...and when you get the choice to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance! (from "I Hope You Dance")
The latest astonishing scandal has broken and jaws drop left and right. Cue Central Casting. Yet, if one looks closely, one sees that -- typically -- the most embarrassing moments in life are brought about by one's most vile impulses. Nixon. Bill Clinton. Elliot Spitzer. But there are, too, some moments of unthinkable shame that arise from one's best impulses. The quest for kindness, the will to justice. Yes, these too can lay you flatter than a pancake. I recount one now for you.
There we were. Assembly. Not a word invoked carelessly. "Assembly" meant that each and every student in our grade school, Turnagain Elementary in Anchorage, Alaska, was to report to the gymnasium for some sort of Assembly-worthy event. Most often it was Native Alaskan singers performing to their taut whale-skin tambourines. Yawn. Once, we had been treated to a piano concert by Carmen Dragon who was introduced as the father of Daryl Dragon of THE CAPTAIN & TENNILLE! To me at least, that was pretty major.
For today's Assembly - I remember it being 4th or 5th grade, thus 1974-5 - we were to see an award-winning, world-renowned Russian dance troupe that had toured the globe with its multi-cultural performances. Interestingly, whereas most Assemblies were held with the performers on the large stage in our gymnasium, and the assembled students seated in folding chairs below, this Assembly would feature the guest troupe in a circle at the center of the gymnasium, and we, the students, cross-legged on the floor surrounding them.
I sat very far from the center circle. These were years when I really didn't have anything like a crowd, so it was easier and, well, more than appropriate for me to sit at the outskirts, legs crossed like the other hundreds of kids thus "assembled" in the gym.
The Russian group was thrillingly intense, and the complications of speaking across languages very evident. These were clearly serious dancer-athletes, none young, but skilled in their craft. An even mix of men and women, perhaps thirty in number, all raven-haired. I wondered what they were doing here in Anchorage, in our gymnasium. They were so talented -- couldn't they do better than this?
Toward the end of the program, I was distracted by something behind me. The years have allowed me to replay this crucial moment many, many times, and yet still I never hold it clearly in my mind. Did I know the kids behind me? Was I playing for their approval as I looked back, paying no attention to the announcements of the Troupe Leader? Why, exactly, did I turn back precisely in time to hear "...our next dance, 'The Japanese Water Dance,' we'd like you to stand and join us in a performance together?" Who can ever really know?
I awaited the performance to begin. I have always appreciated sad, delicate melodies, and "The Japanese Water Dance" delivered this and more: where the troupe had previously been gymnastic and vibrant, here they became slow and shimmery, following the doleful, whispering music like a shadow.
As I watched their performance, I became increasingly enraged. Glancing around at my fellow audience members, these students from K- through 6 sitting cross-legged on the floor, I saw the look of mass and total boredom read on each and every face. "Are we so blasé?" "Are we so removed from culture that we can't enjoy or partake in anything more stimulating than War Ball??" "Can we really look with such blank disregard at this Russian troupe who have ASKED US TO JOIN THEM in their circle??" Now horrified, I turned again to the dancers, each cascading and interfolding to the music. Are they not shocked?? Crushed?? Do they not question why we DO NOT ACCEPT their universal invitation to dance???
I was and am not a person who enjoys drawing the focus of the popular eye. Yet, in this moment, I knew that if I did not stand to join these dancers, I could, on some level, never really live with myself again. And so, I rise, steady and sure, and step past my sitting classmates toward the center of the gym.
"The Japanese Water Dance" is not an easy dance to join. The music is haunting yet percussive, like barely heard wind chimes. The entire troupe of dancers moves as one, in a tightly rehearsed snake-like formation, lifting and weaving collectively as if they are a synchronized school of fish, or perhaps one large sea creature swirling its body within the waves. I take up the rear and look to the dancers in front of me for guidance. Many...most...of them turn back, looking at me, and I give them a big American smile as if to say "Hello, Friend! Thank you for bringing this dance to our Alaskan school!"
From the periphery of my sight I glimpse our principal, Mr. Serfling, standing in alarm, fanning his hands in a downward motion, perhaps signaling the other students following behind me that there are now too many participants in the center circle, given the complexity of the dance.
As the slow, shifting melody unspools, I become more and more comfortable with its base rhythms, and I allow myself to improvise, creating broad hand gestures and head movements that speak through me. Although it is not in my nature to be the "1st" in any situation, I am humbly glad to have broken the arctic ice and allowed this Russian-meets-Alaskan moment to blossom. Our dance concludes in a giant group collapse, grasping and writhing under the figurative harsh break of a new day.
The performance ends as solemnly as its music demands. There are few claps from the audience as we take our bows.
As I return to my seat, I realize that every eye is on me. And I mean EV ER Y EYE. I sit down in my outer-circle spot, still vacant from when I had arisen those long moments before.
The Troupe Leader clears his throat and gestures widely to the room: "Um...well...like we said before, we'd NOW like to invite all of you to join us and dance with us in our NEXT number, 'The Animals In The Zoo.'"
Several hundred students rise to receive instructions on how to render the first animal in this dance, the Monkey.
Pure. Lifelong. Horrifying. Recurring. The kind that still shows up in dreams. The kind that delights people at parties. Self-renewing shame that maybe even a Nixon, Clinton or Spitzer could understand.