Is there such a thing as paying too close attention to the music? Yeah, probably. Some musings and observations from my daughter’s dance recital (she did awesome, by the way).
1. One of the “Pre-Ballet” classes (i.e. real little kids) danced to a string arrangement of Guns ‘n Roses “Sweet Child O’Mine.” And no, it wasn’t a 2Cellos arrangement either – it was a full string orchestra. Perhaps next year one of the jazz dance classes could dance to Pat Boone’s cover of “Enter Sandman”?
2. Contrary to what you might assume, the dance titles are not always simply the title of the musical selection – as evidenced by the fact that the Modern Dance class’s Subway Daydreams is really just Dave Brubeck’s “Three To Get Ready.” Not complaining, mind you. I love seeing Brubeck in a dance program – I just want to see him get credit.
3. I was bracing myself when I saw “Puttin’ on the Ritz” on the program. Not because I thought the dance performance would be bad – the kids always do a great job – but because I was dreading sitting through four minutes of the worst kind of mid-tempo early 80’s drum machine pulse. Fortunately, it was not to be…almost. Somebody whom I’m obviously too old to have heard of apparently did a remix of Taco’s 1983 abomination,sped it up, and spliced in the beginning and end of Fred Astaire’s performance from the 1930 movie musical. There’s three or four layers of irony here, folks – not the least of which being the oldest girls in this group were probably born no earlier than 1997 and as such have probably never even heard of Taco. If we all work together, maybe we can keep it that way…for the children.
4. Each year at the end of the performance, they bring all the kids from all the classes on stage for final bows. Since this can take some time as there are usually over 100 kids, this year they decided to play some “processional” music to accompany them as they filed on stage. The musical selection? Another orchestral arrangement – this time of Pink Floyd’s “Brain Damage.” Oddly enough, it actually worked pretty well. Maybe schools can start subbing it out in lieu of “Pomp and Circumstance”?
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