Contained Chaos
It is always impressive to see how many people that little trailer home like building could hold. From the outside, the serene bubblegum pink little house looks like it could hold around ten people comfortably. Surely, all of those cars are not for people in there? Taco Bell next door isn’t that popular. It would be reasonable to consider the Kiko’s, always packed on a Saturday morning serving breakfast tacos, but it is too far from this little pink house with four grey stairs that lead into the madness. The cars are, indeed, for people inside this tiny house shaped building, but it’s not a house; it’s a dance studio.
From the moment you open the door the serene facade you saw from the street view vanishes. Dance moms line the benches of the small entrance room, some at the dance classroom doors, watching their child through the one way window that from the inside of the classroom, only shows your reflection. But it’s not just the moms, there are screaming babies on hips for good measure. One family notoriously brings grandma, auntie, and cousin Derek (who is sitting on the floor with headphones on, curled over the Gameboy in his lap) to watch little Anna at her first third ballet class of the month.
As you crawl your way past dancers sitting in the middle of the square room bordered by family members, usually sprawled in some weird pretzel anxious to move in the next class, you tiptoe through children’s toys you typically see at the dentist and doctors office, then it hits you. The smells. From the front door entrance to the little front desk, with a woman who looks hot, crammed, and overwhelmed no more than 25 feet away, you’ve experienced five different smells. As soon as you open the door, a gust of warm, thick smell of sweat mixed with rubbery elastic and hairspray greets your nostrils (not as bad as you’d think, I dare call it nostalgic).
A few careful steps over, Derek’s six piece happy meal wafts over and makes your stomach growl, you think you shouldn’t have skipped breakfast this morning. Five more steps over you are choked by some mother’s perfume and mint gum combination. Five more, baby formula. Last five, generic bathroom spray smells from the tiny restroom lost behind a blocked door near the front desk. You prepare to shout your name to check in when you thought it couldn’t get any louder, one of the two classrooms lets out sending families in a frenzy to find their child and get the hell of the tiny dance studio and mothers trying to shove their children (attempting even to get rid of Derek) into the next class. The 12 by 12 white bubble TV in the top corner playing some cartoons through even smaller speakers is comical.
You’re in, you’re early surprisingly. You can breathe (preferably through your mouth) and wait for the class in studio B to let out so you can enjoy your peaceful 12:15 tap class in which you are five years too old for.
***
The small class space seems so vast compared to the clown car of a waiting room you just escaped. The clacking of tap shoes surrounds you. Some dancers came in prepared with them already on, itching to get on the rubber Marley dance floor to hear the high-pitched taps from the taps on the balls of the feet and the lower thuds from the taps on the heels. Once more than five dancers get on the floor, all doing their own thing, the sound gets overwhelming and obnoxious. You tie on your own pair, waiting until you were safely in the studio to put them on so as to not damage the shiny silver taps at the bottom. Dancers can tell apart high-quality tap shoes from the lower quality tap shoes. Honestly, if it looked more like a shoe you wouldn’t be caught dead in outside of the dance studio, they were probably the best on the market.
The tap teacher, Ms. Heidi, gracefully drifts in with her own pair of tap shoes on, she makes them look so cool. Professional dancers have an aura about them, by just seeing the way they carry themselves, you know that they’re good. I sigh, glancing at the awkward reflection of myself in the mirrors that line the front of the room. One day. One day I will have that aura.
Sure, the sound of everyone in the classroom with their tap shoes on, doing their own thing is annoying, but once you have yours on you realize the temptation to move around is strong. There is something so satisfying hearing the tuned percussion that greets every step you take. Once it gets too loud for Ms. Heidi to take, it’s time to warm up.
THIS! This is the best feeling! This is the feeling that keeps you coming back every week and even appreciate the full sensory experience that is the dance studio. You follow along with Ms. Heidi as she guides practice rhythms and makes it look easy. In tap, dancers place their arms and hands in front of them in this cute position that makes them look like they are coming straight out of a musical. As far as I’m concerned, in this moment, I’m Debbie Reynolds.