Every year our grade school held two assemblies. One was a visit from NASA. An aerospace engineer displayed the marvels of space travel highlighting the event by pumping a grape into liquid nitrogen, and then breaking it with a hammer. This swayed many toward the space program. The other assembly was a dance production of The Snow Princess. I’d seen people dance on TV, but never thought they were real. They were too perfect. Then the snow princess came to school. The beautiful snow princess, while breaking ties with her oppressive father, not only danced on stage, but up and down the aisles. As she spun past me, I noticed she had leg hairs poking out of her tights. This wasn’t an effect. This meant the snow princess was real, and a modern woman. The NASA guy came back every year, but we never saw that particular snow princess again.

Even at this age, I knew I was an artist. It seemed like there were so many of us bursting with art that the expanding art looked for the easiest way out of the body. Its flow determined what kind of artist you would be. A painter’s hand was always moving. A singer’s breath took on the rhythms of the world. But a dancer, a dancer’s whole body was always moving.

Our school taught art and music, but dance was not encouraged. I played third chair concert band until the band director suggested I try another form of expression. I informed him I was really interested in dance. He said, “Kevin, you may want to try pottery, coil pots.”

“There’s no future in coil pots,” I told him. “I want to dance.”

He rubbed his face with his hands, as he liked to do before coming to his point. “Kevin,” he said. “You have no rhythm. When you clap to a song you fall behind, and your clapping looks like you’re trying to catch something.”

“I am,” I said. “The beat. If I can catch it, maybe I can keep it.” He rubbed his face harder and let me stay in band, all the while trapped in the body of a dancer.

Thirty-five years later I got a phone call. It was Lisa Houlton, Director of the Minnesota Dance Theater. They wanted me to perform a small part in the production of Loyce Houlton’s Nutcracker. And I was so excited, I said yes without thinking. For rehearsal she said I’d need a dance belt and ballet shoes.

So the next day, full of the holiday spirit, I ran to the dance store in town. I announced to the shopkeeper that I was in the Nutcracker. “Oh, which one?” She was in the one in St. Paul, and her daughter was in another one for kids. How quaint.

“I’m in the one with the Minnesota Dance Theater. I need shoes and a dance belt.”

She got the shoes, but before she got the belt she looked at me and said, “I think you’re an eight.” This worried me. I knew three of my sizes and none of them were an eight. She brought me the box and I took it home. If you’ve never worn a dance belt, they’re the evil little brother of the jockstrap. They’re super tight elastic, for holding everything in place. The first time I put one, I made a face like my dad made the time he sat on my brother’s ten-speed bike—if you don’t think dancing makes you feel like a man, put on a dance belt. You’ll know you’re a man.

Now that I had my gear I decided to look at the story. The plot of the Nutcracker is like something that Hunter S. Thompson would have conceived in crossing the Nevada border. The dance is based on the story, The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, by E.T.A. Hoffman. It’s about a little girl in a loveless household fighting bloody battles against a Mouse King with seven heads. In this new version there was a Christmas party at the house of a girl named Marie. Her godfather, Herr Drosselmeyer, presents his gift, a beautiful nutcracker. Her brother, Fritz, soon grabs the nutcracker and breaks it. Normal so far. Soon the guests depart, and the family goes to bed. But Marie sneaks back to the tree where strange things begin to happen. The tree grows; the room fills with mice led by the mighty Mouse King. The nutcracker comes to life and engages the mice in battle. The nutcracker then turns into a prince and he and Marie are welcomed by dancing snowflakes. As a finale, the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Cavalier dance a Pas De Deux. Marie awakes from her dream, and finds herself by the tree with her beloved nutcracker.

In rehearsal I learned I would play a character called Madam Bonbonniere and the Judge hosting the party. I felt confident about playing the Madam. She has lots of makeup, a huge wig, stilts, and children dressed as mice who startle her as they emerge from her dress. It seemed fun and wacky.

But this Judge presents a problem. Joining me on stage would be members of the American Ballet Theater and beautiful dancers from the Minnesota Company. I’d have to actually dance. Also, tights are not kind to me. My friend, Buffy Sedlachek, always said my knees look like I’m smuggling walnuts. After years of writing my body is in the shape of a question mark, instead of the preferred exclamation point. It doesn’t say, “I’m here!” It says, “I’m here?”

Not to be daunted, I employed an old stage trick. When in doubt, get a mustache and have the size of the mustache grow in an inverse ratio to the talent of the performer. I looked at the mustaches in stock and then had the costumer go out and buy me a jumbo size. Then I dug out my college makeup kit and saw a foundation called Leading Man makeup. It’s a color humans found in remote southern Sicily. I had never known anyone to use it, but with this mustache (a cross between a helicopter and a dog) riding my upper lip, and my Leading Man makeup, nobody would be looking at my legs.

Opening night was spectacular. The judge went off without a hitch. I had some trouble with the Madam’s wig and almost stepped on a mouse child, but even that seemed to flow unnoticed.

In the receiving line following the show, a patron was going down the row of dancers gushing praise. “How wonderful, how beautiful.” When she got to me she said, “And you, what a good sport.” Later on at the party, a mouse child told me she liked last year’s Madam Bonbonniere better. I was crushed. Later that night, the little boy playing Fritz came up to me and gave me a hug. He was six years old and already an amazing dancer. He said, “You know what you need to do? Every dancer has a diamond on their chest. You need to show that diamond all the way to the back of the theater.”

After that night I let my art fly out the diamond on my chest.I never was very good, but you would’ve never guessed it by my joy. My favorite part about the show was watching the kids all in the wings off stage; the looks on their faces as the principal dancers took the stage. It was better than smashing a grape with a hammer.

From In Brief this Month

• Tales From The Charred Underbelly: It’s time, once again, for Kevin Kling’s annual Hootin’ and Hollerin’ Holiday Show at the Guthrie. If you haven’t yet had a chance to experience this show from Minnesota’s beloved storyteller, actor and playwright, you should adjust your December calendar to include this wonderful event. If you have seen Kevin’s “From the Charred Underbelly of the Yule Log,” then you know you’re in for an evening that will conjure up good (and maybe not so good) holiday memories–adults and children both! Monday, 12/15/03. http:www.guthrietheter.org

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