“All right,” I said at the end of our Monday-afternoon session, “everyone gather round for a minute, sit.”
I was probably overdoing this. This wasn’t in my job description. I was supposed to help with their end-of-camp performance, but I wasn’t expected to be knee deep in it like this. Caleb, for example, was letting the counselors run the drama sessions and popping in every couple of days to give notes. I could have done the same with the dance counselors, Grace and Brianna.
But Grace and Brianna seemed happy to have me around, and honestly, what else was I going to do all day? Unlike the other artists, I didn’t have a creative masterpiece making demands on my time.
“I think we need to regroup,” I said. “Maybe we’re overthinking the narrative part of this. This is the dance group, right? We don’t need to put on a play—that’s for the drama group. So why don’t we think of our mission as choreographing some dances that are inspired byLittle Womenrather than literallydoingLittle Women? We’re so focused on the start of the book, the idea of introducing the girls and their trip to visit the poor. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that, but what if we set that aside for now and think about the book as a whole?” I paused. My brain was racing ahead of me, ideas zinging around faster than I could put words to them. “Or… what about scenes that encapsulate the themes of the book as a whole?” I made a mental note to ask the girls what they thought those themes were, but I had to keep going so as not to lose the idea that was coalescing.
“Consider the party scene,” I said, suddenly picturing them in it. “It already has dancing. We could do something with Meg and Jo sharing the pair of gloves, and Jo having to skirt the edges of the room because the back of her dress is burnt.” I’d loved that scene as a kid. I’d identified with the girls trying to hide their poverty among their peers. I’d downloaded the book and reread it on my phone over the last couple of days, and it still stood out. “But it’s not just about a dance, right? It’s a way to show the economic differences between the March sisters and everyone else. It’s about how being poor shapes a person, and about the eternal human desire to fit in.”
“Yes,” Brianna said vehemently. “We’ve been focusing on plot. On what happens to the characters. But the story isalsoabout other, bigger stuff. And that big stuff is what makes the book resonate with people a hundred and fifty years after it was written.” She turned to me. “That’s what you’re talking about—there’s for sure an economic theme here.”
“It’s funny how they’re helping the poor, butthey’realso kind of poor,” said one of the campers, Addison, a fifteen-year-old I’d clocked as the smartest in the group, if not the best dancer from a technical point of view. “I guess they’re just less poor?Or they’re something in between, because they’re poor but they’re going to fancy parties?”
“Great observation,” I said. “Maybe there’s a way we can represent all this.”
“But isn’t the book also about sisterhood?” asked another girl. “I hear what you’re saying about poverty and exclusion, but what I like about the book is how the sisters love each other, but sometimes they hate each other. That’s timeless.”
The other girls laughed, and one said, “Amen. I hate my sister, but I kind of miss her, too.”
“Yes!” I exclaimed. “This is all great. We should plan to sit and talk more in depth about what we think the themes of the book are. But do people agree that one of our dances could be the party scene? Beyond all this high-level, thematic stuff, it would be fun, don’t you think?” My other motivation for wanting to do the party was that it would be easier for everyone to have a good part. “We could do some actual ballroom stuff, some period dances”—I’d have to figure out what that would look like—“but then maybe we nest inside that some modern dance that communicates how out of place Meg and Jo feel.”
The girls loved this idea, and I did, too. I was getting a buzzy feeling in my body. Excitement, for me, had always taken on a physical form like this. It made me want to dance. Which I suppose was why I loved dance to begin with. It was a physical manifestation of what was going on inside me. It discharged emotions.
“Yeah, but what about Laurie?” one of the girls asked. “He’s central to that scene.”
“I have a lead on a Laurie for us,” I said. I hoped I did, anyway. “He won’t be a dancer, but maybe we can make that work for us.”
“Yes!” Brianna piped up. “He can be the eye of the hurricane, the still center around which the scene revolves.”
Everyone seemed excited by that idea, and when we broke for the day, I kept Brianna and Grace back. “Am I stepping on your toes too much here?”
They assured me I was not. Grace said, “It’s cool to have a real choreographer. Last year we had a ballet dancer, and she was great, but mostly she just helped the kids—and us—with technique. So the show was more a straightforward dance recital. A bunch of pieces that didn’t relate to each other. Which was fine. But I like this better.”
“I think you’re right on with the idea that we do something that’s less than a play but still has some thematic coherence,” Brianna said. “I have to choreograph a big piece next year”—Brianna was doing a BA in dance at the University of Minnesota—“so this is good practice for me.”
I was happy to have them on board but felt compelled to say, “You know I’mnota choreographer, right?”
Brianna shrugged. “Well, I don’t know what it is you’re doing here if not choreographing.”
Hmm.
On my way back to my cabin to get changed for my predinner swim, I passed by one of the music rooms. I could hear Teddy singing. I edged closer and peeped around the open door—it wasn’t as oppressively humid as that first day, but it was still hot enough that most of us kept our studio doors open. Teddy was playing guitar and a girl was playing banjo and they were both singing “Leaving on a Jet Plane.”
I sneaked closer. They soundedgreat. Teddy was singing harmony to her melody, and though I didn’t know that much about music performancewise, I could tell he was letting hertake the lead instrumentally, too. Maybe not literally—he wasn’t playing a bassline or anything—but he was a fraction of a beat behind her, as if he wanted her to make her own way but was there to support her if needed.
I was transfixed. After they finished, Teddy complimented her, and they talked about a chord change that had been giving her trouble.
“Peter, Paul and Mary did ‘Puff, the Magic Dragon,’ too, right?” she asked after the debrief. “I feel like I remember that from the music classes I took when I was little.”
“They did. They did a bunch of songs you’d probably know if you heard them. They did a great cover of Dylan’s ‘The Times They Are a-Changin’.’”
“They don’t let us have phones here, otherwise I’d listen to a bunch of their stuff.”
I had intended to follow that no-phones rule, too. I’d bought that alarm clock yesterday for that very reason, but the pull of the Karlie Carroll rabbit hole had been too strong. What a waste. I needed to recommit to ditching the phone. I was done with my reread ofLittle Women. I was doing a virtual walk-through of the new building with Justin next week, but until then, I had no more excuses.
“You should listen to some of their stuff when you go home,” Teddy said. “It’s banjo friendly, and I think your voice would lend itself well to their songs—to the extent that you’re looking for songs to cover.”
“I have to say, I’m surprised you’re a fan of this kind of music.”
