Dance

This afternoon I went to my first tap class in 6 years. Before college I trained mainly as a tap dancer so tap has a very special piece of my dance-heart. I received what I think was an attempt at the most polite brush off revealing incredible dance snobbery that I've experienced in many years.

First, to the class. It was fun. It was hard. I got maybe 30% of it. Not bad considering they were working on 2 combinations, each 8 full counts of 8 long, that they've been working on for 2 weeks. I felt pretty clueless, but that was expected and did some bit quite well. The students were actually quite nice and helpful and it's great to see a class of 30 tappers (men included!). On top of that, the prof had a good sense of humor and control over the class.

Then the brush off. I had emailed ahead of time to ask if I might join the class. At SC we had a way for community members to take class and I had emailed asking 1) if something similar existed, and 2) if I might be able to join - to which i got a resounding yes! in less than 20 min. So I figured all was good. I went up after the class to thank the professor and ask if he taught anything else that I might join in on - he told me his schedule, sort of looked me over, and launched into how high the technical level was. Clearly I didn't fit his criteria (this was for ballet and jazz, and he's never even seen me dance). When I asked about lower level classes he launched into a "well, you know, we really are ranked one of - I mean, if you put anything into rankings - one of the top dance programs in the country. We regularly interview over 400 students a semester and really only take, hmm, 35 -45. So the classes are really geared for dance majors..... I mean, I teach MWF at 11, but you really need to do triples pirouettes and the choreography moves really fast b/c that's what they need." He continued on in the same vein for a while but I got the hint. Competitive program. Very selective. Spaces reserved for dance majors. I get it. So why not just come out and say so? Rather than try to denigrate my skill as if if I could have pulled off a triple then and there he would have allowed me to come? I'm 31. I'm in academia. I'm not going to be offended if you say - you know, we have a very selective program here and really can only allow our students to take class?

Apparently tap is different because, you know, its and elective. But after a really good time in the class the exchange left me with a bitter taste in my mouth. I think I'm going to have to look elsewhere for dance than at the local U.