Kay Lange
"Puttin' on the Glitz"
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| (Photos by Patrick Fraser) |
When I was five or six years old my mother thought that I should begin dancing lessons because she expected me to be tall and she wanted me to stand up straight. Ah!!! Little did she know what she had started.
For the next ten years or so I tapped and twirled and tumbled and toe danced in recitals and in a couple of traveling troupes, including the St. Paul Clown Club. Pretty soon I found myself teaching all of the kids in our neighborhood to do cartwheels and flips and I decided that I might as well make some money doing it. So began the Kay Carroll Dance Studio and for the next five years I taught more than one hundred little girls (and a few little boys) to dance and tumble and twirl batons. We had recitals and we had a small traveling troupe to entertain at hospitals and parks. In addition, I danced in the Broadway road shows that came to the Twin Cities. Then in 1964 I decided to satisfy my wanderlust. I hung up my dancing shoes and traveled the world as a United Airlines Stewardess - after all, I was only twenty years old.
Now, more than sixty years after that first dance recital, I still tap dance in my kitchen while admiring my refection in the sliding glass doors and I reflect on how much I loved all of the dancing---especially the tap dancing. I have made a special pair of tap shoes as a tribute to my mother for her wisdom and her encouragement and her dedication to my dance. Thank you, Mom.
P.S. I AM tall and I DO stand up straight.