Auggie & Me: Shingaling

It was generally agreed upon that Mr. Tushman had some kind of secret surveillance drone keeping tabs on everything going on at Beecher Prep: there was no other way he could know all the stuff he seemed to know.

Some of the girls, like Savanna’s group, had started taking sides with the Julian boys, and I really wanted to stay neutral because I didn’t want any of them to get mad at me.

Like, if you want to see the common characteristics between mammals, reptiles, and fish, for instance, you draw a Venn diagram and list all the attributes of each one inside a circle.

I’m adapting a piece I choreographed years ago, which had gotten considerable attention at the time, I don’t mind saying.

Then she rubbed her head, like she was warding off a headache.

Maya, who was only really fun to talk to when Ellie was there. Or if you wanted to play a rousing game of dots.

OMG, I got in! Yay!!!!!! I was so happy when I read my name on the list! Overjoyed! Ecstatic! Woo-hoo!

This time around, Ximena, Gretchen, and Ellie were talking together, completely oblivious to me.

But I couldn’t wait to get to know her better. To be friends with her, maybe! To laugh at her sarcastic gibes.

“You know,” I said, trying to sound casual, “if we ever need a place to rehearse away from school, you guys could come over to my house. I have a mirrored wall in my basement and a barre. My mom used to teach ballet out of our house.”

“We’ll figure out some other time,” Ximena answered indifferently.

“But not because of how he looks,” I said, flustered. “Just because we don’t have anything in common!”

“Would you go out with him?” I asked.
“Of course not,” she answered calmly. “But I’m not about to be hypocritical about it.”

Summer shot me a quizzical look.

“Are you allowed to do that?” Ximena asked incredulously. “Take money from a student?”

We spent the rest of the rehearsal time, since there was only half an hour left, listening to Mrs. Atanabi give us a quick overview of the dance while also periodically checking the weather app on her phone.

That’s what we spent most of our time working on. The way we carried our arms. The way we snapped our fingers. Our turnouts. Our jumps.

How she’d met her husband, who was also a dancer, while performing with Cirque du Soleil in Quebec. “We fell in love doing arabesques on a tightrope thirty feet in the air.”

Lots of obituaries. The Internet doesn’t distinguish between names of the living and names of the dead. And every time we clicked on one of those names, we would be relieved that it wasn’t our Gordy Johnson. But sad that it was someone else’s Gordy Johnson.

I knew she hated Ximena, but for some reason, the way she had said it, in this seething tone, just surprised me.

A mesmerizing reinterpretation of the dance fads of the ’60s—as seen through the Kodachromic lens of the author's childhood in NYC’s Barrio—this piece is a riveting and joyful homage to the scratchy, catchy, and soon-to-be-lost tracks of the decade.

A mesmerizing reinterpretation of the dance fads of the ’60s—as seen through the Kodachromic lens of the author's childhood in NYC’s Barrio—this piece is a riveting and joyful homage to the scratchy, catchy, and soon-to-be-lost tracks of the decade.

Chock-full of breathtaking leaps and innovative steps that belie Ms. Echevarri’s own training in the classical style, the work takes one particular dance, the shingaling, and creates a visual narrative through which the rest of the work weaves.

When asked why she chose the shingaling as the main theme of her dance, Echevarri grows wistful.

The three dancers in the piece, all recent graduates of Juilliard themselves, bring a distinctive vocabulary to the montage, drawing viewers into an experience that is at once life-affirming and joyful, without any bubble-gum sentimentality.

This lack of artifice owes as much to the rousing arrangement of songs, which blend seamlessly together, as it does to Echevarri’s poignant narrative.

This lack of artifice owes as much to the rousing arrangement of songs, which blend seamlessly together, as it does to Echevarri’s poignant narrative.

“Hey!” said Ximena, waiting for us in the foyer.

“What. The. Heck?” I said, stupefied. “That is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.”

It’s like the three of us knew, instinctively, without having to say it out loud, that when we got back to school, everything would return to being business as usual.

“Well, she does have the best grades of anyone,” I answered, trying to sound as impartial as possible.

Summer had a box of tissues in her hands and was consoling her.

On it was a crude drawing of a girl (who was obviously Maya) kissing a boy (who was obviously Auggie Pullman).

You couldn’t make out anyone’s face, because it was so dark, but it was the biggest auditorium I had ever seen—with balconies and gilded arches and velvet walls!

Around the room, the kids from the jazz ensemble and choir stood up with varying degrees of willingness and shyness.

“It’s really ironic,” said Ximena. “They’re so good-looking.”
“Have you ever seen Auggie’s big sister?” I said. “She’s super-pretty. Like she could be a model. It’s crazy.”

I still remember how, right from the start when I asked you to be Auggie’s welcome buddy, you embraced that wholeheartedly and without equivocation.

And I want him to have validation that this year was a triumph for him.

I’m honored to have been asked to give the commencement speech on behalf of the fifth grade this year.

I’m honored to have been asked to give the commencement speech on behalf of the fifth grade this year.