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Flora and the Flamingo, a 2013 Caldecott Honor Book by Molly Idle (Chronicle Books), arrived at my home yesterday—and how happy was I to see it. Like all truly outstanding picture books, this story about a flouncy girl and an elegant bird needs no words. On bright expanses of white, these two mostly pinkish creatures posture and pose, pursue and retreat, provoke and mimic—which is to say, they forge a friendship.
The flamingo stands on a single webbed foot. Flora does too. The flamingo rearranges its skinny leg. Flora flexes her own rather less skinny one. The flamingo stretches its wings, and look, Flora has wings as well. But soon things get complicated—the flamingo so happy to be looked at, so unto itself, that Flora (trying too hard to emulate the bird's strutting configurations) takes a tumble. Feelings get hurt. The flamingo turns, Flora turns. The you-do-as-I-do changes to a let-us-do-together. The two dance now, face to face.
What is remarkable about this book is how emotional it all becomes. How everything is said without the expenditure of a single letter. But also: how much like dance this really does become—graceful, exuberant, joyous, each character bigger by far within the wingspan of the other.
A better Beth would take this book to the nearest child as a gift. But I'm just going to have to buy a copy for the next little one in my life (and I know precisely who that is). I'm keeping this copy for me, for when I want to be reminded of the power of friendship and the necessary glory of dance.
For those who wonder, that is Scott Lazarov and Magdalena Piekarz, as I photographed them back in 2009 at DanceSport Academy in Ardmore.
0 Comments on Flora and the Flamingo/Molly Idle: Reflections as of 3/20/2014 10:47:00 AM
In today's Philadelphia Inquirer I yearn toward dance, mourn my countless non-capabilities, and conclude, well — read on. The story begins like this, below, and can be found in its entirety here.
How I stood, how I sat, how I walked into a room and didn't possess it - these were concerns. Also: the untamed wilderness of my hair, but we would get to that. In addition: the way I hid behind my clothes and failed their easy angles. Most troubling, perhaps: my tendency to rush, my feverish impatience with myself, my heretofore undiagnosed problem with the art of being led.
So I thought I could dance.
So I imagined the ballroom instructors leaning in to say - first rumba or perhaps the second - "You've got a knack for this."
What knack? What had I done? Why had I not realized that dancing in the dark alone to Bruce Springsteen does not qualify anyone for the cha-cha? That grace is not necessarily an elevated pointer finger? That how they do it on TV is how they do it on TV? That just because you love to dance does not a dancer make you?
So many thanks to Avery Rome for making room for the piece, and to DanceSport Academy in Ardmore—and all my teachers—for making room for me. Thanks, too, to a certain Moira. She knows who she is.
3 Comments on reflecting on my ballroom dance "career" in today's Inquirer, last added: 10/10/2012
Fun article, Beth! Thanks for sharing your encouraging qualms. As you know, I very much enjoy your dance videos - and aspire to such grace of movement. But the reality is that I'm much more of a dancing in the dark w/ Bruce kind of girl. (Where I rule the floor.) :)
You know how it is when you wait and wait and wait to share a (good) secret? That's how I always feel when I'm waiting to showcase my husband's art on my humble blog. I was able to release this image not long ago. Today I can share more.
This work is months in the making. It all began with a photo shoot at DanceSport Academy and features our talented, beautiful friends—Jan, Lana, Scott, Tirsa—whom Bill photographed against a green background. Everything else in these images—the furniture, the hats, the mannequins, the cloth, that pair of legs—was fashioned with a variety of 3D software tools, about which I know nothing.
I just know that I'm amazed, all the time, by what Bill does.
Click on the image to see it in bright detail.
3 Comments on My husband's art (2), last added: 8/10/2012
We spent much of yesterday rehearsing for and then delivering the sixth DanceSport Academy Showcase, sited this year at the Villanova University Connelly Center (which is also where the Lore Kephart Distinguished Historians Series is hosted).
