Dance of the Fireplug Fairies

Jen and I were having a post work adult bev (Yes. As usual) when we noticed that the usual sports talk program wasn't on the teevee. Even when the barkeep's a lady type person, there's always some manly man gab fest or diversion on screen.

Nope -- they were showing a women's gymnastic meet. Astounding!

This, naturally, resurrected a question I've long had. Why ruin a perfectly spectacular floor routine with clumsy, clownish even, attempts at classical dance?

Why, I really do wanna know WHY female gymnasts, not the dudes mind you, are expected to be graceful, capering sylphs with extra, added wild gravity defying moves?

Ballerinas, by the by, are generally taller than tumblers. Companies want their women dancers to fall between 5’2” (bare minimum) and 5’7” (max). The danseurs tend to be long limbed and lithe. Gymnasts, on the other hand, are almost always quite short -- as tiny as 4’9” (Shawn Johnson and Deng Linlin) and, generally, not more than 5’3”. They tend not to look so much like elegantly dying swans as springy fireplugs.

Short, springy fireplugs just can’t pull off the long, smooth, elastic and artistic beauty of classical (or classical-ish) dance. Nope, they all end up looking like they’re coyly and quickly tossing off stripper moves with a surfeit of jazz hands.

Then there’s Lloimincia D'Chelle Hall, a gymnast at Louisiana State University. Check out the vid at the link -- seriously. Go now and watch. I’ll wait right here.

You’re back? You saw the molto fantastic awesomeness of Ms. Hall? She is something new, fabulous and wholly different.

Chica funks it up fierce! This, THIS is how dance and gymnastics should be mixed. JUST like this! Of course, I’ve no clue what she’s dancing/tumbling to (deaf here, ‘member?) but, visually, her moves match her height, build and the fact that she’s doing double pikes and side straddle leaps, not dancing Swan Lake.

Lloimincia D'Chelle Hall is an utter joy to watch to say the very least.

Best yet, perhaps, she totally looks like she’s having a great time. She’s the very first gymnast I’ve watched who actually appears to be enjoying herself. Also too, unlike the other heavily muscled pixies, she’s not wearing make up to rival a pole dancer’s.

Ms. Hall looks like the athlete she is at the same time she brings women’s floor ex up to the level it’s tried for since, possibly, it’s advent -- a mix of dance and tumbling.

Check her out!