Facing the Music

Sighing, Ranko rolled her eyes blankly as she looked up at her instructor from the floor. Sitting cross-legged alongside seventeen other girls, she cursed herself under her breath. Freaking idiot, Ranko. Two sentences. The course description was two fucking sentences, and you couldn't be bothered to take the time to read them.She turned her head, looking around at her classmates. All of them had bright, starry expressions on their faces, watching with rapt attention as the instructor demonstrated one form after another. The oldest one's gotta be three, four years younger than me. I'm gonna look like such a fucking clown.Ranko had gone to the administration office after her first day, pleading for a class change, but all of the other classes that would meet the athletics requirement for graduation were already full, and cheerleading didn't count. She was on a waiting list in case there was an opening, but until that happened, she was stuck in her own personal hell. Over two fucking sentences, she growled at herself in her mind. At least Akane and her sisters didn't know of her shame. Not yet, anyway. She was sure she'd have to come clean eventually, but she just couldn't bring herself to do it. It's not that they wouldn't be supportive, but Ranko knew she would endure no end of teasing from them, especially Yui.Fuck, Nodoka's gonna have a fucking field day with this if she finds out."Miss Tendo? Are you still with us?"Ranko looked up from her newly-manicured fingernails, which she found far more interesting than anything that the instructor had to say. "Yeah, I guess."The teacher, who couldn't have been more than three years Ranko's senior, sighed and dropped her head. "If you didn't want to be here, why did you sign up, Ranko?"The redhead shrugged nonchalantly, answering in a flat, matter-of-fact tone. "Ass-kickin' class was full." A murmur rose among Ranko's classmates at the disrespect she had shown to the teacher.With an exasperated sigh and drooping shoulders, Ms. Kanzawa shook her head and motioned behind her. "Just… everybody do your stretches, okay?"Groaning as she stood alongside the other girls, Ranko strode to the wooden bar that bisected the room, lifting her slippered foot and setting her heel down atop it. Reaching forward to her toe, she began stretching her hamstring as the instructor proscribed. I can do this shit in my sleep, not that I want to. Ranko felt the instructor's disapproving eyes on her back as she swapped one leg for the other. Yes, lady, I'm doing your dumb stretchy thing. Easy with the resting bitch face."Ranko? Can I see you for a minute?" Ranko's dance instructor motioned her toward the small office at the back of the little classroom-turned-studio, and Ranko noticed her gesture in the mirror that covered most of the north wall of the room.Great, now I'm gonna get in trouble, too. She lowered her leg from the bar, grimacing as she moved. And why do they gotta make these leotards so fuckin' itchy?! I swear, it's like trying to dance with ants in your pants. No wonder they're always jumpin' around.With a roll of her eyes, Ranko followed Ms. Kanzawa into the back room, and closed the door in response to the teacher's gesture."Look, I know you're pissed at me, okay? I get it. I don't belong here. I just don't got a choice, alright?" Ranko rested her hands on her hips through the scratchy black leotard she'd been forced into; just another indignity the "dance" class had foisted upon her.Her instructor walked around her desk, sitting on the corner of it and motioning to Ranko to take the lone red vinyl chair opposite it. "Ranko, look. I know where you're coming from. I'm not mad at you, though I do wish you'd express your frustration a little more respectfully, or at least a little more privately."Ranko looked up in surprise at not having been sent to the main office for discipline - not yet, at least. She opted not to take the offer of the chair and instead leaned against the back of the office door. "I just… I don't see why this benefits anybody. I mean, who even does this stuff anymore?"Ms. Kanzawa nodded slowly. "So that's it. You think ballet is a dead art. I kind of expected that would have something to do with it."Rolling her eyes, Ranko bobbed her head. "Yeah. Like, I dance for a living. But I don't see anybody banging down the doors of the Phoenix because they can't wait for some of that hot Nutcracker Suite action, ya know? What I do involves a lot more hips and a whole lot less fluffy skirts."You can't be a dragon in a freakin' tutu, lady.Ranko's teacher bit her lip, looking behind her at the small television / VCR combo unit that sat atop