Tendency No. 5
“(In a Different Life I Would) Tango”
the tendency to daydream
Oh my stars I wish I could dance. I took one ballet class when I was six, and went home crying halfway through (although I do remember rocking that burgundy leotard for many months afterwards). As a grown-up, I’ve taken several of the Toronto Dance Theatre’s excellent classes. I always have a ton of fun, but I do a little too much tripping. Problem is, I daydream. I learn a dance step, I go to perform it, and halfway through I start to imagine what it would be like to be actually good at this, to do it for real, and how amazing that would feel, and all the beautiful places I would go and the wonderful things I would see, and then suddenly my feet are no longer where they would need to be to keep me upright.
For some reason all of this frustration came out in a song last winter. I wrote it originally for a recording session I did with two other composers and a 50-piece jazz philharmonic orchestra that we put together ourselves. It happened because Sara Jacovino and I went to hear a certain academic institution’s jazz phil concert in NYC, and afterwards, looked at each other, rolled our eyes and said, “we can do way better than that.” And so I called in Rebecca Pellett, who knows everything there is to know about orchestras, and we rented a rehearsal studio, and called 50 amazing and generous musicians, and recorded a demo (scores as wells as mp3s are online). We’re calling our composers’ collective the Wanton Fawns, and our orchestra the Wireless Orchestra, and I’m really, really excited to see where this takes us next. The three of us have been commissioned by the International Women in Brass Conference to write a piece for the Viceroy Ensemble, to be premiered this June in Toronto.
In a different life I would tango, but at least in this one I get to have orchestras. And daydreaming an orchestra into existence is almost as gratifying as would be the ability to glide, full of grace, in three-inch heels.
