It's All About the Dance

Many of you have scoffed at my desire to form a world-class dance crew at the ACME Corporation but let your remote do the walking through TV channels today and you will be hard-pressed to avoid some type of dance-related competition. And I am not talking about the individual or partner competitions like So You Think You Can Dance or Dancing With the Stars. I tend to eschew such competitions because it does not fit with my scheme to become the George Balanchine of the corporate dance world (even thought I do not have any training or background whatsoever save for the Arthur Murray Dance School). It also does not provide the opportunity to fuel the different schools of dance that team dance competitions do. Now by team dance competitions, I do not mean cheerleader competitions. While aesthetically pleasing, those are merely gymnastic displays best left to sporting event sidelines. Shows like America’s Best Dance Crew (as we in the business like to call ABDC; note: if you are not in the business do not use this acronym, use the full title) demonstrate not only the popularity of this new subgenre, but also the aforementioned fusion of dance styles with the sonic palette of post-modern modern music. It also allows those nostalgic over Saved by the Bell (before one of the Bell-ers destroyed the innocence by becoming a pole dancer in Showgirls) and N’Sync (before JT’s ego let him think he is this generation’s fusion of Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson sans the Neverland persona and before he defiled starlets like Britney, Cameron, Scarlet, Janet and Jessica). Last night the second season of ABDC (remember that is America’s Best Dance Crew for the rest of you) began a mere couple of months after the completion of the widely successful first season. The competition promises to be even fiercer this time, featuring not the bump-n-grind moves of amateurs in da club, but gravity-defying, swan-like moves of skilled dance professionals. So watch ABDC religiously in the next few weeks, and then we can commence the ACME Corporation’s foray into the dance realm. Our team already features an award-winning Irish Step dancer and her mother, a classically trained dancer who sacrificed her dance dreams to head CD&S, a pole climber (not that kind of poles, but telephone poles), a RTD rider, and a former intern who likes to posit a macho appearance but cannot keep from crying at the end of Titanic, Olympic figure skating competitions, the Indy 500, or a Houston Texans season. So until the auditions commence in the Castle Rock Kitchen, practice, practice, practice (I would recommend renting Flashdance, Footloose, and Step Up and Dance I and II).