On Friday, Mer cashed in on one of her gift cards she bought at the CVCA Auction, and she took me to EJ Thomas Hall in Akron to see the University of Akron’s spring dance recital. I am not very familiar with general dance (outside of Irish dancing), so it was an interesting evening.

The vast majority of the dancers were women – I believe there were only four men in all (probably in excess of fifty women danced throughout the evening). The performance started with ballet dancers doing an interpretive dance about flowers. I was most struck by the women’s mostly exposed backs. On most of the dancers, their spine went into the back, so that there was a definite line where the spine was. I’m guessing this is a result of the strong muscles in their backs being so well developed. They also had obviously strong shoulders – not masculine, but just massive amounts of muscle in their necks and shoulders.

The second dance was a huge dance, full of motion and color and let-down hair that accentuated movement. It was probably my favorite piece, and it was danced by fifteen or twenty women. Especially at the fast-paced start, there were always ten or more dancers flying all over the stage. It was quite joyous.

There followed a dance exploration of relationships with various dance couples dressed all in white. It was interesting, and perhaps the easiest dance to follow all evening. As a surprise, many of the women in the couples caught or lifted the male dancer (who did return the favor as well).

After intermission was a scripted dance piece that was worked in with some minimal acting and a storyline about a self-help guru. It had some very funny moments, including a woman flipping through the TV stations and “seeing” the shows by watching actors mouth the words to the recordings of the shows. It was effective. The dancing came in later as various people tried to improve themselves.

The evening ended with a return to the ballet dancers.

It was a good evening, and it was not just a senior recital – there were first-year dancers out there as well. Everyone did well as far as I could tell, although the more experienced dancers tended to have more power. I am certainly not a dance expert, but I had a very good time. Just for contrast with the willowy and powerful dancers, Mer and I went out to Friday’s after the show to get dessert.