A few days ago we received an email straight out of the “fact is stranger than fiction department” from Random Dance [Company] (yes, that Random Dance [Company]) (what’s with all the damn brackets? Ed!)
It said this;
“Hello, I am writing to you from Wayne McGregor | Random Dance as I have seen that you have included our audition notice on your website. That’s great, but the company name is written incorrectly – we are Wayne McGregor | Random Dance, not Random Dance Company. If you can please correct this and let me know when it’s been done that would be great.”
First up, nice work on the “hello” part. It’s informal, friendly, even classy!
Then things start to get a bit weird with the “Wayne McGregor | Random Dance” bit because it’s a bit of a mouthful and who writes (or speaks) like that?
Acknowledging that posting the audition notice is “great” is also a nice touch because it is great. You have jobs for professional dancers and we like telling them about those jobs so maybe they can get one, so we’re all good again after that weird “Wayne McGregor | Random Dance” moment.
Then we go off into the twilight zone because the “Wayne McGregor | Random Dance” thing is back, so that’s twice in one email, and they are telling us that not only have we, and the rest of the world, been getting the company’s name wrong all this time they want us to change it and then…………… tell them when we’ve done it so they can chill out and have a barbecue. Safe in the knowledge our dear readers have finally figured out who the hell we’ve been talking about all these years.
Let’s skip past the issue of someone sitting down and taking the time to point out the most pointless issue in Christendom and look at the bigger picture. Let’s also skip past the fact the precisely nobody who will be auditioning for Random Dance [Company] will accidentally audition for the other Random Dance [Company] that doesn’t even exist!
Instead, let us focus on this. There are innumerable issues facing dance, some of them may be insurmountable and if they are insurmountable it’s because some folks in the wacky world of dance seem to be more concerned with issues that are so massively banal all we can do is quote a line from ‘The Hangover’
“You are literally too stupid to insult!”