A question I hate to be asked

What is one question you hate to be asked? Explain.

For a dancer age is sacrosanct. Dancers are so dependent upon their body, which by getting older loses its vitality and brings more and more (professional) limitations and pains.

No dancer wants to see the day when he or she would not be able physically to do all those tricks and masterly movements required for stage art.

Though getting older, one day we shall have to face it we can do not anymore more all those movements required for a professional performance. We dread the day we shall have to hear and see we are no fit anymore to do our job. Physical deterioration of physical regression, we hate. But spiritual decline does not leave us unmoved and fearless either, because we do not want to encounter that at all.

Accidents are the worst that can happen to us. They, if they do not suddenly make an end to our carrier dreams, draw us back and make us lose many days, weeks or even months. Such a clash we would never want for ourselves or for our colleagues.
Anyway, I have had my share of mishaps in this life. These have provided me with good kickbacks and re-energisations. Such bad experiences do not give a person the power to entice or attract through personal charm, but moments of allurement and contemplation.

Never ask a dancer his or her age!

It could safely be said that it is the vanity of dancers that makes them reluctant to reveal their age. For years, they work on keeping bun body youthfully fit and keep up an inner battle against ageing, deformation and stiffening of the body.

It is not that beauty in our theatre kingdom is measured by body parts, correct lines and muscle formations, and streamlined movement options, but it is something imprinted in our head, very often looking also at others with a (malformed) professional eye examining how that person right in front of us may be regarded as fit and well stroked. Be it athletes or sporters, or beautiful horses, every moving person and animal is examined by that eye that does not want to become passive or be silenced in a retirement home.

But that critical view about the formation of that appearance, as we get older, also brings with it the personal confrontation with the deterioration of that own body. Even if one would like to keep seeing it in that jolly form, one has to conclude that this is impossible. Especially if one does not want to sell one’s body to Faust.

Frustrations may be lurking around the corner from time to time, but then we quickly sweep them away, using the excuse that we are still young and still have a long way to go, even if we have already had to turn our backs on our dance career.

On the other hand, we don’t want to face that age that determines so much in our lives. Wisdom may come with age, but physically (and sometimes mentally) we do not exactly improve.

To avoid such confrontation, you should make sure not to ask a performer or dancer his age.

Everyone seems to find it normal not to ask a woman her age, but why don’t they find it equally unheard of to ask a man? It is time that in this area, men’s rights are also put on an equal footing with women’s rights.

 

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Additional reading

1. What would you do if…? Continued trial
2. Coming to the end of 2018
3. Sometimes we face trials
4. A learning process for each of us
5. Dying or not
6. Decomposition, decay – vergaan, afsterven, ontbinding

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5. The Joy of Age and Experience
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8. Wrinkled Wisdom:  A Shout Out to Movie Theaters
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10. Growing Up And Getting Older – A Diary
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16. Wall Pilates?
17. The Dreaded Question
18. You’re Who?
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20. The Seven Deadly Sins
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23. The Righteous are not Immune to Vanity
24. What does the Bible say about being selfish and being vain?