So, I Think I Can Dance [A Poem Told as A Short Story]

By Donny Rodriguez


The address is comprised of numbers I've encountered previously-- filled with the odd and even digits I've grown up with over the past 27 years--hopefully this is the last I'll encounter them under these circumstances. 3530. The name of the street is unique compared to the licensed business name of the dance company holding today's audition. Hoyne. Chicago Moving Company. Unfamiliar with this street, the company, and city I'd plié around as a gadabout for the last four years, I enlisted my friend and audition companion, Rebbecca, or Becky, to join me. “Yea, I'll go. There's a cute coffee shop right by that place [the audition], so at the very least we can get some pumpkin inspired lattes,” said my college dance piece partner, Rebbecca. “Alright, I'm going to get ready and I'll pick you up shortly there after,” I murmured into my mobile phone. “This is my last audition. I'm serious,” I said aloud to myself, by myself, as I tried to find a pair of purple socks to help me stick out from the other dancers (the purple socks are a hacky trick that I picked up from a former college mentor. However, this “bit” has yet to Mind Freak my dance resume or bank account). “I'm too old to be new learning steps, only to forget them as soon as I fasten my shoe laces and duffel bag's zipper,” I said to the red light on my way to pick up Becky on this ideal marathonesque weather on Sunday morning in October.

Psyching myself out has become the preferred method when trying to psych my self up for another body moving, confidence crippling, dance try out. Four years out of college with no major career excitement, just minor roles in scattered pieces. I arrive at my good friend's domicile, wait three minutes as she gracefully exits her apartment building and gingerly enters my Ford Focus. “How's teaching going, Becky?” I asked already knowing the answer. Becky is an amazing dance instructor, who becomes increasingly more passionate about teaching dance for a living than performing it. Where most of us with a state school issued degree that states one is qualified to make money off dance, use teaching as a “back up plan”, Becky looks forward to inspiring strangers by creating dance compositions for them to rehearse under her tutelage. “You know, it's a job. I still go on these auditions because the need to create is always there, but yea, it's okay,” explained a modest Rebbecca. “Yea, but at least you're dancing for a living,” I passively put out there. Then Becky went on to remind me the paying gigs and choreography I've been able to fill out W-2 forms for. It's not the same though. I wanted the structured clarity a dance studio or company affords for my creative insanity and to avoid self imposed physical calamity.
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The building on the outside is just what you'd expect. Inconspicuously bland front for the ingenuity, chaos, and the dexterity presumably performed on the constructions' floors. Dance studios, just another office building. Except in a studio you have a few more mirrors than copy machines. The structure's bricks and beams don't sway, careen, or do the fox trot, that I might be asked to do in the coming minutes, so I deem it's safe to enter, and Becky and I do just that. The floor boards of the space look like that of the other auditioning dancers from the neck up, blonde and bored. Remove shoes. Find a spot. Stretch the muscles--hopefully all 656 to 850, depending on if you count the skeletal muscles and fascia bands—don't for get to exhale. As I set out, elongate, and lengthen all my tools on the floor, I raise my neck and strain it while surveying all competition covered with fear and optimism. This is my last audition, maybe the last time I'll dance, maybe the last time I'll love, and these thoughts aren't scary, but reassuring. “Shit, I forgot to sign in,” I sorta mutter to Becky. Forgetting to sign in was no good sign, but telling that I'm getting too old and too forgetful of how and why I do this.


Haphazardly and unwillingly, I've become a pro at showing these tunnel visioned casting agents that I can fake good technique. Why I got into this [dance] was because I love performing and using my body for art's sake. Which is a far cry from my contemporaries whose idea of contributing to art for art's sake is making out with “actors” and “musicians” after they drink a Pabst and romanticize their vision aloud just to see one naked. Creativity and physicality. It's why I dance. It's what I've wanted for my life, not this wave rejection by email and verbal nonconstructive criticisms face to face. Well here goes it, today's cattle call wrangler has entered the room in his skin tight spandex cowboy pants and a loose fitting “hipster” pearl snap shirt, ready to whip us with little reassurance that we belong in his heard.

We start with ballet barre. Out of spite or necessity I've perfected ballet barre, an exercise that you'll never see in a live performance, but if you ever want to be seen in a live performance you should center your focus on this trite obstacle. Becky and I are the token elderly dancers who still come to these judgmental gatherings. We perform inane dips and rises on this inanimate barre in hopes not to mess up. When you're on the ballet barre the trick is to not get noticed. Standing out isn't anything you want at this stage of the audition. The purple socks come in handy later, not now. Focus on your center I'll tell my self. This showcase continues for another five minutes with Becky, myself, and the throngs of countless girls awaiting to hear if we made first cuts. Mine. 13. Becky. 6. Read aloud, and we move on. We've moved on. My last first cut, ever. Pumpkin inspired lattes can wait, I have some inspiring I must do, one last time.

