Thursday, February 10, 2011

Dancing Machine

So, lately, Alex and I are all about dance. It's a great release, it requires very little brain power and I am learning how to dance in high heels, which is a feat in and of itself. So, this Friday, we are performing a lovely half rhumba, half hustle routine for the dance party at our studio. I am both excited and nervous, but as far as I can tell, we've got the routine down pretty good. As a big plus, the whole thing is about two minutes long, so it's not too crazy to think about. The studio likes to celebrate all holidays, so the party on Friday is a Valentine's Day party and the studio is doing a thing called "dance cards" where you get a card and fill out people's names for particular dances, like in the old days way back when. It always makes me think about the movie Meet Me in St. Louis, where Judy Garland plays the daughter of a business man who decides that the family has to move out of St. Louis right after Christmas. The family is devastated, but decides it's for the best, if it's for his job. Judy Garland and her sister attend the local Christmas dance, without dates, and fill out dance cards and dance the night away in these amazingly lovely gowns. Incidentally, Judy Garland's boyfriend then shows up and proposes in the most romantic way. I can't imagine any of these things happening at this dance party, but that is what I'm thinking about :)
So, we just agreed to be part of another performance, this one is a routine for a show at a reunion or something like that. We're part of a swing performance, which should be a blast. We just started taking double lessons on Wednesday nights with seven other couples (the couples are not yet complete, but the instructor is working on it). We'll perform sometime in April, and we might even be putting on more than one performance, which will be great. We've already learned the Charleston, which is a funny kind of dance. I've been doing it all over the house, and I know I look silly, but oh well! Alex and I are having a lot of fun, still taking some private lessons, and I think this is something we'll try to stick to as time goes on. I know life always gets in the way of things, but I hope that dance is something we can do for a long time.
Which brings me to my last thought. I was talking to another one of the girls in the swing show, Kara. She was saying that she had just gotten married and that she and her husband had really loved the dance lessons, so they decided to continue them. He always brings a bottle of wine, they try to get dinner before or after the lesson and it turns into a really nice date night. I said that I totally agreed with her and that Alex had gotten us group lessons as a birthday present to me a couple years ago. I thought it was such a great time that we ended up signing up for private lessons, which has been a great experience for us both. And then, I just started wondering why there are so few people who dance anymore. Why nobody has dinner and dancing as a date and why dancing has been relegated to clubs on Friday and Saturday nights. Why do guys dislike dancing so much that they won't take their significant others out for a lesson, just to get the feel of it? I'm always talking to people who are bored with the whole dating scene or who are sick of the whole dinner and a movie thing, yet nobody thinks about dance. I guess, in my mind, "date night" should be a regular thing, as regular as you can make it. It doesn't have to be a fancy show or a big dinner. Try dancing one time. Even in your living room, even in your yard. Try the waltz, try the salsa, take a lesson, check the Y. Lessons are usually 45 minutes long, and it ends up being a great time, especially because there's no pressure, there's no reason you need to be perfect or perform well. But you do get to communicate and laugh together and try to figure out how the other person works, which is always interesting. So, this V-Day, or beyond, you should try being a dancing machine. Just like MJ :)

1 comment:

Randi said...

Brad and I were just saying how much we are looking forward to your and Kyle's weddings so we can dance. Because our honky old parental asses are not hip enough for da'club but we likes to get our groove on.