Dance, with Dad

Guest post by Frank Bearman (my husband, who eschews all forms of social media, and he’s asked me not to upload the video of him dancing Gangnam Style)

There comes a time in every man’s life when he becomes a Dad. Not the mere physical fact of begetting a child, any fool can and frequently will, do just that. No I’m talking about the time when (at a Works-Do or Wedding maybe) you realise that the attractive young woman you are dancing near to (employing your trusty knee-bend bop action that has worked since that first school disco) is smiling at you. But not in a good way. And you feel an epiphany bubbling up through the alcohol. This girl is politely laughing at you, well not you, just at someone’s Dad. Dancing.

That’s the moment when you know the game is up. Dancing doesn’t work anymore – it’s a young man’s game, like smoking and tattoos. Your limbs are no longer limber, you are no longer lithe and lissom. The new stoutness round the middle means your arms don’t hang in that cool rangy way anymore and your knees are all a bit stiff and jerky. You can’t even feel the rhythm. And you look down and remember in horror that you are wearing knitwear or some such frumpy item of clothing that you didn’t mean, or it was a joke or something. Of course they think you wear clothes like that all the time and dance badly. Like someone’s Dad.

So it was with deepest empathy that I went to see Dad-Dancing at Yorkshire Dance last night, part of their Friday Firsts #18: Show Real programme. I have to add a caveat that I know very little about Modern Dance (or the un-Modern kind – Ballet is it?) so am unqualified to proffer an opinion on the quality of the work here. For example, the professional dancing all looked “really good” to me. But I think that is beside the point, the main thrust of the piece as I understood it was an exploration of the interplay between father and daughter. I am however well-qualified to speak on such relationships as I am in one myself, having a feisty four year old girl. And I have to say it was very affecting to see the lengths to which a Dad will go for his daughter.

The piece is performed by three female professional dancers who have enlisted their non-professional Dads to perform with them. I was expecting something a bit more comedic perhaps but this is a fairly earnest piece. For example there were sections exploring the way success is expected by one’s parents but which becomes a never-ending journey towards a mirage. There were literal biscuit-based analogies – no I don’t recall why, but you do get to eat them. There were regretful confessions from Dad’s about work having coming first, second and third in their list of priorities. And so on. But I have to say I am full of admiration for these chaps who are in the silver-haired stage of life. One was a geologist, another an advertising executive (retired.). They all performed with different levels of enthusiasm and jerkiness but you just have to respect the blokeish seriousness in which they took to the job in hand. Even so I suspect that Rudolf Nureyev will sleep soundly in his bed tonight. (Unless he’s dead? He’s not is he?)

Again, I’m (evidently) not an expert on dance but there were bits where I wanted to cry a little bit. There is nothing like the relationship between a Dad and his daughter, and in it’s basic visceral exploration of that theme that I thought it nailed it somehow. Even perhaps without meaning to. I mean would I, as a doting father “volunteer” to do the same in 20 years time. Hmmm, hope not…