A Special Dedication By Christine Rainier
A special thanks to Christine Rainier who submitted this wonderful written work in dedication to her teacher and mentor, Deborah Mitchell, Founder & Artistic Director of the New Jersey Tap Ensemble. If you would like to dedicate something to a tap dancer who has inspired you email me at Taps [at] TapDanceMan [dot] com.
For hours every week she slides those small yet ever so powerful feet inside me, filling my old and worn body with life.
For years she has relied on me to function as her one and only
passion that has existed since she could walk.
As she steps on to the floor I can feel the cold metal of my
underside striking against the newly polished hardwood.
She is sleek and smooth and lathered with confidence, and
it radiates off of her and seeps into the pores of everybody watching her.
As she continues to move, I am overwhelmed with rhythms I would not
be capable of achieving without her.
She puts her life into me, and I eagerly devour it and regurgitate it back in the form of a beautiful and powerful song.
She seems so in her element when she glides across the stage,
as if it’s the only thing she has ever known. The lights glare
against my old and worn black leather body in which those magical feet reside.
Shigga di da da da a chicka da ba.
Everything makes sense in the context of each sound and the precision and the performance.
Each time we encounter, which is usually quite often, she never fails to guide me through empowering and emotional, yet elegant stories which I help her tell.
We have spent hours, years together, collaborating in a form of communication only we can understand, yet she is able to let everyone else experience what she is expressing to them.
I can feel every ounce of energy in her body being channeled through me to create an articulate river of emotions only capable of being truly expressed by us.
I can feel every bit of emotion, good or bad, pierce right through me and release a beautiful sound. She has put so much passion and dedication into me and each pair before me.
Throughout our six years together, she has learned and grown and matured so much and it shows. I have felt it, experienced it, shared it, and influenced it.
She now has courage, both on stage and off, to be comfortable with who she is and to be proud of it.
I can remember a time when that same courage could only be found on stage, and was lost everywhere else.
Her knowledge of not only the art form, but herself has dramatically been influenced by this dance, this experience, which has been that of a lifetime.
Our rhythms would never be so beautiful if she didn’t dance with the souls of her feet.