I happen to think it was the best show ever—full of brave souls, innovative choreography, sheer talent, electrifying youth, and the final crowning glory of two performances by Latin champion dancers Jan Paulovich and Lana Roosiparg.
It was also, for me, a chance to dance that waltz with Jan and that cha-cha with my husband—a chance, too, to be surprised by dear friends Tom, Nancy, Mark, Elizabeth, and Laura, who arrived unannounced and cheered us on. How much that meant (and how long remembered it will be). And afterward, of course, dinner with the Bells. We always love our dinner with the Bells, and it's especially fun when dinner with the Bells coincides (another surprise) with a second chance to visit with Tom, Nancy, Mark, Elizabeth, and Laura.
Thank you, Scott Lazarov, John Larson, Cristina Mueller, Aideen O'Malley, Tirsa Rivas, and, of course, Jan and Lana, for seeing us through. For asking us to do more than we think we can—for expecting it from us—and for giving us a stage upon which we can try to soar...or, at least, hear the music.
4 Comments on Scenes from the DanceSport Academy Showcase, last added: 8/1/2011
We loved seeing your performance - and, to no one's surprise, you tell a beautiful story even in dance. We are grateful for your introduction to DanceSport and the pleasure we have found in attempting to take our first semi-rhythmic steps.
How often I can be found here on this blog, talking dance, yearning for it. How many books of mine have taken a choreographic turn or stopped and lived at, say, the very House of Dance? I've been blessed by teachers who sway me toward better—Scott Lazarov with his impeccable choreography, Jan Paulovich, who insists that I hear the music and is so artfully exact, John Larson, the King of Standard, Cristina Mueller and her Thursday wonders, Aideen O'Malley who does it all, John Vilardo, who worked me out of paralytic fear early on, and others, too. Blessed is me.
I'm not terrific at dance, but I keep trying, and I console myself that the trying matters. This coming Sunday I'll be trying again in a DanceSport Academy showcase—dancing the cha-cha with my husband and a waltz with Jan Paulovich. I'm not exactly ready for either dance. But the hours tick on, and Sunday comes.
Today, though, I share this video of Jan Paulovich and his partner, Lana Roosiparg, who dance so magnificently together. This is what they do, these teachers, when they are free to be their ultimate dance selves.
5 Comments on Jan and Lana Dance the Jive (for real, ladies and gentlemen), last added: 7/30/2011
Yesterday afternoon, save for a single client call, I did not work. I headed off to DanceSport Academy instead, where I took not one, but two lessons. At the end of the second, Scott Lazarov worked on some cha-cha choreography, and we recorded it, so we wouldn't forget when we got back to it. I'm walking my way through most of this, for most of it is new. My point is this: I went to the dance studio yesterday and all the stress of which I've been lately speaking vanished.
Vanished, I say.
Which is what dance, every single time, does for me.
7 Comments on I danced instead, last added: 12/12/2010
Perhaps some of you come to this blog for writing advice (though mostly what I can offer is recommendations of books I've loved or enthusiasm for authors I love...or consolation along this hard journey). Perhaps some of you come to see whether I'm still dancing (yes, I am—waltzing with smooth-shoes John Larson and rumba-ing with DanceSport owner and choreographer supreme Scott Lazarov), gardening (less than I should, but I've got glamorous purples out there this season), and writing (for every 2,000 words I wrestle to the page, I throw another 10,000 away; please don't let that discourage you in your own endeavors). Perhaps you even come for recipes, but I don't actually use or know that many recipes; I feel my way toward my dishes and have never once embarked on a stacked cake, as my friend Kate Moses regularly does, while writing best-selling books with her other hand.
But what I am about to offer you today is better than all of that, better than anything. I am about to offer you some housekeeperly advice. Are you ready?
(Get ready.)
Mr. Clean Magic Eraser totally rocks!!!
(that's it, that's the advice)
I mean, there I was, week after week, trying to get rid of the aftershock of too many hands around a doorknob, and all I ever truly needed was a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. This little item does it all, and I can look fashionable when I use it, thanks to Jan Shaeffer's recent gift of Gloveables...they're lovable (look them up, if you haven't seen them already).