the stuffed-to-overflowing four-drawer steel filing cabinet in the corner behind her desk. "You mind if I show you something quick?"The young songstress shrugged, crossing her arms defiantly. "You've got me as a hostage for the next half hour anyway, so whatever you want, I guess."Reaching behind her and rummaging through a few loose papers, the instructor withdrew a small black remote control, pushing the red button on it to bring the television behind her to life. A second button press blinked the static from the monitor, and a video of a solitary ballet dancer appeared. As Ranko watched, the woman on the television leapt a full two meters to her left, kicking one leg forward and the other back, and landing on her left foot facing the opposite direction."Yeah, I know what ballet looks li…" Ranko's voice trailed off as the cassette abruptly jumped from the ballet to a music video she'd seen on Bangers on the Beach once. It took three or four seconds before Ranko caught on to what she was being shown. The dancer in the front jumped forward, performing an identical maneuver before rolling on the ground, hopping to her feet and beginning to move her hips again."Wait a minute…"Ms. Kanzawa grinned and nodded, seeing her message begin to take hold. "Yeah. A lot of the most famous modern dancers and choreographers take ballet, and draw heavily from it. Quick question - who's the most accomplished choreographer in western music? I bet you know."Ranko scoffed. "Any idiot knows that. It's Paula Abdul. Besides her own stuff, she does choreo for the Jacksons and a bunch of other people. Stuff for movies too, I think.""And where do you think she got those skills?" The teacher smirked. "She went to a ballet academy. And that got her into cheerleading, and eventually into the music industry. Sound familiar?"After a long pause, Ranko leaned back against the door. "Whoa."The teacher nodded, pressing play on the VCR again, and the screen flashed a closeup of a ballerina's feet as she landed from a jump. Ranko watched as the screen changed to what appeared to be an American football game. A tall man in a black and yellow uniform leapt high in the air to make an acrobatic catch of a ball that had been thrown too high near the outer edge of the field. A second camera angle showed the way he carefully positioned his feet to remain in the field of play and not fall. They were identical.Huh. Guys do it too? It's not just for frou-frou girly-girls?The teacher slid off of her perch on the desk, closing the distance to her aloof student. "Ranko, I don't expect that you're going to graduate and go become a professional ballerina performing Swan Lake four nights a week or anything. You'd be a fool to, even though you've unquestionably got the talent for it. You could be the best in a generation if you wanted. I've never seen a girl move as fluidly as you do, and I did dance professionally for a while. That said, I've seen the video for Demon in Your Radio, and I recognized some of the moves that are commonly taught in cheerleading. You integrated stuff you learned there into your choreography, didn't you?"Ranko nodded, her mind clearly boggled with what she was beginning to understand."I'd bet you thought cheerleading was a waste of your time too, when you first started. But as you learned it, you found that you could take little pieces of it to enhance what you do. And I can promise you, if you actually give this a chance, you'll do the same here. All art has value, and it's possible to blend parts of lots of different styles together to create a style that's all your own. And given what I've seen even with you giving barely half-effort here, plus what you've done on stage, and that quadruple twist of yours, I wager you've got the talent to collect not only some moves from each new technique you learn, but the most impossible, once-in-a-generation ones that professionals in that one style spend their whole lives trying to master. And that's not even counting the fact that you sing, too. I firmly believe that you are capable of things no one has ever done before, if you're willing to keep an open mind and try."Blending multiple styles together, taking the strongest techniques and minimizing the weakest ones? That's… the Anything Goes style! I remember, Pop used to make me learn all these dumb katas, but after we figured them all out, we'd pick a couple of things we could use and ditch the rest. Son of a bitch! For once in his life, he was onto something!The teacher put her left arm over Ranko's shoulder. "C'mon. What do you say? Are you up for the challenge, Ranko?"Gods help me. Ranko nodded deliberatively. "I'll try, ma'am."