At China Dance School, teacher Kaiwen You has to settle with the lot of older women (in our fifties and sixties) every Friday morning and make something out of us. We are chatty and opinionated, awkward and stiff in our movements and hopelessly enthusiastic. For someone like me, who had always dreamed to be a dancer but had to quit when I was four, I look to teacher You as the one who can possibly help me to attain my last hurrah.
He does it by repetition. We follow him, a group of geese waddling on the dance floor taking care not to hurt our knees when we jump or twist our backs. He is tireless and determined, compassionate when one of us falls down and can’t keep up. Although our spines never quite straighten up, there are moments when we all move together the way we’re told, and we can feel our bodies forgetting themselves, stepping into a zone that is unbounded and complete.
Due to illness I have not taken the class for two years. Yesterday I went back. The school has moved to Clement and 32nd Ave. I walked into the spacious studio and when my feet touched the new floor the body remembered. The body moved and was happy again
“If you ever doubt my love, hurt me. If there is no reaction, then my love for you is dead.” Passion comes and goes. To sustain loving feelings is a mammoth task. In time we change and grow and become different people then when we first fall in love. There is a lot of stuff to work out if we want to stay together. Most of us fail. Some receive another chance, but most of us are lonely.