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Never fully dressed

© Kathryn Morton

Have you ever had a nightmare about going to school naked? Or about being on the football field and suddenly realizing that you forgot to put on your boots? Or that you were performing your solo in your spring show and had forgotten to take the rollers out of your hair?

It's pretty common to have a fear of not being fully dressed. But what we sometimes forget is that not every part of our "costume" is something that can be neatly folded and put into a plastic freezer bag, labeled "jazz routine" and placed in your carry-on bag.

There's one costume piece of which I'm specifically thinking ... and it's one that people are most likely to forget, and sometimes not ever realize they performed without it.

I'm talking about smiles.

They're a little thing, but they make a world of difference. Once I baby-sat for a little girl who had just had her spring dance recital. She had her tape in the VCR, and since I'm always eager to watch dance videos, I was glad to take a break from having to entertain her and her brother to see the recital.

And as I watched it, I remembered again why my high school director always stressed the importance of smiles. I've seen many performances and the difference between a good performance and truly great one is often how much the dancers are enjoying what they're doing. When you're not smiling, you look bored, angry, confused ... anything BUT excited to be where you are.

When I'm watching someone else perform, I'm obviously not dancing myself. And since I'm not able to be dancing at that moment, it makes me a little sad that the person who IS dancing isn't enjoying the motions and the music. Dance shouldn't be torture. And the dancer shouldn't make it look like torture.

Of course, there are some dances that aren't smiling dances, but in those cases, you still have to have expression and feeling. But when in doubt, smile. Otherwise, you won't be fully dressed.

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Announcement

I received and e-mail from Sue Ann Kawecki, who is compiling stories and poems for Chicken Soup for the Spirited Soul, a book of devotionals for spirit organizations such as drill teams, cheerleading squads, color guards and others. She said she hopes the Chicken Soup company will publish it, but if they don't, she will look for another publisher (of course, she won't be able to call it Chicken Soup for the Spirited Soul. For more information, I have posted the information about submitting stories and poems for the book here.

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