Date A Girl Who Dances. The Rebuttal.

Hello Friends.

I just finished my final final of college! I'm not feeling the least bit sentimental about it right now, but I'm sure there will be some mushy blogs in the month to come.

The end of the semester means that I finally have time to deconstruct this article I stumbled upon on facebook. I've been waiting for weeks. Here's a link to it: http://www.buzzfeed.com/steffirina/date-a-girl-who-dances-op3t The article, called "Date A Girl Who Dances, is written by Steffi Carter. At first read, I was embarrassed by her portrayal of dancers, but through further examination I found it littered with red flags as it relates to feminism and dance culture.

Let's jump right in, shall we?

The Title: "Date A Girl Who Dances"
YES. All about this. I am a girl. I dance. You should date me. Absolutely on board.

Well. It's downhill from here. You absolutely should read the whole thing, but I'll give you my highlights.

"Date a girl whose eyes get glassy when assaulted by new music because she can’t help choreographing, casting, living and dying in her mind."
I can't shake the image of me at my first death metal concert. This is about the only time I have every been truly assaulted by a piece of music. And by assaulted I mean it was so suddenly loud that I almost fell over. I humiliated myself in a room full of folks that looked like they could eat me alive and I've made it a goal to not repeat the incident. I personally feel like I can handle listening to music. I mean, I can do the fucking splits. Music does not make me catatonic. 

"Find a girl who dances. You’ll know that she does because she will seem to move endlessly. She will sway to the sounds of the city, fidget every few minutes, crack her knuckles and her neck, roll each wrist and cross the other leg just so she feels even. She will forget herself and where she is, the length of her skirt and the strangeness of what she’s about to do when something falls from her lovely, articulate hands to the floor. She will not bend at the knees because she does not have to, folding instead at the waist to execute the kill. That’s the dancer. When she straightens, she will laugh at herself, and her collarbone will beg you waltz with her."

Ah. The illusive, mysterious dancer creature. A rare breed. Certainly not human. Certainly not fit to navigate the city without getting lost in the bustle. Very strange. Personally, I prefer to bend my knees to pick stuff up. Unless there's a cute girl behind me and I'm having a good butt day. What I'm getting at here is that I'm interpreting most of these qualities as negative and kind of crazy. I absolutely like to roll each wrist to feel even, but for me that's a residual ocd type habit that I personally don't want to glorify. And this "finding the dancer" game has a predator/prey feel that I am NOT into when it comes to dating.

"Such proximity to a pedestrian has reawakened an awareness of her abnormality; she had nearly forgotten, again, that not everyone needs a tutu to feel alive."

Mmm. Abnormal. Flattering. 

"See if she cries when she doesn’t make the cut, and learn to anticipate what she needs before and after that audition. Remember what needs massaging, and when. Understand that it is a rare treat indeed for her to really be at rest, to have a day off from running to and from rehearsals, and to take a break from being beautiful."

Oh the patronizing! I can't! Please ladies, can we stop perpetuating this stereotype that we can't stand on our own two feet? I mean yeah, I have wept my way through many a post-callback situation, we've all been there, but give yourself some credit here! Many dancers can push their bodies very far physically and the professional performing world is full of bullshit that we just have to take. You're pretty damn strong. And this bit about taking a break from being beautiful? Please. The connection to female beauty standards doesn't bear deconstructing. 

"Technically, she was never trained to talk. She was trained to listen. Let her speak when she finds her voice. Do not ask her to make sense."

Pardon? Never trained to talk? This tells young female dancers that they should keep quiet. Women's voices have been historically undervalued if not completely ignored. There have been WAVES of feminists who worked their asses off to give women more of a voice and I REFUSE to forfeit the progress we have made because I also happen to express myself through dance. Some of the most articulate people I have met are dancers. Setting the bar this low should not be something to aspire to. 

"It’s easy to date a girl who dances. Give her ibuprofen in bulk for her birthday"

For the record, I prefer M&Ms and chewing gum. I can handle my own medical supplies thank you. 

"Look at her. Stare."

But actually, please don't. I prefer not to be objectified. Thanks. 

