Choreographing Confidence

by Mark Morelli
July 1, 2008

When I see kids behind a lemonade stand on a hot summer day...or a knocking on doors with snow shovels on their shoulders as the blizzard wanes...or trudging in the pre-dawn street tossing newspapers onto stoops, I think: "There's the future of business!"

It is common to see my 15-year-old daughter Olivia demonstrating dance steps in front of a mirror on the basement wall, our dance-studio-on-a-dime. Behind her, anywhere from one to five younger girls and occasionally a boy, follow her like baby ducks.

"Okay, from the top!" she says, resets the music, and again demonstrates the dance steps, or gymnastics technique, or cheerleading maneuver, repeatedly glancing back to see if the kids behind her are keeping up and getting it right. It's fun, but it's also hard work, and she can be a slave-driver.

"I love being bossy," she admits.

I can't attest to that on a stack of Bibles. But bossy could simply be snapping at her little sister to "clear the table" or "grab the remote."

Where the lemonade stand and snow shovel reveal tomorrow's entrepreneurs and visionary executives, the mirror downstairs reflects something more. A future teacher, maybe the owner of a studio. By 4th grade, I was already writing stories that people pegged me for a writer, which is more than scratching pencil to paper. The writer observes life from such an angle that life slows down. Stories emerge. Writers capture such stories with a pencil like a painter does with a brush or a musician with a horn.

Olivia sees life from the angle where movement comes together into unified choreography. I string together words. She experiences a joy in cobbling together spins and steps and twirls and leaps using arrows and circles in a notebook that looks like a basketball playbook. Her joy deepens when someone wants to learn from her.

There's a difference in faces of neighborhood kids knocking at the door just to play versus their wide-eyed anticipation when they specifically want Olivia to teach them to tumble, dance and cheer.

One summer, three younger girls from down the street came to our house every day for two weeks so Olivia could teach them gymnastics. Olivia employed every safety technique she had been taught, carefully choreographed their floor (actually, grass) routines. When they'd practiced to Olivia's satisfaction, the girls' mothers came by to watch "the recital." When completed, Olivia gave each kid a certificate created on our home computer. True, she can be demanding during these rehearsals. My younger daughter, already an accomplished gymnast, won't put up with Olivia. She goes off to play more happily where she doesn't have to "take it from the top." But with that bossiness comes affirmation. She starts them from scratch and encourages them through their initial failures. Next, they continue to practice till they become astonished at their own achievement. Finally comes the satisfaction of nailing it. She choreographed confidence.

As her dad, that thrills me. That she not only wants to guide and empower others, but that she likes to plan it out assures me that good things lie ahead. Not long ago she was teaching a little neighbor a dance routine they made up to Fergie's "Glamorous." I suggested that till they mastered the steps, they practiced to a slower song, and I found the 1962 piano hit, "Alley Cat" on YouTube. "Hey, that's a great choice," she said, and I was surprised at how I flushed with pride at her approval. Affirmation...no matter if you are a teacher, parent, spouse, neighbor, colleague, or even a perfect stranger...is what makes your presence in the world a positive force. As Kurt Vonnegut, quoting his son, said about the meaning of life: "We are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is." Olivia's job is to remind us to stretch first.

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