"Yes dear, I'm in rehearsal!"

You've all seen those adorable dancer couples, like Irina Dvorovenko and Maxim Beloserkovsky or the married former-partners who go on to open their own ballroom school/ballet center/dance company together after dancing around the globe. Committed to a lifetime of dancey-ness. It all sounds so fairytale, doesn't it?

However, that isn't the norm, and those of us in relationships with non-dancers have to train our partners on the concept of Dance Hours.

It's hard for some non-dancers (coughcoughmencough) to get used to the idea that wifeykins works the permanent Split Shift; rising every morning to be at the barre by nine-thirty, with a 2-3 hour break in the middle of the day before working-- no, not nine to five, five to nine.

(At noon) "Did you stay home from work today?"
"No, I've been to work. And I'm fixing to go back out to work."

By the way, non-dancers, when your dancing significant other says anything regarding "Tech Week," that means you will not see him/her for five days, at least. Do not even try. Unless, of course, you are coming to the theater to bring them more coffee as Dress/Tech stretches until the eleventh hour. In which case, hand over the coffee and run. You don't want to stick around at these things.

Perhaps Dance Teacher Hours are the hardest for our offstage partners to comprehend. If you teach dance, you've probably found yourself making a record of "Yes, dear, I'll be home after nine. Just like last night. And the night before" to save your breath. Or maybe your outgoing voicemail says "Hi, you've reached Marilyn. If this is Jonathan, we can't have dinner tonight, wait until Thursday. Otherwise, please leave a message!"

I suspect that the primary reason for this is that (provided your partner is male) men are in denial about having to make their own dinner. Am I right?

Also, non- dancers take note: Just because we finish work at 9pm does not mean we're automatically ready to go out on the town. The appropriate question before anything else is "Do you have class in the morning?" If we answer affirmatively, pub crawling will have to wait.

I think it's getting a little better, though. I was preparing for my 4:30 class the other day when, at 4:00, my phone started ringing.*
"What's up, I'm at w--"
"Oh, right! Call me later. Te amo." Click.

Perhaps Mr. Butterfly is finally getting the hang of "dance hours."


* I'd take to take this opportunity to state that I just got a Stravinsky ringtone ("Rite of Spring XIV" performed by Chicago Symphony Orchestra). I cannot explain how seriously awesome that is. Hand me my nerd license now, plzkthx.