"Because she’s unreal. The human equivalent of a black cat, with that same mesmerizing and vaguely alarming quality in the way she slinks toward you."

Jesus. I am very real. I am not a fucking ethereal fairy thing. Side note, what about my slinky walk is alarming? The last thing I want to do when I am slinkying towards someone is alarm them. 

"Date a girl who dances because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who adores everything you do, every little thing about you...This is a woman who rehearses for weeks on end for maybe one minute onstage — do you think she does anything because it is easy?" 

That's right. Hey dancer, you thought this article would be about how great you are? Nope. It's about the other guy. He deserves you. You deserve...it's not in this article. Now go back to your slinking. This also suggests that the dancer is the one that puts all the energy into the relationship for very little payback. Do you really want that? 

"You want a girl who bites off more than she can chew because she is the most flexible, most sensitive, most ambitious, most big-hearted of the bunch." 

Well. I do happen to be pretty flexible. So if you're into that.

"You deserve a girl who doesn’t break easy, a girl who’s prepared for a bit of pain for the sake of of beauty."

Please God ladies, don't idolize pain in order to be beautiful. It's not healthy. Don't glorify pain in relationships either. 

"She’ll embody the ebb and flow of that tide between well-established vanity and soul-crushing insecurity" 

That's right, that triple pirouette makes you vain and soul-crushingly insecure. Best of both worlds really. 

The End. But Not Actually. 

Ok. That's the end of the article, but I have a few more general comments. 

Firstly, I get it. This is a buzzfeed article. It doesn't need to be politically correct. And if you read the article and identified with it or liked it, you do you. I'm not going to tell you how to feel about something (she says after finishing a very opinionated blog). But at the same time, when an article like this gets a lot of attention, we need to acknowledge what it says about dancers and women in our culture. By othering dancers as these mysterious, inarticulate, mentally unstable, non-human creatures we are creating a potentially dangerous standard if universalized. 

Also, this only addresses girls. And I understand that the title specifically implies this, but if you refer to "dancer" as only female, you're ignoring all the men and gender non-specified folks. They do exist.  For the record. 

*Before we end, I want to acknowledge that I'm throwing around words like "crazy" and "unstable" pretty casually. I want to be clear that I am not making a statement about mental illness. I have dealt with mental illness personally, with my family, and and among my friends and the topic itself needs more understanding an acceptance. But understanding and glorifying are two very different things. This article has a tone of glorifying this stigma of dancers as "crazy." And I don't like the stigma that creates for the community.

So yeah. Something to chew on. Mentally I guess. In response to this, I intend to write, "Date Me: A Dancer, The Un-universalized Take on Date A Girl Who Dances." Basically it will be the most self indulgent thing to grace the internet. 

May the 4th be with you. A day after the fact. 

Kaitlyn 

I am Graduating College

And I am super ready to go. Also super terrified, but mostly feeling like my formal education expiration date has passed. Honestly, it's not because I'm sick of going to class or doing homework or seeing my friends every day. I really like all of those things and I fully intend on continuing to read psychology textbooks for fun. I mean, the DSM updates every 10 years or so. I'm set for life.

Funny related story before this goes into vulnerable future thoughts. I've always had this weird drive to be totally self sufficient. (*Disclaimer: I'm definitely not advocating that I have the responsibility or organization necessary for any of this, my procrastination and naivete is proof enough for that) I remember thinking how cool it would be to be like a robot that could just dig inside myself and do everything needed to sustain life without help. In retrospect, this explains a lot about my perpetual state of introverted. Huh.

Funny story though! At some point between the formation of my earliest memories and my 4th birthday, I decided that I would take control of when I ate and drank. I was only toddling that that point, so getting my own food wasn't exactly an option. But I worked with what I had and decided that I would drink half my bottle of milk, and then hide it from my parents so I could go back and finish it on my own schedule. Being like 2.3 feet tall, my options were limited. So I chose to hide my milk behind the toilet in our first floor bathroom. This went on for several weeks before my mom caught be drinking curdled milk behind the toilet. Nothing says "your child might develop a control related anxiety disorder in their mid teens" quite like catching your 3 year old daughter drinking curdled toilet milk.

