There is something difficult about the valedictory moment. We’ve watched these young artists develop for four years. They go from promise to even greater promise, and in some cases we feel that they are going to outstrip us and outshine us. They will certainly outlast us. Some will go on to a great career. That can’t be known at the instant of the “last class.” For those of us in dance, the last class takes place in a big dance studio. It’s always Spring. We get what the weather in Illinois gives us. This year, it’s been stormy, but the sun came out for the last classes.

Don’t shoot me, I’m just the piano player. I am at the keyboard, watching the instructor and the students, thinking of which great music/dance intersections I want to leave them with. What am I trying to do? Most of the time, I support the exercise. I try to be the anti-gravity device, to match the dance in energy, calorie for calorie. I try to make good music. I try to make the good music mean something. I try to make the experience of the technique class something that is not, in the long term, easily forgotten. It is part of my responsibility to the art to make a class as memorable as it can possibly be. Dancing should never be forgettable; never a chore.

The best dancers make one ache for what they can do. They are beings of limitless expression. They have unique and mostly exemplary personalities. I’m a little bit in love with a few of them, and for a person without a child of my own, it’s difficult sometimes to watch and realize that this is the last time I’ll see them take technique.

Have a good summer. Get out of here, go somewhere good. Have a great career. Go be famous. Have a good life. Improve your bright mind; more chess, less Jersey Shore. Go get it on. See you on Facebook.