So that's it. That's what this zany-Zumba-dancing-diva-only-sometimes-half-good-writer-with-the-enviable-irises is offering today.
Take it.
Or leave it.
15 Comments on My Best Advice Ever (get ready), last added: 5/13/2010
Do you have a collection of apples?! I buy my stepmother an apple every year for christmas. She has one out of glass from Romania, some out of wood from Finland, Tunisia and Cambodia, ones out of ceramic from Poland and Greece, and ones carved from stone from Kenya and Zimbabwe. And more that I am sure I am forgetting.
See, my blogging friends are ALL smarter than me. Picking up those erasers long before I did.
And yes, a long standing apple collection. One of the most important things to me. And someday I will have my mom's Humpty Dumpty collection, which I helped build through the years and also means the world to me. Those two things... they are defining.
Last night, so many of us waited for the final flight of Olympic skaters to perform, and when they entered the ice, I held my breath. So much is at stake, always, for these athletes—for anyone who has named a dream and held to it.
I don't need to report the scores; they're known. Kim Ya-na's record-breaking, cobalt blue performance. Mao Asada's steely, silver triple axels. The sweeping extensions of bronze-medalist Joannie Rochette over elastic knees. And let's not forget the American, 16-year-old Mirai Nagasu, who skated last and flawlessly in the wake of some of the most emotional performances the Olympics has ever seen. We were taught, by these young women, that it is possible to be exquisitely brave or simply exquisite, when the entire world is watching. We were reminded that sometimes power and grace are a single thing.
An arm uplifted is a hand extended. A sideways glance is a dream.
7 Comments on Kim Yu-na, Mao Asada, and Joannie Rochette: What they taught us, last added: 2/28/2010
I really enjoyed watching these ladies skate last night. I was especially moved by Kim Ya-na and Joannie Rochette's performances. And Mirai Nagasu is right -- she is the future!
As a Canadian, my heart went to Joannie, but I have never seen an Olympic free skate final with so many error-free performances. Unbelievable, beautiful, strong athletes. And, of course, your interpretation is beautiful as well!
In a few short weeks, House of Dance, my second novel for young adults, will be out as a paperback with a slightly revamped cover.
Those of you who know me a little know this: I love the freedom that dance affords me—the freedom to be my somewhat zany self, the freedom from the mind-bend of at-the-desk problem solving, the freedom of movement. House of Dance, which received a number of starred reviews and has begun to show up on state lists, takes place in a version of Dancesport Academy of Ardmore, PA, where I continue to learn to dance with the likes of Scott Lazarov, Jean Paulovich, John Larson, Aideen O'Malley, Magda Piekarz, Tim Jones, Cristina Rodrighes, and Tirsa Rivas, and among so many friends. I made this "trailer" for the the book with footage that I shot at the studio and around town.
In any case, the point is: I'm having a paperback contest. Those of you interested in receiving a signed copy of the paperback should leave, in the comment box, your definition of what dance is. Two winners will be selected from among the participants, and the two winning definitions will be featured on my blog.
Please leave your comments by March 5th.
21 Comments on House of Dance: A Paperback Contest, last added: 2/21/2010
Dance is a physical expression of music, a chance for anyone who is willing to close their eyes and lose themselves in the moment, to let their bodies respond to the sounds that fill their ears. Unlike any other art form, it's a blending of heart and mind, body and soul. Dance can be freedom. But not everybody wants to be free.
Dance is feeling the rhythm suffuse itself throughout your body, become your pulse, and allowing your body to naturally follow that beat. It's letting yourself go to the moment, to the joy of life, to inhibitions and fears.
I think that dance is a way to physically express emotions that can't always be expressed verbally; or sometimes its a way to tell a story that might not have the same effect by simply speaking it.
