After the Applause Stops: Who Are You When You No Longer Do What You've Been Doing for Years? (Paperback or Softback)

Jasperson, Sally Bailey

ISBN 10: 1543447740 / ISBN 13: 9781543447743

Published by Xlibris 9/6/2017, 2017

About this Item

After the Applause Stops: Who Are You When You No Longer Do What You've Been Doing for Years?

Seller Inventory # BBS-9781543447743

Bibliographic Details

• Title: After the Applause Stops: Who Are You When You No Longer Do What You've Been Doing for Years? (Paperback or Softback)
• Publisher: Xlibris 9/6/2017
• Publication Date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1543447740
• ISBN 13: 9781543447743
• Binding: Paperback or Softback
• Condition: New
• Weight: 0.2 pounds
• Book Type: Book

About this title

Synopsis

Who are you when you no longer do what you've been doing for years?

It is the big question facing anyone who retires. It is something any retiree can relate to, and any retiree could have a story here. However, I'm going to limit my stories to those of ballet dancers--top ballet dancers--because their situation is the most extreme, I think. They start younger, grow up in a rarified atmosphere, mostly see only each other, and become more and more removed from ordinary life. They also succeed, which not all dancers do, and this leaves them open to a rare experience--the feeling of complete power and control over a situation, as in a performance when everything just happens to click.
I had such an experience once. I still remember it. It occurred while I was dancing Tchaikovsky's grand pas de deux from the Nutcracker. This pas de deux is indeed grand. When the orchestra is playing full out and you're dancing full out, feeling every muscle in your body doing exactly as you wish, you and your partner are responding to each other, and the audience is responding to the two of you--it is a heady experience. There aren't too many like it. So when it's time to retire, what is it like to give this up?