughout a community and not just among gay males. All of Miriam’s unique, creative, modern choreography intrigued me and opened my eyes to an entirely new way of moving. But my favorite piece, “Set Free,” was a bluesy, hanging-around-the-front-porch-in-our-blue-jeans-type piece where I could smile and have fun and dance kind of jazzily. The company members regularly made fun of me for dancing like a jazz dancer, which I was, after all. Modern dance was a stretch for me, pun intended.
I’d arrive home in the evening absolutely spent from an entire day of dancing my heart out. My muscles were often so stiff and achy that all I could do was sink into a bubble bath before collapsing in bed. But there was something so satisfying about working hard and challenging myself at something I loved and wanted to try, even though I was quite the novice and had a lot to learn before I’d be swimming as fluidly as the other sea monsters.
Meanwhile, matters back at Ashley’s apartment weren’t showing any signs of improvement. Quite the contrary. The herb garden on the balcony was wilting in spite of my desperate attempts to keep it alive. Those plants must’ve felt like they didn’t belong in the city either. I was still terrified of becoming a homicide victim during the night. To make matters worse, after weeks of being locked out of the bedroom, the cat hated me. We became bitter enemies; to spite me, he pooped right in front of me on the virtually impossible-to-clean, expensive, natural-fiber floor covering in the living room. To top that, no matter how many times I’d wash my clothes, Midnight’s black, needle-like hair would be inextricably threaded through the fibers, itching me throughout the day–a permanent reminder that he was out to irritate me. I dreaded coming home at night for fear of what that pussy had planned and would cautiously peek through the doorway to see where he was poised, ready to pounce.
Feline fracas aside, I began to embrace my new identity as a modern dancer. The first thing I did was to go out and buy a foot roller, and, more importantly, knee pads for rehearsal. As squids, we were constantly, painfully crawling about on our knees. Determined to keep my kneecaps intact for future use, pads were a priority. Then I went searching for some hipper clothes, so I’d feel more like a real, artsy dancer. I bought pastel, mint-green, high-top tennis shoes that were comfy for walking in; brown, lace-up granny boots; and a black flannel jumpsuit, which I accessorized with a brown leather belt and a stylish brown fedora from a trendy shop on Canal Street. I was now able to assume the role of professional modern dancer.
The end of the four weeks with The Works culminated in an invited performance followed by a wine and cheese party. Wearing my own blazer and jazz pants, I got to dance in a piece about life on the city street. I loved performing it. My sister and her boyfriend drove all the way from Michigan for my New York debut. Performers included serious dancers from Japan, Cal Arts, and other prestigious dance academies, and here I was with little training beyond my local dance school, dancing and partying among them. I called home to my parents during the after-glow festivities. “I’m in New York City dancing for an audience and eating wine and cheese!” It was a dream come true. I was on top of the world.
*******
Meanwhile, the pressure was on to find an apartment and a roommate before Ashley returned and kicked me out. That task was reserved for evenings and weekends, my only free time. After living alone in that high-rise tower of terror, I wanted to move as close as possible to the one and only real friend I had in New York, Jenny.
Luck being on my side once again, Jenny’s high school friend, Darlene, ended up needing a roommate. We signed up with a real estate agent, but it still took several weeks to locate an apartment that came with a refrigerator and a landlord who didn’t bite your head off. As if I owned a refrigerator and dragged it around the country with me! We finally found a two-bedroom apartment (with refrigerator) around the corner from Jenny in Astoria, Queens. Immediately, we had to cough up three months’ rent: first, last, and a security deposit. In one fell swoop, I watched a good chunk of my $3,000 graduation money disappear.
It was worth it, as I was relieved to be settled into a cat-free place I could call home. Living in Astoria was a bit of a culture shock, however, as if I’d moved to a foreign country—mainly Greece. The grocery stores were Greek, the restaurants were Greek, and the people were mostly Greek with a substantial smattering of Italians. The language of choice, therefore, was either Greek or Italian.
My landlord and landlady were among the Italian contingency. Although they spoke little to no English, I thanked my lucky stars for the affable, ample landlady in an apron-covered floral dress, who always invited me in to eat when I stopped by to pay my rent, even though they were far from rich. She, her husband, two kids, and a visiting cousin all lived together in their modest one-bedroom apartment. Every night they opened the sofa bed in the living room so the kids would have somewhere to sleep.