That was a lot of personal right there. And there's more coming, so brace yourself.

Since my toddlerhood, I have developed more practical ways of demonstrating some form of independence, but I can't shake the feeling that at 22 I'm still not doing enough. In some societies people are functioning as adults at 16. Plenty of high school graduates start contributing full time at 18. I attribute my sense of guilt to Loyola's Jesuit trickery. I spent 4 years here recognizing how extraordinarily privileged I am and how much I need to help the world, and now I have to sit in classes waiting to have enough time to do it! This whole "set the world on fire" business is starting to make sense. Metaphorically, I'm not plotting arson. Spending some 25 hours a week sitting in a classroom is making me feel like I'm just treading water. Not to mention the 4ish hours every night I'm doing homework. I'm so sick of giving employers my useless availability. I'm supporting myself on a work study job (one that I actually really love and has given me skills and connections that will help me so much after college), but I feel like I owe society so much more than I'm actually putting into it. I am incredibly grateful for the education I've been lucky enough to receive, but when I look at campaigns like Girl Rising and Teach For America I feel guilty about being 22 and still spending the majority of my time sitting in a classroom.

Then there's theatre. I've pretty much signed my soul to Dionysus, with no regrets. I believe that theatre and the arts have a communal nature that, makes us think about other people's perspectives, is an incredibly cathartic emotional outlet, and can really make a positive change in the world. Problem being, "Art" rarely reaches the people who need it most. On a broad strokes level, art only reaches those who are wealthy enough to afford it and members of the community itself. Not that I don't love a good dose of "for artists by artists" industry nights, nor do I discredit their importance to the artistic community as a whole, but it scares me that I'm spending so much money on an education to go into a field that primarily entertains upper or upper middle class affluent cultural white folks. The lack of diversity that I observe among audience members of some really great theatre leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Save for the price of tickets, so much of it ties back to arts education. Every time my district ran out of money, they cut arts funding. Not bashing sports or other extra curriculars, but can we as a society please stop taking the arts away from people who really need them? The arts have made such a difference in my life and I want to expose everyone to that same positive experience.

That was an unexpected passionate little bunny trail. And I think that's pretty much the end of what I want to say about this.

Take home point: I probably don't have my shit together enough to actually be an adult but I'm past ready to try.

Thoughts? I can't be the only senior chomping at the bit to be done right?

I'm digging this pattern of "uncomfortably real blog" followed by "funny asshole stories from my life." So if this wasn't your cup of tea, the next one might be. Hopefully you at least enjoyed the self deprecating toilet milk story. Because in a narcissistic way, I think its hysterical.

Wooooof, as you were. Personally, I am going to edit and English paper and continue reading (literally) my entire developmental psychology book.

Kaitlyn

I Graduate In 3 Months.

*Vomits everywhere*

Hey there geckos. (I think I'm just going to start using animals as gender neutral crowd addresses. Like "hey cats" or "what up dog." It'll eventually appear normal.)

So it's been a while. I've been getting back to school, settling in to my last semester of college, and trying to figure out what I'm going to do when I'm out in May. If I'm being perfectly honest (which I am because this is the internet and everything is unquestionably true) today is the first day since December that I didn't have a quarter life crisis over graduating college.

I know that every newly minted "adult" goes through this, whether its graduating high school or college or whatever form of education you manage to keep yourself in past your mid teen years. Last semester I was checked out and ready to go, but now that I'm actually getting close, I've lost all drive to do adult things and have regressed to this directionless little life form that after 3 minutes of googling job apps ends up on facebook (seemingly by default) out of fear of not having my ducks in a row.

That's over dramatic, I know. But you have to understand, I was the kid who panicked when my mom moved the green recliner (that I never sat in) to a different corner of the room. Literally "world crashing down around me" type reaction to the unexpected rearrangement of furniture. This is probably comparable to moving thousands of chairs (all different colors) all over my small three bedroom apartment.

Also I'm going into theatre. So my job is basically to emote.

BUT TODAY was a five star day and I started to figure my shit out. And I think that's worth sharing.

