The Goderich Signal-Star, 1987-11-04, Page 37Entertainment *Feature
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GODERICH SIGNAL -STAR, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1987
WWW
WILLIAM
THOMAS
Dancin' u
Anne Mullen, of Stratford, has taken
over the dance classes at the Kinsmen
Centre, from former instructor Sandra
Kreitner, as of this fall, teaching ballet,
jazz and tap dancing to local youngsters.
Children under age six, take a general
dance program, which is basically an in-
troduction to dance.
"Their bodies are not strong enough to
cope with the exercises and movements of
dance," Mullen said.
Mullen has taught for over 30 years,
starting in British Columbia at the Univer-
sity of B.C., she moved on to Calgary, Kit-
chener and finally Stratford. She has.
taught seminars for the federal governe-
ment in the Northwest Territories for five
years,. working mostly with Indian and
Eskimo children and adults.
She has also choreographed half -tune
shows for the Calgary Stampeders football
team. been an adjudicator of dance
festivals and judge of beauty pagents in
Canada and the United States, as well as
choreographing fashion shows, musicals,
pagents and recitals.
Mullen has studied dance in Canada, the
United States and England. She teaches
students involved in competitive dance,
festival work, exams and also less -serious
students who dance simply for fun.
A member of the Russian Ballet Society
and the Canadian Dance Teachers'
Association, Mullen has taken teacher
training courses with Dorothy Carter, of
London; National Ballet, Toronto; York
University, Western Kentucky University
and New York City at various seminars
and schools.
"Recently, my group placed first in the
Ballet Character section at the competi-
tion at Canda's Wonderland. These were
my students from Stratford and they .per-
formed an Italian Tarentella," said
Mullen, adding that over 40 of her students
recently performed at Kitchener's famous
Octoberfest.
Mullen, 54, is married to Perth County
Judge J. Arthur Mullen. The couple's
. children are all grown up and on their own
and they have three grandchildren.
Debrah Smith, a teacher at Victoria
Public School, Goderich, is , assisting
Mullen with the classes.
Dance class),
is hopping
a storm
Classes at the Anne Mullen Dance
School, at the . Kinsmen Centre in
Gjoderieh, have been really !toppings
since Mallen took over as the school's in-
structor last fall. Above: Mullen leads a
group in the general dance program (six
and under) through some excercises,
while in the lower photos, local
youngsters demonstrate how dancing
can be a truly expressie art, through
some interestingbody language. (photos
by Patrick Raftis) .
What evil
lurks under
the surface
I don't know exactly how or when this
thing got started but yesterday was the
22nd day in a row that I've found
Malcolm staring at a hole in the ground.
The hole is about three inches in
diameter in high grass, three cottages
down from me between Morlogs anc
Colavincenzos.
About three weeks ago I was returning
home from the Becks where I had
delivered a perfectly good beehive that
had been blown out of a tree on my front
lawn. I reckoned the kids. would take it to
school and have fun with it playing show
and tell or sting and sing or 'let's -jam -
this -up- Mrs. Conigg's-tail-pipe'.
And there he was hunched down in the
grass, his paws tucked in under his chest,
his overbite fixed in a stupid grin and
staring straight down into this hole.
I left him alone. Going on 13 years of
age, Malcolm is still looking for his first, .'
fresh kill. To my knowledge he has never
caught a rodent that wasn't already
wounded or in an advanced stage of ar-
thritis. Malcolm considers it a good catch
if, when I brush the cob webs from his
whiskers, they contain something that's
still moving.
He failed to show up for lunch so I went
over to the hole, picked him up and car-
ried him home.
At supper he failed to respond to the
sound of the electric can opener. This
was cause for alarm. This was tanta-
mount to Pat Carney turning down a
donut. I went to -the hole and carried him
home to dinner.
I imagine this is the same method they
use to move Emanuel Lewis around a
television studio. •
When he wasn't home at 11:20 to watch
Dick Beddoes do the sports I thought -
lucky or not, I better find him.
The beam from the flashlight did not
pick up two fluorescent orbs in the night,
so my first thought was that he wasn't
there. Closer inspection revealed he was
in fact there, but asleep at the hole.
Malcolm may not possess the finely -
honed instincts of a nocturnal predator
but his dedication is exemplary.
I shone the light down the hole but no
eyes shone back. We went home to bed.
The next day was more of the same:
Malcolm impersonating a bored but
relentless contract killer and me shuttl-
ing, him between hole 'and home like a
loaf of white, sliced bread.
Then I became curious. There had to
be somrething down that hole.
Cats may be crazy but they're far from
stupid. Show me the .human who. has
figured oat a way to get three square
meals a day and his stomach scratched
for doing nothing all day. ( Prisoners and
postal workers don't count).
Now there's two of us looking down this
hole. When you sit for a long time lost in
contemplation, it's downright frighten-
ing the strange thoughts that come
creeping into your mind.
My first thought was that 'boa baiting'
was spreading like a regional virus. First
the entire city of Hamilton spent three
days riveted to their television sets with
the cameras aimed down a toilet pipe
where a boa constrictor had last been
seen heading. south. They were
fascinated by looking down a dark hole in
a bathroom floor and I think it said
something about the level of civic
boredom in that town. It was at that point
that the rest of the country realized how
very badly Hamilton needed professional
hockey. We in Wainfleet laughed. Now
here I was, three months later Nerving
vigil over a hole in the ground with a cat
that- kept nodding off during the exciting
parts.
It may have been self-hypnosis or a
form of oddish osmosis but whatever it
was I began to see things in that hole.
I saw, clearly defined and in full color,
the faces of every elected Conservative
in the New Brunswick legislature.
I saw the Leaf's chances for an '87
Stanley Cup running neck -and -neck with
Free Trade's prospects for national
approval.
I' saw Larry Grossman's political
future down there saving a spot for
Brian's.
It was hard to see everything because
the hole was insulated with for-
maldehyde and wide ties were
everywhere.
There was a lot of mail down there,
legibly addressed and properly stamped
marked "Next Day Delivery."
There was a ton of tuna in that hole
marked "Grade A" which had been
crossed out and remarked "Third
World" which had been crossed and
remarked "Cat Food" which had been
crossed out and remarked "Deep Six"
signed "Speaker Of The House."
There was a pile of negotiable cheques
and debentures from the Northland Bank
of Edmonton, Alberta. In amongst all
'that paper was a death threat that read
"I'll get even with you &* * ! ) %'s if it's the
last thing I ever do." It was stained with
tobacco juice and signed "Doyle".
There was a stack of freshly laundered
shirts, large shirts, starched and folded
and marked "Pick up Tuesday -Hoffa".
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