I dreamed that I had decided to do a tap number for my PlayThink piece, regardless of the fact that A) there’s not really a stage at the venue suitable for taps and B) I haven’t tapped since I was, like, ten.

But, much as in real life, I wasn’t about to let a little thing like a complete lack of appropriate facilities and the required skill set get in my way 😛

In fact, I’m doing no such thing. Rather, I’m choreographing a rather syncretic piece to Queen’s “Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy.” Admittedly, that would make a sound platform for a tap dance, if I knew how to tap dance, but I don’t particularly and I don’t plan to spend the next five months doing Emergency Tap Class.

As it stands, “…Lover Boy” has a very Vaudeville feel that calls for jazz-infused choreography, which falls outside my comfort zone (which, basically, comprises “ballet and trapeze”), but not so far out that it feels unreasonable.

I had intended to use something a bit less up-tempo; something similar in tone to Trenet’s “La Mer”—but sometimes one’s Muse cracks one upside the head and says, “You’re gonna do this and you’re gonna like it.”

Muses can be jerks sometimes.

Anyway, after being assaulted by the Muse (which sounds, to be honest, like a title you’d find in the Romance section of the Kindle Unlimited catalog), I spent a little time last night putting together some ideas. I think it’s going to work, and I have until July to make it work. I have also imagined some ways to incorporate Denis that will be possible even though he won’t be able to really use his right arm yet, but we’ll see if I can talk him into it.

I’ve also got kind of a choreography workshop thingy coming up that should be cool. I don’t think I’m going to workshop this specific piece, though: rather, I’m going to see if I can find a partner for Barber’s “Adagio” or start working on either “Bolero,” one of the the pieces for Peace, or the opening piece for Dancers Watching Dance, which is (of course) the Four Little Swans.

I’m leaning away from DWD, though, because as much as I love the idea, it’s explicitly comedic ballet, and I feel like “…Lover Boy” is borderline-comedic and could stand to be balanced with work on a serious piece. “Bolero,” as a standalone piece, falls somewhere in the middle: Simon Crane is a reasonably serious ballet (which is to say that in the great tradition of ballet, we suspend our mirth at the idea of people madly in love with birds and vice-versa), but “Bolero” is very much a kind of production number that could be played for laughs.

It’s really interesting how quickly I click back into Ballet Boy mode. I’ve spend my break consumed by self-doubt, and several times thought about throwing Simon Crane out the window and never trying to choreograph a full-scale story ballet at all … and yet here I am, thinking very seriously about choreography again.

One last bit. I’m kicking around a plan for a wee choreography or improv retreat weekend some time this summer (or late spring). I’m basically the worst planner ever, so this is a terrible idea, but I really want to try to make it happen, and I think I have some good ideas. Having a camper that sleeps four in dedicated beds and up to seven if you convert all the things helps: we can snag a site with a picnic pavilion at a state park or whatevs and people don’t have to necessarily tent-camp. I think that if I start planning now, it might actually happen.