So I'm taking a too good for words class about feminist (read: oppressed/minorities) critique of theatre. It is glorious. Consistently the best 2 hours of my Tuesday/Thursdays. Never did I think my passion for feminist discourse and theatre would collide, but they have and I am loving every minute of it. I could seriously go for days about this class, I'm realizing more about who I am as a person and what I can contribute to theatre, and learning about all these kick ass humans making kick ass theatre that is so powerful and new and breaks down all the barriers that I have questioned my entire life and this sentence is already too long so I'm just going to cut myself off here.

There are internships available in Chicago and elsewhere that involve dramaturgical type research for queer and feminist theatre companies. I want to do that.

Also, I'm really getting into Shakespeare. I still think its the hardest stuff I've ever read, and I still need so much practice, but I'm welcoming the challenge rather than sparknoting the plays and accepting sub-par acting. Which I've totally never done, ever. Also lots of people produce shakespeare. Sometimes with all ladies. Shakespeare + gender bending = Yes.

Also, I'm taking this class about women in literature. While I have lots to say about how the class is taught, I'm so into the styles of novels we're reading Its this first person, episodic, semi autobiographical fiction. I could write that stuff. So I'm going to write that stuff.

Also, today I went to a dialogue about queer folks in religion. Again, totally my jam. I would love to work with some organizations that help the LGBT community. Any marginalized community actually, but currently I'm most involved with this one.

So this is nice. For a while there I was afraid I had lost interest in literally all things. But there are three "also's" up there, so I guess I'm not doing so bad.

I just need to breathe. I tend to schedule myself within an inch of needing to warp time. While down time generally makes me anxious, I think its a good thing right now. I want to try a lot of new things. And that takes some time. So I'm taking advantage of my good mood to update my blog and assure you that I haven't fallen off the face of the planet.

I hope this wasn't the stereotypical "recent grad freak out" blog. I tried to avoid cliches. But I'm also living some cliches right now, so its tough to avoid. If ya didn't like it, I mean, I like to think I keep this thing pretty varied. And I have some good ideas for future posts that are a little less self centered. So that's fun!

Enjoy this balmy 20 degree weather we're having and I'll probably be writing again soon,

Kait

Musical Theatre Gents I'd go Straight For.

Allo.

You know that day after you've been sick for a few days where you feel invincible? That was yesterday for me. This past weekend has been spent in a fevery daze complete with headaches, blazing tonsils, and acid reflux to rival a night of tequila. The latter was brought on by an incredibly stupid decision on my part to take about 30 times the normal dose of vitamin C on an empty stomach. In case you were wondering, it turns your innards to flames. Actual flames. Like self-induced vomiting on the lake shore trail in clear view of Navy Pier, flames. It was a rough night.

But now I feel awesome.

That has nothing to do with my actual blog. I just needed an intro. So I dumped some unwarranted personal medical information on you. Anytime.

So today at work, I was whistling "Why Should I Wake Up" from Cabaret (a welcome change from "Tomorrow Belongs to Me," which is a touch problematic when you work at a Jewish school). Anyway, it reminded me of a conversation I had with my dear roommate Sam about our favorite musical theatre songs. We watched her favorite, "Younger Than Springtime," sung by a shirtless Matthew Morrison.

So. Hot.

Now, to clarify, I'm supa gay. But there's something about musical theatre gents singing love songs that makes me completely heterosexual for approximately three and a half minutes. Perhaps its that I'm usually 99% sure that the guy on stage is gay, so there's no actual threat of me having to see a guy with his pants off. We could totally just sing at each other, drink some wine, and then dance off into the curtain call and our respective partners.

Anyway, these guys deserve some recognition. Or at least the songs. No offence gentlemen, but you're interchangeable at this point. As long as you've got a deep voice and a strong vibrato, we're good to go. So come at me benevolent sexism, woo me with your hegemonic masculinity.

1. "Some Enchanted Evening" from Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific. Performed by: Brian Stokes Mitchel.

Holy bass Batman. I think my stomach just fell onto the floor. In a good way.

2. "Love to Me" from Adam Guettel's Light in the Piazza. Performed by: Matthew Morrison. 

