The Path of Least Resistance

There are two paths into this dance company: through the front door and through the back.  I seem to be invited in by the front, though I had expected to come in by different means.

New dance recruits are thrown into rigorous training and their first test is to perform the hardest and fastest dances on stage.  Only after they’ve proven themselves that way are they allowed to move on.  A way of speeding up the process of who’s going to cut it and who’s not, I guess.  If you can’t beat it out at 241 steps per minute, then they’re not interested.

The other way into the company is the way of the straggler or the un-categorized talent.  Foreigners (not unlike myself) who come knocking down Fire of Anatolia’s door and are picked up are generally without a ‘class’ to train with and end up picking up whatever they can along the way to a broader knowledge of the company’s repertoire and the really difficult dances.  “Specialty” dancers like the Georgians, trained ballerinas and super-flexible types they often import from gymnastically-adept countries like the Ukraine are the same.  They’re there to provide their particular skill and are trained in the rest as needed; generally some simple miscellaneous bit parts first.

Myself being a bit of a begging foreigner and a bit of a specialty skill with massage and English-language office work, I expected to come in via that route.  There have certainly been no teachers around to teach me and I have no class of other new dancers to train with.  FOr the first month with the company that’s how it went; I trained myself and, of course, started with the easy dances.

But then in comes the Big Hoca and apparently he has different plans for me – which I guess is a good thing since the ones they’ve put a lot of work into they tend not to let go as easily – because suddenly he wants me to know Garzani (1:45 in video), a fast and furious number that has death of dancers’ shins written all over it.  When I couldn’t show the first time around with the dance I thought I’d be off the hook in some way.  I thought he’d realize that I was of the vagabond category of dancers and maybe even find me a teacher.  But instead the Big Man comes back today and tells me, It’s ok.  I can try again next week.  In three days.

“Tamam, Hocam, [Okay, My Teacher,]” I gulped.  If I knew the verb for ‘try’ I would have told him I’ll try.  Instead I just said yes.

If I can learn this dance with any degree of success in three days it will be, singlehandedly, the most amazing thing I’ve accomplished in my life thus far.  Inşallah.