Courtney Khail “Shadowboxer” Original painting, 18”x24”, watercolors, inks, and graphite on paper. Part of the 2022 Sugar & Vice Collection
Courtney Khail Sugar & Vice “Shadowboxer” In Process Photo
Shadowboxer
I am not a good dancer. I have the love and enthusiasm for dancing, but I lack the ability to effortlessly glide from one movement into the next. Instead, my dancing looks a bit like those embellished wooden toys; the ones where you push the button under the pedestal and the animal collapses into a clumsy collection of legs and arms before popping right back to its original rigid pose.
So what possessed me to sign up to dance in the class talent show I am not 100% sure. Even more befuddling was why I chose to perform an original dance to Fiona Apple’s “Shadowboxer.” I’ll blame it on the simple fact that I was ten years old and had- as my husband calls it- the unearned confidence of youth.
Whatever the reason, it was a very bad idea. At this point in my life I hadn’t yet experienced the shame and embarrassment school can hold and therefore did not realize the full extent of viciousness and cruelty a pack of 5th grade girls could administer to someone doing anything they deemed “different.” Had I known, I might have saved myself a lot of pain.
Unfortunately, as I said, I was still innocent to those realities, which is how I found myself waiting in the hallway to perform what could only be described as a failed attempt at modern interpretive dance.
You’ll be relieved to know that some level of self preservation eventually kicked in and allowed me to completely block out that three minute performance from my memory. Which is for the best because if the class mean girls’ reactions were indicative of anything, I have a strong feeling that it closely resembled the dance one does when they walk through a spider's web.
(If by chance you’re thinking this taught me to never perform dance in public again, you would be correct, but sadly I attended a fine arts school so I was subjected to that particular horror for many more years. I tried to think of it as character building as opposed to context for future therapy.)