If you're not swooning right now, I don't know what to tell you. But seriously Matt, I appreciate you. For kicks (and for Sam) I'm gonna throw this gem up there as well.

Look at his pecks. Just. Ugh. Sam and I have probably given this video half it's views. You're welcome youtuber.

3. Why Should I Wake Up? from Kander and Ebb's, "Cabaret." Performed by: Nic Rouleau

Ok, so I couldn't find the OCR but you get the idea right? Yeah. I wouldn't want to wake up either. Not ever.

4. "On The Street Where You Live" from Lerner and Lowe's My Fair Lady. Performed by: Bill Shirley 

So damn classy. If I can't get a dude to stand outside my window, I'm taking matters into my own hands. Don't think I won't abuse my job at the costume shop to obtain this ensemble. I've done worse things in public. Singing in the middle of the night is pretty run of the mill for me.


And there you have it. The magical spell that gay men singing show tunes cast over me, now shared via youtube videos. But no joke, when I was first coming out this phenomenon was rather confusing. Then I saw Catherine Zeta Jones in Chicago. Conflicts: resolved.

By the way, I've had several conversations with several of my gay friends who cite Jones' performance in Chicago as one of their earliest crushes. There's something to that. just sayin'.

Have a good night =]

Kait

Hello Friends,

This week has kicked the crap out of me. I started my summer camp job (more on that later) and teched/opened CATS (the subject of this blog). This resulted in a serious lack of sleep that manifested itself in a 12 hour hibernation ending around noon today. It was glorious. Basically what I'm saying is, I let a week lapse in blogging. And that's ^ why.

So CATS.

Not my favorite show. Not even a show I liked. Until now.

The reasons to not enjoy Cats are pretty clear. Real simple, almost non-existent, plot, confusing metaphors you didn't really pick up on when you saw the movie, "JELLICLE SONGS FOR JELLICLE CATS, JELLICLE SONGS, JELLICLE DANCE, JELLICLES CAN, JELLICLE, JELLICLE, JELLICLE, JELLICLE" *punches Andrew Lloyed Webber in the face...then asks what the hell jellicle even means*

Jellicle = Jolly Old (cat) with an old man British accent. Way to be T.S. (We're on a first name basis).

Less obvious are the reasons to love CATS. Which I have posted in list form:

1. The Crazy Cat People. This show has the greatest fan base of any musical. Dare I say, they have exceeded the Rocky Horror level of cult. Don't believe me? Google "Cats the musical" and see what happens. Actually I'll save you the trouble: http://goldenjellicles.gotop100.com/. These are people that rent the costumes just to cat around their houses. And do makeup demos. And write thousands of character descriptions. I am proud to be part of a musical that so many crazy  And come to the shows and hiss at us. Which is awesome.

2. Subtext. I don't know who came up with it, but it's awesome. Performing has the feeling of being in on a really good secret. Like halfway through the Jellicle Ball (sex romp) I lose my virginity. Upside-down in the splits mind you. And how Macavity has slept with pretty much all the lady cats. His sexuality basically motivates the show. It's great. There are Cat families and relationships. And the audience is clueless.

3. The Characters. I picture T.S. writing this show surrounded by at least 40 Cats. All with unique personalities. Pardon my getting sentimental, but I love that this guy wrote poems with so much specificity.

4. Makeup. We look like cats. And it freaks me out. I can't think of too many live shows that have makeup this extensive. I seriously think I can make a career out of kids face painting now. And it's fun to wear. In a gross way. An accurate simulation of the feeling can probably be achieved by covering your face is Vaseline, dunking your head into a vat of baking flour, and having someone hose you down. Then run a half marathon.

5. Cardio. We're offstage for a grand total of 10 minutes. If that. And I'm convinced we spend at least 50% of the time in high kicks. This creates the illusion that you can eat whatever you want. Lies, we wear unitards.

6. If you're not moving like a stripper, you're doing it wrong.


 With that, I will let you know that I never posted this in June when I started it. It's now August 14th. Soooo this is not current. But I'm posting anyway.

Awkward 3 month late Peace Out,

Kaitlyn