Before I wanted to be a writer, I entertained the idea of being an astronaut because there would always be buttons to press and handles that needed pulling. Not too much later, I indulged in fantasies of attending a Fame-like school and wowing the world over with my choreography. At my initial audition, Debbie Reynolds and Rosie Perez sat in the empty theater filled with plush, crimson seats and applauded wildly as my routine to Janet Jackson’s “Black Cat” came to a dramatic and suggestive close. This is an actual routine I forced my best friend to perform with me on a daily basis. It involved a lot of imaginary clawing and swinging one’s hair around in a violent, circular motion. Reynolds and Perez would clamber up on stage to congratulate me, pronouncing me a “dancing genius ahead of her time”. “Watch out, Paula!,” Rosie cackled. I would be the first 10 year old to be fly on In Living Color. In my spare time, I would take over hosting duties from Downtown Julie Brown and start my own freestyle pop group a la Seduction with my two best schoolmates. We’d wear crayon-colored lycra and lots of accessories. Our videos would involve black lights and geometric sculptures on which we would sway and sing. This is one dream that, even now, it is difficult to abandon.
I also wanted to live in this video. The straight-out-of-Disney World, faux cityscape teemed with youthful exuberance. Age, color, socioeconomic status were rendered inconsequential in Janet’s metropolis. Bag ladies, hoodlums, street urchins, the cool kids, they all danced onward, oblivious to the police warnings, the curmudgeonly neighbor’s complaints, the fact that everything was a facade, an artificial prop to fill up the spaces in Janet’s wistful reverie. They were absolutely beatific just to be a part of it! I yearned to be a part of it, too.
I knew what it was like to inhabit an imaginary world of rhythmic transcendence. Each song I heard on the radio opened up another realm of glamour and mystery in which I could frolick and posture. Janet’s video exposed me to the notion that it was possible to share this world with others. To a moony introvert in the suburbs with fancy feet, watching this video was like attending the world’s greatest block party. A block party that never ended and was just a few dance steps away.