There was always something delicious, like breaded eggplant parmigiana, cooking on the stove, and the woman would insist I sample it. “Christina, come in! Come in! Eat!” she’d say in her Italian accent, rolling the “r” in “Christina” and motioning me in with an exaggerated hand gesture. My name isn’t Christina but, somewhat fond of my special Italian moniker, I never bothered to correct her. Sometimes Mrs. Landlady would even make me sit and watch soap operas with her as we munched on her homemade, gooey, sweet, Italian dough-ball dessert. It was futile to argue with the woman, so I ended up taking my rent check to her only when I was hungry. Her husband, the landlord, was the one who did any maintenance needed on the apartment. Since he spoke only Italian, it was a game of charades telling him what needed fixing. If I were really desperate to communicate, I had to get one of the children to interpret.
My new roommate, Darlene, was a beautiful, Bohemian blond and much more worldly than I given that she had, like Jenny, grown up in Manhattan. She was a food photographer for the prominent advertising agency Young and Rubicam. Impressive. Her family and all her friends from school lived in town, so I didn’t see a lot of her. Plus, I was just plain shy, so for the most part, we lived separate lives.
Even so, it was rarely quiet around our place, which was located on the second floor of a building that housed twelve units. The acoustics were perfect for amplifying the sounds of the kids roller skating in the apartment above us. And the building next to us sat so close that we could hear our neighbor gargling and spitting out his mouthwash in his bathroom sink. We probably could have reached out the window and borrowed toothpaste. It was a tad too close for comfort.
The interior of the apartment was nice enough: two bedrooms separated by a small kitchen and living room, all with hardwood floors. Thankfully, Darlene already owned furniture for the kitchen and living room, so all I had to furnish was my bedroom. The only “furniture” I had brought with me from Michigan was a cheap, blue, foam chair of sorts that unfolded and converted into a horribly uncomfortable excuse for a bed. While a testimony to the creative ways to push the limits of foam, and certainly sufficient for crashing on in a drunken stupor, as a regular resting place, this contraption only added to the discomfort of my aching body. Hence, getting a proper bed was first on my home decor agenda. But how was I going to get a bed up to my second floor apartment? Not a problem in New York. I ordered a twin bed by dialing 1-800-mattres, and it was delivered and assembled for me.
A real, honest-to-goodness bed that could give me a good night’s sleep? Check. My clothes, however, were still housed in cardboard boxes, and newspapers hung in lieu of curtains. For a while, I had lived without any window coverings at all until I noticed the peeping Tom spying on me from the apartment building behind ours. Creepy! (From the safety of my current Midwestern home, my much-more-mature self now realizes that it may be perfectly natural to curiously gaze at a neighbor on display in an unadorned window; who doesn’t love to observe fish in a fishbowl?) Whether he was actually a peeping creep or not, it behooved me to shell out some cash for legitimate window treatments.
Discovering an absence of any home goods stores near me in Queens, I was forced to shop in Manhattan. After an exhausting and extensive search, which would have been an easy trip to Target or Kmart back home in the Midwest, I found affordable bamboo blinds and three large wicker baskets with lids to store clothes and other belongings. Success! Ah, but then I had to get them back to Astoria.
On the interminable trudge to the N-train, my sore arms strained to prevent my precariously perched purchases from toppling out of their tower. Boarding the subway was no less an ordeal; I could barely see where I was going because of the big basket blockade. Every subway car that arrived was too full for me to squeeze onto anyway. I had to wait and wait and wait until a sufficiently empty car arrived. Once aboard, I sweated nervously as people stared disdainfully and gave me the evil eye for taking up too much space and having the nerve to move to Their City. I knew they were thinking, “Who gave you the right to come here and transport home goods on our crowded subway?” I scanned the walls for a list of rules stating that “under no uncertain terms are large hampers allowed,” for that was the non-verbal communication I was getting from the other passengers. Once at home, I plopped down on my dial-a-bed, exhausted and wondering if I should have stuck with cardboard boxes and newspapers.
My neighborhood peeping Tom spooked me to such an extent that I began planning ways to save myself if he ever showed up at my doorstep. At least there was a police station at the end of our block where I could run if someone came after me, I reassured myself. Just when I was building up my confidence, Jenny and I got flashed by a stereotypic and unimaginative flasher in a long raincoat and boots with nothing underneath. Jenny shouted profanities at him, but I just stood frozen until she grabbed my arm and briskly led me away. My nerves were rattled.