The First Death of a Dancer
How passion wears out
Let me take you into the weird world of hip-hop dancers. First, you must know that any number after eight bears no significance to us. “And” is considered a count — as in, one AND two AND three, up to eight. We count in that manner to teach choreography, only to resort to making part-martial arts part-explosives sounds (“tuh-tah-boom-boom-ta-ra-ra-tsss-ha!”) to express the musicality of the steps. “Hear that beat?”, the choreographer asks. “That’s what we wanna hit when we do this step.” I close my eyes, listen intently to the song, and discover the faint sound underneath the layers.
But the strangest thing about us? How we show praise. At the end of dance classes, the choreographer usually dances one last time on “beast mode”, as we call it in urban-speak. Simply put, he kills it. Then I just sit there dumbstruck, with my jaw to the floor, feeling like I’m less of a dancer than before I witnessed the performance. But in these moments of utter astonishment, we dancers don’t applaud. That’s not our thing. We grab one of our shoes (sometimes both if we feel that one doesn’t justify the level of respect) and then throw it to the center of the dancefloor.
Flying sneakers. That’s our language of appreciation.
