Read Online The Dog Says How by Kevin Kling - Free Book Online Page B

engineer displayed the marvels of space travel, highlighting the event by dipping 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. And as she spun past, I noticed she had dark leg hairs poking out of her white tights. This wasn’t perfect. This meant the snow princess was real—and a modern woman. The NASA guy came back every year. We never saw the snow princess again but she had already awakened in me a yearning that would not quiet.
    Our school taught art and music, but dance was not encouraged. I played third-chair trumpet in concert band until the band director suggested I try another form of expression. I informed him I was already interested in dance. He said, “Kevin, you may want to try pottery, coil pots.”
    “There’s no future in coil pots. I want to dance,” I said.
    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’re a bit 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 get a phone call. It’s Lise Houlton, director of the Minnesota Dance Theater. They want me to perform a small part in the production of Loyce Houlton’s Nutcracker . I am so excited, I say yes without thinking. For rehearsal she said I’ll need a dance belt and ballet shoes.
    The next day, full of the holiday spirit, I run to the dance store in town. I announce to the shopkeeper that I’m in the Nutcracker .
    “Oh, which one?”
    “How many are there?” I said.
    She’s in the one in St. Paul and her daughter is in another one for kids. It turns out everyone from the Joffrey Ballet to the Humane Society has a version.
    “I’m in the one with the Minnesota Dance Theater,” I announce, “and I need shoes and a dance belt.”
    She gets the shoes, but before she gets the dance belt she looks at me and says, “I think you’re an eight.”
    This worries me. I know three of my sizes and none of them are an eight. She brings me a box and I take it home. In case 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 on, 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 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 when crossing the Nevada border.
    The dance is based on the story “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King,” written by E. T. A. Hoffmann. It’s about a little girl in a loveless household fighting bloody battles against a Mouse King with seven heads. In the new version there is a Christmas party at the house of a little girl named Marie. Her godfather, Herr Drosselmeyer, presents his gift, a beautiful nutcracker. Her little brother, Fritz, soon grabs the nutcracker and breaks it. Okay, 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 Sugarplum