In simplest terms dance is self expression. It is the self expression of the creator of the movement, the choreographer. It is also the self expression of the dancer. Trained or untrained it does not matter.
It is about expressing emotion through movement; whether to music or silence, in front of an audience or alone in your bedroom.
Dance is a physical response to an irresistible stimulus, bringing internal and external rhythms together and forcing the body to move in time with them. As they sang in Hairspray, "You can't stop the beat."
Dance is moving your body in new ways, pushing boundaries and changing perspectives. I love getting lost in my own movements- sometimes even caught off guard. Dance allows you to be who you want to be (especially when done in the privacy of your own room). It is awesome.
Dance is when your body becomes a channel for which music can flow. When your veins run with the flow and rhythm. Your very movements are decided by the tempo, you get lost in the beat. Dance is like the changes of nature, for which each sound, your body, and the dance change in a never ending cycle. Dance is an expression of yourself,as you find your heart, and others somewhere on the smooth wood floors. To me, dance is an expression of emotion, but more importantly, Dance is the movement of life.
Dance is a chance to express yourself through music, it's an art - blah blah blah. The classic textbook answer is that and such. Not that it's wrong, but I believe you can't just define dance to be a mere meaning to be able to just move your feet and/or body to a rhythm (though that's highly necessary, in matters that you wouldn't want to just fling your arms about and smack someone). For some people, dancing is their life. Others, it's a culture (perhaps to celebrate their succesful day of hunting). Wrong thinking would be, such as verious belittling professionals: if you aren't willing to do your best, don't dance at all. However that's not even remotely true. Just because you can't doesn't mean you shouldn't. If you want to say what you mean and you're not good with words, dance. Show others you mean something and that the beauty in what you see will be shown to the rest. Plus, it's great exercise.
From Hilary Hanes via Facebook: "Dance is...an expression of everything one feels. It can be fast or slow; it can be with someone or alone. It can be joyful or sorrowful. Dance doesn't have to be perfect, nor can anyone really define perfection. It doesn't have to be pretty, but it has to come from the heart. Someone dancing without an ounce of rhythm can be just as beautiful as someone dancing with technical perfection. It expresses what one feels inside, and should be shown with unabashed freedom. "
We danced the tango for Magda today. She helped us to see it through her eyes—shifted the balance in things, taught us the momentum that builds from a rightly strengthened spine, helped us close the piece in, so that we danced it, mostly, for each other.
But maybe that's not why she's entered our lives at this time—all this making right of a single dance, to be performed in a month, for a few hundred people. Three minutes—less—and it will be over, done—the steps worked out or not, the final leap syncing with the music or not, the rondes arcing wide or not—and what, she wondered, what (she asked us) will we have when it is over? What happens after that? What will this tango mean, this thing that we have built from Scott's choreography, and from (now) Magda's perfecting touch?
What will we have, and will we know how to dance—finally and rightly with each other?
Magda is supposed to be teaching us how to move. She is teaching us something richer, altogether.
5 Comments on What Will the Tango Mean?, last added: 9/25/2009
Dance studios bring together the middle of this country and the middle of another, guys who aren't precisely big on books and guys who are, mambo kings and samba sensations. In other words, they bring together people like Scott Lazarov and Jean Paulovich, who are pictured here. Scott is the artistic force behind DanceSport PA and one of the best choreographers anywhere (on Tuesday afternoons my husband and I dance Scott's brilliant tango; when I wrote House of Dance, I used Scott as the model for Max). Jean is the champion ballroom dancer, dear friend, and teacher who thinks I can pull off a Broadway/foxtrot/quickstep/Charleston/lindy hop/jive routine in time for a late-October showcase.
I'm not quite sure whom Jean thinks he's kidding, but I will tell you this: Yesterday, when fellow-dancer Julia was watching Jean and me kick slam our way through the routine, she suggested (with that merry twinkle in her eye) that Jean turn me loose on the stage alone so that I can do what I was already apparently seeming to be doing, which is to say, making it all up as I went along.
