FICTION : Tap Show by Julia Halprin Jackson
Bay Area author Julia Halprin Jackson reads her fiction piece “Tap Show” - it’s about tap dancing.
And one very, very determined 35-year old.
Listen to her read it as well.
“Tap Show”
by Julia Halprin Jackson
My teacher announced to the class that her private troupe, Tap Mania, was offering their first paid gig for adults.
“I’ve written an original play,” she said to the class. “Mickey Mouse gets lost in Disneyland, and guess what brings him home? The power of dance.”
She laid it out to us: 10 parts, all based on Disney or Disney-inspired characters, eight dance numbers, each with original choreography. When I saw the cast list I knew who I wanted to be: Princess Aurora, a.k.a. Sleeping Beauty, a.k.a. the dancer with the fastest and most furious solo.
Sure, I was 35. Sure, I walked dogs professionally, but damn if I couldn’t scuffle a mean cramp roll. This was my time to prove all those long nights scuffing my parents’ floorboards in second-hand clogs after a full day of walking Labradoodles counted toward something. Maybe I’d get a chance to express all this feeling onstage.
While preparing my audition, I discovered that Maleficent, the queen who casts a spell on Princess Aurora, is based on a cuckolded woman who orders the children of her husband’s second wife be cooked and fed to him. Instead, she meets a far worse fate. I felt a curious kinship with her. I knew what it felt like to be typecast as the hysterical woman.
I rethought my choreography and painted my nails jet black. I replaced the Cincinnati for a buffalo scuffle—a big risk, considering I’d only just learned the high kick—but I felt any less challenging move would have misrepresented my character—not to mention my potential.
Audition day came and I arrived at the dance salon in full costume. The shades were drawn but I could hear a swing beat playing, accompanied by the plaintive clip of shoes across the floor. Kiki played it safe with a bombershay-jinnyshay combination, light on spanks and weak on personality. Eva repeated the same combos the teacher led us through for warm-up. I knew my dance was the most original.
When my turn came, I hooked my phone up to the stereo. “It’s Maleficent’s theme, from Sleeping Beauty,” I said.
My teacher raised an eyebrow. “We aren’t casting for Maleficent.”
“Not yet.” I moved to the center of the floor.
I channeled my energy in my elbows, my knees, the balls of my feet. I felt the give of the floor. My steps echoed against the walls. I was only a few steps into my routine when I felt her hand on my arm.
“I’m going to stop you right there,” she said, pausing the music.
“But I’m not even halfway done.”
“Monique,” she said. “I appreciate you took the time to do … this, but I’m not sure you’re a good fit for ‘The Mystery of the Missing Mouse.’”
Sweat was sticking in my crotch. I didn’t know what to say.
“You sound like a herd of stampeding elephants,” she said. “I can barely hear myself think over your stomp.”
My leotard suddenly felt too tight. I grabbed my phone and headed for the door.
“We’re looking for a ticket-taker,” she said.
I turned to glare at her. “What makes you think there will be tickets to take?”
Later, I remembered what happened when Maleficent wasn’t invited to Princess Aurora’s christening. How, forgotten and scorned, she had appeared, gliding in uninvited and full of glee. I knew what I had to do.
The day of the show, I arrived to take tickets at the door of William Jefferson Clinton Middle School. I watched the other girls file into the principal’s office, a.k.a. the green room, to get in character. After the first number began, I slipped out the back door and into my black leotard and tap shoes. My teacher didn’t hear me coming. None of the other girls knew the plan except Marilyn, who’d agreed to help me in exchange for me showing her how to update the apps on her iPhone. They were too busy bickering over dance cues to notice me approach the stage.
The tap show’s final number was a rendition of “You’ve Got a Friend In Me,” sung by Eva, who had been cast as Mickey Mouse. She slow-tapped a duet with Kiki, dressed as Olaf the Snowman from Frozen. This provided a fresh contrast to the penultimate number, in which Cinderella, Minnie Mouse, Ursula, the Queen of Hearts, Star Wars’ BB8, Alice of Wonderland, Anna and Elsa danced in Stormtrooper formation across the stage in darkness. Light beamed from their plastic lightsabers and legs wrapped in blinking Christmas lights.
My teacher panted in the wings, her pink Cheshire Cat smile gleaming. It had taken me a moment to recognize her in pink and purple leg warmers and lycra bandeau top. She didn’t see me at stage right in my black leotard, nor did she expect to see me sashay on stage, elbowing Olaf and Mickey out of the way as I cued Marilyn, who’d scored the role of Dory from Finding Nemo. She gave me a thumb’s up before hitting play on my phone, which I’d hooked up to the loudspeaker. It was Maleficent’s theme.
I felt an operatic swoon as I clicked my way on stage. Here it was: My Disney moment. I only had a few seconds—a minute at most—to make my impression. I could feel the gaze of the audience on my legs, the surprise on their faces. It filled me with purpose and pride. My time had come.
As the music swelled, I let my feet tell the story. When the brass turned up the heat, so did my legs. First, the click buffalo: step shuffle click-left-toe-tap-to-right-heel-tap step. When the percussion bust in like thunder, I brought in the double toe pullback: flap shuffle toe switching pullback. The Cheshire Cat was making her way on stage. I feared she’d pull out a cane and pull me off, but instead I heard her tapping behind me, feet moving at a ferocious pace, her breath at my back.
I closed my eyes to concentrate on each step. Was this how Maleficent felt? Vibrating and alive, full of glory. Maybe Maleficent also had $80,000 in student loans and moved in with her parents. Maybe she, also, hadn’t gotten laid in a year. Where she had her bird and her magic wand and her command of the wind, I had my feet.
The Cheshire Cat was dancing a dizzying circle around me, whispering, “What in the hell do you think you’re doing?”
I was charged with wicked energy, starting in my abdomen and surging through my hips, the pulse moving down my thighs and into my calves, which quivered as I brought in the finale faluffalo: flap shuffle single-pullback-with-a-flap-flap, ending in a thunderous boom. I put my arms to my chest and smiled, staring out at the crowd.
The music ended. William Jefferson Clinton Middle School was eerily quiet. A half dozen families were scattered throughout the auditorium. A few girls in princess dresses looked up at us. Someone’s phone went off. One of the parents looked at another and offered a halfhearted clap.
“Bow, you idiot,” my teacher whispered behind me. And I did.
Julia Halprin Jackson writes fiction and nonfiction and does not know how to tap dance.
