PERSONAL ESSAY | MEMOIR
Old Lady Dance Class With Ma Walton
Guess which one of us was the klutz?
I took an “old lady” dance class when I was twenty-nine.
It seemed like an old lady dance class at the time. I had to get special permission to join. Technically, it was a jazz dance class for women over thirty-five. It makes me guffaw out loud just typing that now that I’m the ripe old age of nearly, oh, shmifty-free.
I had been laid off from my job at CNN at the time with a year-long severance under my belt. Being young and stupid, I basically pissed it away on day drinking and cool jazz dance classes in the middle of the day.
And dance class was cool.
It was held in an old Hollywood building on Highland Blvd. Our instructor was sweet and smooth — and she had been a Broadway dancer appearing in original shows such as Chicago, Pippin, and The Chorus Line.
I had been a not-Broadway dancer, appearing in original shows such as Gigolettes! and my bedroom mirror.
Although the class was for women thirty-five and older, I would say most women were probably in their mid-forties and up. I was definitely the baby of the group, but they were all very welcoming. Many of them were recognizable working character…