In any case, we do spend a lot of time with the good people at DanceSport, and the photos I sometimes post from there were all taken as part of a big web project—photography, design, writing, programming—that we have undertaken here, at the company that I run with my husband. Late last night that DanceSport web went live.
5 Comments on Webbed in with DanceSport, last added: 9/13/2009
Wow, Beth ... you must be getting quite good! And, the website you've put together is awesome. That studio is gorgeous. Sounds like you have a lot of fun there! Did you see that 'So You Think You Can Dance' has started their Fall season! :-)
Gorgeous website ... love the photos! You really do get a sense of movement and fluidity with this site, and it evokes a feeling of wanting to, well, dance.
I have drawn the brilliant conclusion that all important messages are sent to me while I am at the dance studio being tossed about, from partner hip to hip (do they really call that move the back breaker?), or when being encouraged to go high on the tango kicks (really? you want me to kick that high?).
For today while being asked to scorpion my legs while being spun but a quick half turn (okay, you try it), the red phone light was blinking with this news: The Heart is Not a Size is now available in galley form.
There is so much, for me, that is bittersweet about this book, and so much that, quietly (can I say this?) I am proud of. Not proud in a hang-the-ribbons-on-the-wall fashion, but proud because this book required me to push through issues with which I have struggled for nearly a lifetime.
In any case. And so it is. And someday, maybe, I'll execute that scorpion kick in a manner that does not cause Scott Lazarov to gently roll his eyes.
11 Comments on This Photograph was also taken by Jill's Blackberry, last added: 6/10/2009
House of Dance has a slightly modified cover in store for its release next March as a paperback; thank you, Carla Weise and Jill Santopolo.
In this trailer (the last of the three that I've been creating these past few weeks), we go through the streets of Ardmore and up into the Dancesport Academy studio, where it has taken an entire planet's worth of gifted dancers—Scott Lazarov, Jean Paulovich, John Villardo, John Larson, Jim Bunting, Cristina Rodrighes, Aideen O'Malley—and one very fine manager (the lovely Tirsa) to teach me a few things about the box step. This is the studio that inspired this novel, which was named one of the best of the year by Kirkus in 2008.
11 Comments on The House of Dance Trailer, last added: 4/21/2009
Thank you, B&BM (am I the only one who calls you that) and Q and LN. A professional videocamera holder I am not. But I've had fun making these.
Q — SO glad you like the new cover!!
Vivian said, on 4/18/2009 12:16:00 PM
Oh, I love the new cover. Amazing what a change of color will do to make things pop and look more sophisticated.
You are having too much fun with the videocamera. Nice reflection of the dancers!
Maya Ganesan said, on 4/18/2009 12:21:00 PM
I really love the new cover -- it's gorgeous. Amazing trailers.
Priya said, on 4/18/2009 10:27:00 PM
I like the new cover too. It's more dynamic and makes me want to read the book all over again!
Em said, on 4/18/2009 10:42:00 PM
A new cover, interesting. Is it the one on the side, red and black? Maybe you could do a post about why they changed the cover? I love to learn little insider things like that. :)
At the dance studio today, it was all of us. It was, at the heart and pulse, Cristina, who brought her baby—six weeks old and already dreaming music. The baby's long and perfect fingers sculpted the air. Her soul absorbed our love. Her grace was our grace as Scott took her on and cradled her within his rise and fall.
You don't dance at my age to become a ballroom star. You don't dance with illusions, when you dance with Jean. You dance because you trust the others who gather with you there, because they have, in so many ways, become a family. I danced a lousy jive today, and I also held a baby. I hugged a radiant, brave, and dear new mother, and I looked around—at the good in us, the awe, the tender.
New life is new hope. The music plays beyond us. The music is dreamed by the young.
This is one of those times when I don't have anything insightful to say, but am just glad to have stopped by to read your words and look at your photos.
It's funny because as I get wiser in years, I've come to terms that living fully means taking risks, taking chances at all life has to offer. Yes, some may see it as "making a fool of oneself," and I think we all have the blushes of "youth" behind us on things we've done or perhaps decided not to do, for fear of embarrassment or how others would see us.
