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YANCY

a choreography journal
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image via http://imgur.com/eVdXaC2

image via http://imgur.com/eVdXaC2

Vera Ellen: Dance. Your. Heart. Out.

April 18, 2016

I can't stop thinking about that thing. That thing that happens when there is so much movement, and so little time, and what is being required of you, the dancer, is so big and so full that the only choice you have is just to get it the fuck out and trust that your body knows what to do, because you know that not only are you an artist but also that you are A Fucking Athlete and no one is going to stand there and tell you that you can't do something because you love, love, proving people wrong. And this moment will take the wind out of you but it will also feel, it is also, euphoric, and you, who maybe hates running, suddenly understand why people love marathons, because this is your marathon, except for that it is instead a series of sprints. One. After. Another.

This thing, this feeling, is maybe not so common these days, when we're all, me included, trying to do less, to make it seem easy, like it's not work at all. I think that's true about life too, not just dance. The working-without-making-it-look-like-work effect. Effortlessness and Expertise are your right and left hands, or that's the goal. It's my goal.

But sometimes, I am reminded that I like to just haul off and do the work with all the strength and the will I've got, and that sometimes, at least for me, that seems like the only way to get through it. You can't sustain this forever, this mode. Like I said, it's a series of sprints. My life, right now, is a series of sprints.

Which brings me to the following video, significant not only because this is from my early library, one of those precious dance scenes that set me on the path to get here, because I love this dance break. And when you are sprinting, you should often remind yourself exactly what it is that you love, and that is to say: why you are running in the first place.

BUT ALSO it fits the theme, because the sequence below is a full out sprint. A sprint that manages somehow to look effortless and like work all at the same time.

New goals?

Tags: Vera Ellen, White Christmas, tap, dance, dance break, dance legends, dance film, dance on film, inspo, inspiration, they call me yancy, theycallmeyancy
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