Dance Lessons

Dance Lessons

At some point in time I decided I wanted to be a ballerina. So my mother enrolled me in dance lessons. The local dance teacher was Vi Shafer. Her policy was that you had to take a year of acrobatics and a year of tap dancing before you could start ballet lessons. I thought that was a scam -- and I still think so -- so she could make a lot of money off of you for two years before you actually got to learn the kind of dance that you really wanted. Well, anyway. I took the acrobatics and tap, but I don't think I ever did get to the ballet stage of the game. 

There are a few things I remember about dance lessons. First -- I was embarrassed because I didn't have a leotard. I had tights, which I wore with a regular shirt or blouse. Honestly, I'm not sure why my mother never bought me a leotard, but she never did. Then when I took tap, I never got regular tap dancing shoes -- and I REALLY wanted some! According to my mother, we couldn't afford them. So I had taps put on my regular patent leather Mary Jane shoes. I hated that. (In fact, even after I was grown I still craved a pair of tap shoes -- and I actually bought some shoes that were very much like them.)

You can't tell much from this picture, but those shoes are black patent leather and they have ribbons for shoelaces. They look very much like the regular tap dancing shoes I wanted when I was 7 years old.

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These pictures are from the dance recital. I am the one in the center. 

The main thing I remember about this recital is that when our costumes arrived, mine did not have a hat. It was supposed to have a white sort of bonnet like the others. So my teacher decided I would wear a 'special' hat -- some black thing with feathers -- and I would be in the center of the line so it might look like I was the leader, or some such nonsense as that. If she thought she was making me feel better about it, she was dead wrong. So once again I was embarrassed.

I never did get to take ballet lessons. 

The End