Dispatches from the front...

..well, actually, questions and comments from the middle and then back of the auditorium during last night's Bataan-Death-March-length dance recital. (It began at 6:15 PM, and we were making our way home at 11:30 PM.)

1) When did ballet movements get associated with sappily sentimental country songs?

2) Does every hip hop selection need to end with the sound of an explosion?

3) Does every hip hop number need to have a minimum of three distinct sections, unrelated musically, and joined only by the entire ensemble bouncing around hunched over with arms dangling?

4) At 10 PM, nearing the fifth hour, is it wise to use "Footloose" as the music for a routine and thus raise both the specter of the film's plot and the possibility (nay, may I even say, the immediate benefits!) of outlawing dancing altogether?!

5) If either of my daughters stays long enough to graduate from the dance school and get to do a solo number, I am more than willing to make a cameo (as a little sister and a father did last night), but the song cannot be a sappy county number about growing up (see #1 above) but instead should be the Beach Boys' "Fun, Fun, Fun ('Til Daddy Takes the T-Bird Away)."

6) People in the audience clearly love to hoot and yell things like "We love you, insert name here!" My dream at some point to is shout, "Daughters, your mother and I hold you in very high regard!"

7) If admission to five hours of dance is $6, then I'd be more than willing to pay at least $20 just to see the ~20 minutes of dance, broken up into six different numbers, in which my two daughters performed.

8) For the first time ever, I wished I had been on Twitter!