On Thursday last week, pianist and composer extraordinaire Dr. Berthelot, music teacher at our school, my true love and flippinwickeddynamic drummer Scott, English teacher at our school, and myself, joy gypsy poet dancer songstress and the crazy theatre teacher played Jazz (that's capital J to you) at a humdinger of a fancy place: Nottoway Plantation. We played in the Mansion, which I kept repeating in a superoverdone British accent. "Hey," I said to a server who walked by,"we're supposed to set up in the Mansion, do you know where it is?" Got some giggles with my directions.
I decided to wear the fabulous slinky black dress I never wear and I'm so glad I did. First, because the room we'd be playing it was all white. Superhonkywhite. We're talkin' plantation white, folks: white floor, ceiling, walls, furniture, subtly accented with gorgeously elaborate bright bronze framed mirrors, fixtures, candleholders (of white candles) and whatnot. And second because it's the dressiest thing I own and everybody at this chic gig was in the latest of fashion, which looked to be sexy carefully disguised as cutesy-conservative, long hair, bright colors, all atop very high heels. The men were more nerd-retro, and there weren't very many of them.
It was a party for a local magazine that seems to be about the lifestyles of rich not-so-famous white people in Baton Rouge, so the setting was perfect! Don't blame Nottoway, though. The fantastically beautiful and well-run establishment caters to all types and has moved on from its historically dubious past to provide lots of great jobs and host all colors of musicians, guests, and diners. It would be a shame not to enjoy the joint in this new era. So I'll back off on the evil whitey jokes. I have some white friends; they're really great, I mean it!
(I promise this is about being a theatre teacher.)
No one in four-inch heels started dancing to our incredibly jazzytastic music, which was no big surprise. But when Scott started tappin that second line stuff and Berthelot went all N'awlins on his secret weapon--his trumpet--I could not help myself. In true flow, with no second thoughts about whether this action was appropriate for a musician, or for the exclusive catered party, or if Berthelot would die of embarrassment in the face of this affront to his professionalism, I kicked my sensible shoes off and cut a rug in the white ballroom amidst all the editors, photographers, writers, and their well-dressed guests.
I don't use the phrase "cut a rug" lightly, either. I got down, y'all. It felt easy, real, totally transparent. My ease, I believe, made the audience accept it with ease, too. When a manager came over I felt so good I had no question it was all good so I smiled and said, "Yeah, so the flutist doubles as a dancer." He said it was fantastic, wonderful, I was expressing externally what was happening internally in the heads of the guests via the music (I was like: whoa, when he said that), please keep dancing!
Booyah.
Well my wild freedom led to some great conversation with the tallest classiest suavest lookin' crew in the place. They better've been I suppose, since it turns out they were from Vogue magazine doing a photo shoot in Louisiana. One model was wearing a $13,000 dress. No wonder she declined my offer to dance! We got to talkin, she was from Brooklyn, I whipped out my perfect Jersey hoodrat accent and then we really got to talkin. And before you know it, I'd convinced these glamour gurus to come to my little bitty school in Plaquemine, LA on de bayou to talk to my students about traveling to Paris and Italy and their New York highstyle lifestyles.
We drank wine and giggled and exchanged info. They were going to a photo shoot in New Orleans the next day, and my school is on the way. I thought I'd lost 'em for sure when I said 8.30. I said, "Listen, I really understand if you wake up and feeling like, (**in that overdone British accent again**) 'Oh, deeyah, I am simply not done with my beauty rest; did we really say we'd go to that vile little schoolhouse?' " They protested that they were not like that, that they would love to come expand the horizons of the bayou children!
And they did. They showed up at 9.30, when my second hour class was mid-classroom-production, drums, flutes, silent skits and all, with an audience of kindergardeners clapping and squealing in delight. They caught the end of the show, we ushered the teenies out, called the other theatre class in and they sat up there in their mega heels and said all the most perfect things about doing what you love and about the importance of being able to play different roles in different settings. The divinely beautiful model even even spoke of the cellulite on her butt and thighs while the professional photo retoucher nodded emphatically! Hallelujah, praise them!
The Vogue posse's best advice to my smalltown crew was to travel, to go to college out of state, to study abroad, to expand your idea of the world by exploring it. Our students were simply abuzz with questions. It's rare that the Big Time comes down to the Bayou. It was a preciously exciting melding of cultures. A delightfully generous service. A simply dandy thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment