Slice of Life

One summer, (I believe it was after third grade) Daniel and I were shipped off to a summer camp at the Denver Center for Performing Arts. It was a comedy class, where we did a lot of improv - at one point we even staged a flashmob on another camp. But don't get me wrong, the camp sucked. Once the teacher asked us: "how do you whiz?" as a joke and just laughed. During the day we went to several different courses - the most memorable and bizarre class was dance.

I don't even know why we were doing a dance class in a comedy camp in the first place - but we didn't have a choice. The main teacher for the camp showed us into the dance class, and we all shuffled in totally quiet. I don't know what I expected the teacher to be like - maybe someone in tights or something - but this teacher was definitely not what I expected. I kid you not, he was in a wheelchair. It was not just some ordinary wheelchair, either. It was a legit wheelchair - it was motorized and had a big panel of controls. The first few people in the class stopped and stared awkwardly, probably very curious if they had the right teacher. I even though for a minute: "Is this the right class? Is this guy for real?". Once everyone was in the room, the class started - with a demonstration.

The teacher suddenly drove his wheelchair in a random direction, spun around and drove around some more. He would drive straight at a wall then stop just before he hit it, and make a weird facial expression and do it again. It was a fast wheelchair, too. The only thing he moved the whole time was his face and his hand. After five minutes of this, he drove up to us and said: "That is an example of dance." and everyone was totally silent and really surprised. No one said anything about the fact he was in a wheelchair for the whole class, and neither did he.

During the class, we had to get in groups and dance to a song. We had something like two opportunities to experiment with the song, then we had a test. There was a set of guidelines we had to follow to get points; one was to lie down and stand up, another was to move fast and slow, another was to move all around the stage, move every part of our body, spin around, etc. So, everyone had to watch while the other groups ran around the stage and fell down and did weird stuff with their hands and randomly spun around. I got 200 of 200. If there had been no music the dancers would have literally looked insane. It was the weirdest class I have ever experienced, and I will never think of dance the same way again.