“They were laughing at us.” L had just gotten off stage, and K, backstage to help with the recital, was there to greet her. Indeed, we in the audience were laughing a great deal through the night, but it obviously bothered some of the children, our daughter included.

Why did we laugh? I fumbled about with an explanation yesterday, but I went to bed thinking about it and woke up with it still on my mind.

If adults had been doing this, we might have called it a disaster. They stumbled about sometimes. They often looked to the side, desperate for a cue from someone wiser. Some stood, looking at the others, trying to remember what they should be doing at this or that particular moment. They were only vaguely uniform at some points, with some putting their arms down as others just began raising theirs.

Yet because they were children, everything changed. Disasters became masterpieces: flubs became arabesques; stumbles transformed into bourre; miscues became fouette; hesitant jumps became grand jets.

Further, if these had been adult dancers, they never would have appeared on stage. Ego would have prevented it, and that’s part of what we mean when we say that these children are cute because they’re innocent. They’re not so concerned with unattainable perfection, and they’re filled with joy just to be dancing.

I think we laugh, then, because we see ourselves in these little dancers and realize that, in so many ways, they have more courage than we have, and we laugh at the joy that courage brings us.