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Saturday, January 22, 2011

A Blog about Billy Elliot and Dancing

I'm a big fan of Broadway Musicals.  I always leave the theater inspired to live more passionately (and sometimes outlandishly) and I always leave feeling lucky to live near NYC.  Thursday night my wife and I saw 'Billy Elliot'.

my wife outside the theater for Billy Elliot

It was the kind of show that other Broadway shows all want to be.  It's replaced the former champ 'Wicked' as my new favorite Broadway Musical.  'Billy Elliot' is about a kid who grows up in a small mining town and falls in love with ballet.  Billy fights to get others to accept a boy who loves to dance ballet.  Later his whole community fights to keep his dream of going to the Royal Ballet School alive when times are tough and the whole mining town is on strike.  Like 'Wicked', 'Billy Elliot' is all about being yourself and following your dreams.


my wife dancing with Donald Duck at her brother's wedding in Disney World

Also, it's a show about dancing.....a lot.  They talk about dancing, they sing about dancing, they DANCE about dancing.  I've never been very good at shaking a leg, but watching such high-caliber, joy filled dancing has inspired me.  It has inspired me to get in touch with my inner caveman, as Billy's ballet instructor would say, and search out some dance lessons that my wife and I can take together.  It should be a fun adventure and I can't wait.


Some of my favorite lyrics from 'Billy Elliot':

"Everyone is different / It's the natural state / It's the facts, it's plain to see, / The world's grey enough without making it worse / What we need is in-div-id-ual-ity."

"What the hell is wrong with expressing yourself? / For trying to be free.
If you wanna be a dancer, dance
If you wanna be a miner, mine
If you want to dress like somebody else,
Fine, fine, fine."

"It doesn't matter if your life's a mess,
the whole process will coalesce,
just try to effervescent,
all you really have to do is shine."


"We walk proudly, and we walk strong
All together we will go as one
The ground is empty, and cold as hell
But we all go together when we go."

"Solidarity, Solidarity.  Solidarity for ever."

I'd be happy if I could live my life in a way that others might say it was like a Broadway musical; sometimes life was good, sometimes life was tough.  But through it all he sang and danced and tried his best to inspire.

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