what a beautiful day for dancing

I have to wake up relatively earlier than I normally do because we have a show tomorrow. We have a show tomorrow. Damn, it feels good saying that. Well, technically, we have a show in twelve hours and I have to be at ballet class in seven. So by all rights, I shouldn't be sitting at the computer blogging, I should get my beauty sleep. It's kinda hard to think I need beauty sleep right now though, as I'm just fizzing over with happy cola.

Before the incident that had me killing my old blog, Kit had lent me a DVD of The Company - a Neve Campbell movie showcasing the lives of ballet dancers in the Joffrey Ballet. It was a semi-abstract Robert Altman film that didn't have a real plot, being more of a Season in the Life of the Joffrey Ballet. Which is the best way to show the life of a ballet dancer, I think, more than Turning Pointe or Center Stage. Because a dancer's story doesn't end after an important performance, The Company showed Neve Campbell dance her important performance and then showed how nothing really changed much for her afterwards - she still had to work hard and strive for the roles that were still dangling in front of her. It's true what my Dad says: a dancer is only as good as her/his last show. So we dance again after that last show.

My sister didn't care much for the movie outside the dancing parts - she contends that it would have been more interesting if it had a plot. But I think it kinda did anyway. In The Company, Neve Campbell (if you've reached this far and are still asking "Neve Campbell can dance ballet?" well get over it, she's actually good, though she could make more fluid movements with her upper body) is on the brink of becoming a Principal, meaning she's getting more and more important roles. Luck gives her the lead in a Lar Lubovitch ballet and that performance is given an ovation and lots of praise at the after-party. Then she goes home alone and cries herself to sleep because her ex decided to talk to her at the after-party and she had to pretend that she was okay with him breaking up with her for another dancer. She had the biggest performance of her career, the performance that could change her status in the company, and yet she's crying herself to sleep because she feels so lonely.

At many points of the movie, I thought that she was like me. This was during the time I saw this movie. I was on the brink of getting better roles and there were so many things going against me (well, are actually, because these things still exist) - I don't have a specific body type, favoritism, manipulative co-dancers. And she cared so much and she was just getting this complex about how underrated she is. Well, it could be that I just assumed she was getting all depressed because I was more looking at an analogy and I careered it to make me feel better about myself.

When we went back to dancing, we promised Daddy that we will not complain or whine about dancing anymore, we will just dance. It makes sense - if I'm not happy and I have stuff to complain about, why am I dancing then? I realized, in my time away from dancing, that all the bad shit that goes on is not worth leaving altogether. I feel so grown up now.

In the movie, Neve Campbell meets James Franco, a restaurant chef and yes the same guy who played Harry Osborne in Spiderman. She falls in love and loses much of the angst she used to hold on too tightly too much to. See, love rocks. Whether it's the process or the man, or heaven help us, both. I liked how Neve Campbell still strove to become the best dancer she could be but since she was in love, she didn't care about the bad things about dance anymore. She was happy.

Kit and I are friends again. Perhaps not like before, but friends nevertheless. I am dancing with her in a trio in Carmina Burana; in the dance, we have to move like one. I am up to the task.