So I Think I Can Understand Dance

I have a secret to tell you.  I don't understand dance.  I wasn't aware of this until a few years ago.  I figured I understood.  People move around.  They enjoy it.  It's their way of enjoying the music.  It's their way of getting exercise.  I get all of those things.

Apparently it's also some sort of a secret language.

My wife watches a show called So You Think You Can Dance.  I play on my computer while she watches, and I glance over at the TV every once in a while.  I can appreciate how fun it is to watch them do difficult maneuvers.  I also really enjoy the synchronized movement.

But, I realized that there was a whole new level that I was missing on one particular dance a few seasons ago that was supposedly about cancer.  After the dance, the judges were crying, Robyn was crying, and I was wondering what everyone was crying about.  I found myself wondering how a person would watch the dance and even guess that it was about cancer.

Fast forward a few years to this past Friday.  We got tickets to the So You Think You Can Dance concert in SLC.  The people who are on the show each season go on tour after the season is over, and they put on a show that has numbers from the show as well as numbers unique to the tour.

When I first got there and realized that 80% of the audience were female, and 60% of the females were teenagers, I was a little skeptical that a non-teenage male would enjoy it, but I figured if nothing else I could amuse myself by watching the teenagers around us taking hundreds of thousands of selfies as they waited for the show to start.

We went with Robyn's sister and her husband.  Robyn made sure to let me know that she needed to sit next to Megan so she could talk to somebody who gets it.

Luckily, Robyn has 2 sides, so I was permitted to sit on her other side.

I decided it would be important to do my best to sound like I get it.  Megan gave me an excellent suggestion.  Every dance is about life.  I totally said intelligent stuff like, "I really like how that piece represented life."  "Didn't you feel like that number reflected the trials we face in life?"  "That number really spoke to me.  It was so true to real life."

All of those brilliant things totally had Robyn fooled.  She totally thought I got it.

But, I have a secret.  I didn't get it.  At least until there was one number where all the dancers wore either black or white clothing and they had hats that looked like different chess pieces.  The black and white dancers were doing a dance battle of sorts.  I turned to Robyn, "I totally get this one!  It's chess!  Also, it represents life."  She was way impressed with that analysis.

In between some of the dances they had little vignettes that taught dance moves.  My favorite was when we learned how to do Bollywood.

Robyn is demonstrating the hand movement from our Bollywood lesson.  I am opening my mouth for an inexplicable reason.

Surprisingly enough, I really enjoyed it, despite note being a teenage girl and despite not understanding the secret language..  I may not have understood it quite to the level that I convinced everyone I did with my excellent acting, but it was an enjoyable evening, and I would go again.  It's like I'm sort sort of a dance connoisseur.

Muppets and Temple Square

This past weekend we had the opportunity to attend the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert.  We try to attend every year, but we don't always pull it off.  There are so many people that want to attend that they do a random drawing type system, so some years we're able to get tickets and some years we aren't.  This year I really wanted to go because they had the Sesame Street Muppets as special guests.  How cool is that?

We decided to go up early and eat dinner at City Creek followed by walking around Temple Square to enjoy the Christmas lights.

Temple Square was beautiful as always.  We made sure to take some pictures.

Selfies are always important.

I'm pretty sure we take this exact same picture every year.

After Temple square we headed over to the Conference Center where we met Megan and Graham.  There were more selfies to be had while we waited for the show to start.

I'm pretty sure Graham looks exactly like a Muppet. I'm just a Muppet of a man.

Robyn and Megan wanted a discreet picture of the photobomber.

I really enjoyed the concert.  The Muppets were super fun.  But I have bad news.  The puppeteers came out with Muppets on their arms.  It turns out the Muppets are puppets.   I know, I'm as disappointed as you.  My entire childhood was a sham.  But the good news is that Big Bird is real.  He was walking around without any sort of hand inside him.  He's an actual bird.  So you can take solace in knowing that at least he is real.

Also, they had a sing-along with the audience.  I actually sang with the Muppets.  So you might say I'm kind of a big deal.

Afterward, naturally we took more selfies.

This is our selfie with the choir.  They're all walking away, because they hate to pose for pictures.

This was in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.  Don't we just look festive?

We wandered around afterward in search of someplace that would give us hot chocolate.  The Nauvoo Cafe was open, but the lines were thousands of miles long.  We went to the food court at City Creek but everyone there hates money, so they were all closed.

Ultimately, we failed at obtaining hot chocolate, but we succeeded at singing with the Muppets so I would say the night was a success.