I have been fortunate to have taught a lot of really hilarious kids, so today I thought I’d share a collection of funny student stories. This batch is circa 2005-2008, in no particular order.
~~We were prepping for a performance at a small school theater that had several signs displayed noting that the use of tobacco was prohibited, new additions since we had last been there. The signs were hung in multiple prominent places and very stern. The company dancers were all on stage getting ready for warm-up class, and one of the kids said something (I no longer remember what) in a very bossy and adamant fashion. Rhys commented in response “So, put that in your pipe and smoke it.” A beat went by and then he added “Outside.”
~~In 2008 we did a condensed version of Sleeping Beauty, with Luke as the Prince and Carol as the Lilac Fairy. I was teaching the two of them the Act II Vision Scene, in which the Lilac Fairy comes to the Prince and asks him, in pantomime, why he is melancholy. When he responds that he doesn’t really know why, she says to him that he needs to find his love and then she shows him a vision of Aurora. We were referencing a Royal Ballet video to clarify some of the pantomime, and in that production the ballerina dancing as the Lilac Fairy placed her hands interestingly under her bosom to reference “love.” When I then had the kids talk through their pantomime conversation, as they marked the gestures, when Luke said he didn’t know why he was sad, Carol said aloud as she pointed to him “You,” and then, as she mimicked the Royal Ballet ballerina, “need a boob.”
~~We were at a Regional Dance America/Southwest Festival in Dallas, and the company was preparing to perform one evening. The work was a contemporary pointe ballet, choreographed by Charles, then in his first season with Kansas City Ballet. In rehearsals, he and I both had been coaching the kids on bringing fierceness and confidence to their performance. The cast circled up backstage for a pre-performance prayer led by Charissa, one of the dancers. She began “Dear God, please make us sexy.” Then she stopped and said “Wait, can we ask that?”
~~Carol was over, hanging out with my boys, and we were watching The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe (the old PBS version) in preparation for me turning it into a ballet later that spring. We had performed Peter & The Wolf the previous fall, so when discussing the various characters in the Narnia story and Peter came up, Carol said “Why is there always a Peter?” I said “There isn’t a Peter in Nutcracker.” And she replied “You don’t know…maybe that Arabian chap is named Peter.”
~~Charles was working on a piece of choreography for the company, and everyone had just taken a break. As they were getting back to work, Charles said “Madeline, how are you?” She turned to him and said “I’m fine.” He laughed and said, “No, how ARE you?” She looked at him in a slightly confused manner, and I said “He means in the choreography, what was the last thing you did?” Her eyes widened. “Ohhhh,” she said, cracking us all up.
~~We were in rehearsal, and I was giving notes following a run-through. I was going down my messily scribbled list, marking things off as I conveyed them to the dancers. I then came to a “P” – that’s all that was written, just the letter “P.” I tried to remember what it might be referring to, but couldn’t, so I continued on, giving the rest of the notes. Then I went back, and asked the kids if they had any ideas for what the “P” note might be, given the two notes that were on either side of it. No one could come up with anything that sparked a memory in me for what the note might be, so I said, “Okay, let’s run it again, and if I see it, I’ll try to write a better note.” The dancers were on their way to their starting spots when suddenly Madeline turned around and said excitedly “I know what the ‘P’ is for!”
“What?” I asked.
“It stands for Please do this good,” she deadpanned.
That was our motto from then on, grammatical incorrectness and all.
Penny Askew 