Toe to toe & hip to hip

“I have another language: the language is dance” – Eleanor Schick, 1992 “Dance is music made visible” - George Balanchine

As an amusement, dancing delivers lots of variety.

When I was in Nigeria in the eighties, the English-speakers gathered on the weekends. We conversed as well as we could – the English of many was often limited to their particular field of expertise – and danced. We all got to be pretty good at the kind of belly dancing the Egyptians told us was what whole families danced when they got together at the community centre. Good fun! (I was surprised - I suppose my concept of belly dancing had grown out of the snippets I’d seen in movies and TV shows, a style of movement that was exotic and voluptuous.)

When you go to the Family Resource Centre here, there are bound to be a few dances going on, too – things like “Ring Around the Rosy,” “Red Light, Green Light,” “Hokey Pokey” and “Shoo Fly” – the kind of singing games you could only do with a bunch of people... the kind of entertainment that made up a birthday party when I was growing up. What a blast!

At the junior high school dances when I was growing up, all the teachers came (possibly, it was it was part of the curriculum) and taught us things like the “Virginia Reel” and how to do a grapevine step to “Hava Nigila,” both churned out on an institutional turntable with 78 rpm discs. Reeling and stepping left us red-cheeked and breathless. Now, teenagers rock in a circle and take turns soloing in the middle. Things change!

Take your pick – square dancing or ballroom – you’ve got to know the positions and the moves. Getting through the learning process pays grand dividends, however, in the pleasure it brings to move to music in this expressive way. What a thrill to pull off a grand chain or swoop and dip through a quickstep!

Yes, one fancy step or another, I’ve danced my way through many a happy hour, whether I’ve been one of the dancers myself or part of the audience. Dancing is good nourishment for the soul. It is no surprise to me many spiritual communities use forms of dance in a worshipful way. The human body is designed to respond to music with movement. How exhilarating it is to communicate with a roomful of people in this way!

Splendid, powerful, beautiful and mystical: that was the dance we workshopped this past weekend, a different style than Egyptian belly dancing. Who would have guessed, at this senior time in life...?

After all the tap lessons, jazz classes, sessions with Gary and Elaine on the ballroom floor (and one miserable failure of a flamenco tryout) – all demanding and invigorating - who could have realized I really should have been taking oriental dancing? Thank you, Tammy!

PS: “A woman doesn’t have anything to dance about until she’s over 35 years old” – Bert Badine (Whoever he is, I like what he says!)