Maybe it's when we finally accept ourselves, we appreciate the chances to make fools of ourselves. (which I did today in the most public way)
It's only been in the last couple of years that I've realized the value of regularly putting oneself in discomfort of some sort...pushing the boundaries...facing one's fears...making a fool of oneself...however you describe it. It gives us a chance to remake ourselves and our perception of ourselves again and again. It grows new muscles, sharpens the vision, limbers the mind and pushes out the horizon.
I believe that's the secret of staying young in spirit.
Thanks for posting this video! As you spoke, I thought of Lewis Carroll's "Lobster Quadrille" (which I've set to music), and how much I try to take my daily living lessons from that poem:
What matters it how far we go?" his scaly friend replied. "There is another shore, you know, upon the other side. The further off from England the nearer is to France -- Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance.
Thanks for this reminder, Beth. I'm often too afraid (and shy and nervous) to do things that I don't understand or that I'm not good at. It's fun to remember that making a fool of yourself can be a good thing. I'm going dancing tonight and I'll keep that in mind. :)
Thank you, Miss Em, for naming House of Dance one of your top ten reads of the year. I know how much you read. I know how graced that recommendation feels.
Mari, thank you for naming House of Dance as one of your favorite books of the year. I am in such tremendous company in your list. I'm ... astonished!
To Becca, who writes one of the smartest book blogs in cyberspace—her idea of a review being my idea of a review, her tastes often mirroring mine—thank you for giving me a set of butterfly wings in your latest post. To Lilly for so sweetly acknowledging me in her own blog, and for entering this community so gracefully. To Tapestry100, for being such a kind supporter of Into the Tangle of Friendship, and for naming it one of his favorite books of the year.
To Sherry, who not only raised the remarkable Miss Erin we all love, but who also leaves exquisite comments on this blog—thoughtful comments.
And thank you, Lenore, for your rocking yesterday honor. You are your own tour de force in this wide web world. I'm honored to count you as a friend.
I could resist no longer. I'd been waiting for Miss E to read HofD, but she's having a hard time getting to her "I wish I could read pile." So today I asked, "Pretty please?" She sighed and surrendered the first reading of your beautiful book. I wish I didn't have to get any sleep tonight.
P.S. Did you eat mustard sandwiches when you were a kid? I did. With pickles. And sometimes potato chips, too. The best!
And the biggest thanks should go to you, Beth! Thanks for your blogging generosity and wonderful books! It's such a joy to come here and read your daily thoughts and view your beautiful pictures or to dive into the pages of your books.
A few moments ago I finished your book. I cried when I closed the cover and I hope Erin has your e-mail addy as I want to share some of my thoughts of what it meant to me, in a more personal way. So I came to your blog to find the post where you told us of the blogger with the long shot prediction for House of Dance, because I hadn't gone to the link the other day. Then I came back to your blog, read the YatH post and watched you speaking to us. I almost commented back with "I love you!" but felt a little shy. So then I skimmed down to yesterday's post and saw it.The line I'd completely missed yesterday. The line with my name on it, yes it's mine, 'cause Miss Erin's name is next to it.
Bestower of gifts. Kindness multiplied by goodness=BK. Thank you many times over.
Sherry, You are something else. You need say no more. My thanks were real—then and just now, for your kindness about HOUSE. There is much that is true there, much that was lived. xo. b
Fun article, Beth! Thanks for sharing your encouraging qualms. As you know, I very much enjoy your dance videos - and aspire to such grace of movement. But the reality is that I'm much more of a dancing in the dark w/ Bruce kind of girl. (Where I rule the floor.) :)
Great news Beth!!! And what is this about a book on Berlin?? Will you be traveling here to Germany to get some inspiration???
JV
Great news Beth!! What is this about a book on Berlin? Will you be traveling here to Germany for some inspiration? Please keep me posted!
JV