Freedom is something a dancer struggles with. Are they free in the madness and structure of their moves in those maintained studios? Or are they free, when they are in the real world, unbound of techniques, madness and structure? I still think it's the former, even though, I'm done with dance after today's auditioning curtain call. It gave me something to love but, more importantly, something to do for the last twelve years. Time I would have spent waltzing through meetings, team building, and filing in offices with more copy machines than mirrors. Just duplicate while rarely looking at one's self, doesn't seem so bad now. I'm happy with the choices I made. I didn't waste nothing, I became something, though something without a lot of things to show for itself. I'm not defeated, I'm just done. Not angry, nor disappointed, just closed, perhaps just for repairs. A sign that hangs and says will return at ...... Maybe. Plausible.

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Mimicking without feeling. Spot on. That's the room. The lucky ones who've advanced. All these girls turning, spinning, getting dizzy, it makes me sick, knowing they need to nail this audition or they'll stay affected. See what four years of this has done to me? I use to never speak this harshly of another dancer. We are shown the routine, then we show the shower. Everyone counting steps, but not considering being the dance, just counting, numbers they've been familiar with for twenty some odd years now. I'm moving without thinking. Spot on. Why not? Now's not a time to feel small, tense or frustrated. I'm feeling something with no intentions to mimic things I've felt in the past, and why the fuck not, it'll be my last. Oblivious to the oblivion that is my fossilized dance career found under the ruble of the new stones, that these new girls are trailblazing through. Not now. These beautiful, capable, rational dancers must yield to my insane reasoning. Just for now. My curtain call with dance. Step aside. I want to be this dance, it is me, why the fuck not, it's going to be my last, and it'll be over in 32 more steps. Arms raised, nothing's grounded. Freedom. 24 steps left. I'm doing it, and I sorta got a feeling that I've been doing it now for a while. My feet have been doing the talking, it's my head that's refused to listen. I've been dance, and I hear it loud and audible now. I've been spreading the word, performing the act, I've done dancing for a while now. A lot. In front of people even. Mostly alone. When I've needed it. Now understanding that dance needed me just as much--just to exist. If I stop dancing, it's stops living. I've always wanted to dance for a living, but naive to the fact that me dancing has kept myself and dance living. So what, I have to bartending to pay rent, I pay rent to live in the city, to keep dancing. 16. But it's coming to an end. Becky has been tapped on the shoulder, by the dance instructor, the wrangler has all but put her out to pasture, he's seen enough of graceful Becky. Becky, the best dancer I know, the supportive co-worker I've shared a water or two with. She watches me as my center and everything on my person personify the dance. The last 8 steps of my life I'll be told to do. Measurable time will have a different meaning to me when I've completed this piece. Time will be about half off when this is all over. My perseverance, has paid off and it's collecting interest in interest of the love I've put forth that's in debt wishing to collect. With my lungs insufferably spazzing and collapsing on themselves I've come to the conclusion I've just experienced twelve years of work come to a conclusion on this Sunday in October. What a weird time to have an audition, right? Then, it's over, the routine anyway. I keep dancing, even though it would be appropriate to bow on behalf of my final performance , I just want 8 more counts. 8 that are my own. Ones that I taught you. 8 a capella notes that you will try to mimic and feel. 8 seconds worth of moves that will imprint my size 8 feet all over your back instead of the other way around. The world that I discovered is counting on me to show it something unique. Hoyne. Chicago Moving Company. Freeze and watch. Hear my feet do the talking. Your decisions have decided my future for the last time, my final bow ends with the moves you've wasted on me. Because I've never wanted to be a part of belonging. I've just wanted to be dance, with and defiantly now without you. It's over, my final routine anyway. I'm thirsty yet satisfied. He can call out whatever number he wants, I've counted my own fate aloud for those 8 steps.


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As I fasten my laces and zipper my duffel bag and tell Becky I can't wait for a latte, the cowboy starts hooting and a hollering numbers aloud. I try to usher Rebbecca out of there before he finishing calling out those who've made it and the defining silence that follows from those who hadn't. I get to leave on my own accord. At peace with the chaos. I've given dance what it was never able to give me in 12 years, everything. The hurt is over. He called my number. My tears hit the floor and make a sound louder than my tumbling duffel bag and knees.

I have nothing, and making the final cut doesn't change much. It's the nothing that's everything to me. I will always be able to dance with and definitely without them. So I stick around, for one last time, to dance for them. An encore. To inspire us both, not caring if I become a member of their dance team. The music strikes up, the routine and my life go there separate ways. Excited for the other. At some point, every song will quit, give up, like I did this morning, perhaps a life long jam-band style encore is in order. This number is comprised of steps I've encountered previously,--filled with the odd and even counts,that I've grown up with over the past 27 years-- hopefully this is the last I'll encounter under these circumstances.