OK so once a year, this fabulous creative arts festival called FUSEBOX hits Austin. Every year there are exciting artists from around the country and world who bring their smarts to Texas. I always see a few things each year and thoroughly enjoy it! Well... this year... I decided to take Little Bird to a few things with me... all I can say is "uh oh"...
The first event that Renna and I see together is a dance piece at the Long Center. There is no rating info on the FUSEBOX website and I make my reservation over the phone with the Long Center. The shows description seems heady but relatively safe. I also think "ok well its dance, how bad can dance be?" Just wait...
When we arrive at the theater we get our tickets at the box office, no one says a thing about appropriateness even though my daughter is obviously with me. We walk in and the ushers also do not say a word. Once we enter the theater Little Bird decides that she would like to sit in the front row for the best possible view. So we sit down front row and center. The house lights lower, the stage lights come up, and BAM! Naked man....
The show, from an adult artist perspective, was wonderful. I really loved it. From a parent perspective OMG OMG OMG my daughter is RUINED! So the show starts and immediately the dancer is naked, for the first 5 minutes of the show. In the middle of the first act (after he has dressed) he pulls his underwear off his bottom and holds himself in a crab pose over a flaming candle. Then at the end of the second act we get 5 more minutes of total frontal male nudity... I would like to point out that none of the nudity was perverse or gratuitous. The second act was fine and 100% kid friendly if not for the F word once or twice.
How did I handle it? As soon as he entered we saw the dancers bottom and I covered Little Birds eyes.
OMG! My heart was racing, I was sweating! What do I do? leave? stay? CRAP!!!
Her eyes were closed behind my hands and I leaned into her and I said "he is naked, he is not doing anything weird or creepy its just a naked body. If you want to watch you can, if not I will cover your eyes until he gets cloths on." She kept her eyes covered. That is pretty much how we handled the whole first act. Something inappropriate would start and I would cover eyes... She LOVED the second act. Pretty ladies dancing in sparkling dresses totally made up for the uncomfortableness of the naked man.
Leaving the theater she said she loved it. The next day she was still talking about the ladies dancing and some of the cool video in the first act. She even insisted we go to another FUSEBOX show that night as well! She still sometimes mentions things from that show in a positive way... so yes, in the moment I was terrified and mortified but in the end I think my daughter had a pretty great artistic experience... I wonder when she is an adult if she will remember that performance as her first time seeing a man naked. Ha!
sigh... oh life... oh parenting... uh-oh...
