Saturday night. If I had my car (and it wasn't Stake Conference, and if I hadn't worked during the day), I would be heading out to Pomona for dancing. It's been more than two weeks, and I'm going through withdrawals. However, if I can't actually go dancing, then I can watch competition tapes, and read about it. Found a little tidbit in The Week magazine (thanks to BFF for turning me on to it), which led me to this Discovery Channel article on dancing. Seems that dancing may be in my genes.
"People are born to dance," Ebstein told Discovery News." They have (other) genes that partially contribute to musical talent, such as coordination, sense of rhythm. However, the genes we studied are more related to the emotional side of dancing — the need and ability to communicate with other people and a spiritual side to their natures that not only enable them to feel the music, but to communicate that feeling to others via dance."
As the experiment (read: first) child, of first generation immigrants no less, I had lots of lessons. Ballet, tap, piano, tennis, gymnastics, drawing, conducting, Japanese language, flute to name a few. All with varying degrees of success and permanence. My parents wanted us to have a well-rounded experience ... that, or they wanted to keep us too busy to get into trouble. Anyway, the ballet and tap lessons were extremely short-lived ... I never even remembered them until I found a pink child-sized ballet slipper digging through some of my old clothes during high school. When I asked my mother about it, she said that she'd moved me out of dance for piano lessons. Rather ironic, since I'd recently quit piano after 10 years (the last year not so productive), and was taking dance for my PE class.
Actually, dancing had recaptured my interest back in junior high. My best friend Sejin-a transferred to my school in the 8th grade, and got us all into dancing. The guys kept up as best they could, but it was all about the girls having a fantastic time.
It wasn't until I turned fourteen and started going to church dancing that I started couple dancing, and most of it evolved around church. Good-hearted, older boys like Eric plucked me off the wall flowerline and made me feel like not so much of a geek. Sejin-a and Hayan came with me to church dances, where cute boys like Travis asked me to dance. Learned to hustle at a youth camp, and taught my brother because I loved it so, and got him hooked (he wooed Genie through dancing eight years later). Later on, AbH and JuS took private lessons, and taught us in Saturday sessions at the UCLA Institute. Several years later I started going regularly to The Derby (which has sadly gone downhill and only hosts swing once a week), and I was hooked into Lindy.
Nowadays, I favor blues dancing, and will drive as far out as Pomona to get my fix. Speakeasy Blues is fantastic; live bands, low cover, food and drink just an order away, and so casual that I generally end up wearing jeans (with a bit of stretch in them). Blues dancing is much more introspective than lindy. It's not so much about show as it is about having an intimate conversation with your partner. My favorite leads to blues dance with, XRay, MaB, Danny Boy and Roller Coaster, are the ones who take time to stretch to the music ... it's close, personal and moving. Unlike club-dancing, which seems so isolated, weirdly gyrational and bizarre, partner or group dancing is about getting in touch with the concept of "us." And yes, the years of piano lessons were invaluable in learning rhythm, meter and musical phrasing.
So, I don't know if I have the actual genes that the Ebstein studied (if I did, wouldn't it be interesting to know if I got them from my mother or my father?), but I do know that it is in my soul. I love to dance, I love to teach, I love to watch. Wanna learn?
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