Let's Dance
My girlfriend and I went to redeem some salsa lesson vouchers at a bar in Chinatown this evening. I'm not normally one for social dance, but I'll try anything that's free.
With about thirty others, we learned four basic patterns (basic step, cross-body lead, simple turn and cross-body lead with turn) that we'd probably forget by next week. The environment was dim; the instruction rushed. I enjoyed it nonetheless, once I got used to the idea that this was no dance clinic, and I wasn't going to receive any specialised attention.
I guess the non-technical nature of the session really sunk in when the instructor called out for us to change partners after trying out the basic step. As my first 'social' dance experience, I felt extremely uncomfortable about placing my right hand on a woman's back as the first gesture upon meeting, especially since I wouldn't normally even want to meet some of the women I danced with.
It didn't help that as a first-timer, I had no idea where I should look when dancing. I figured that looking at my partner's face would make me a flirt; looking away would make me rude; and looking anywhere in between would make me look like I was checking out her boobs. In the end I settled for staring straight down at my feet, and mouthing "1,2,3 ... 5,6,7" repeatedly to emphasise that it was indeed my feet that I was looking at.
The rate at which we switched partners made the evening feel like a speed dating session. Yet in a way, it also felt like commercial sex, since each brief tryst was marked with tacitly accepted physical contact. In half an hour I had apprehended over two dozen intimacies: young, old, seasoned, inexperienced, friendly, distant, bulky, slender, instructional, agreeable, polite, impatient, fresh, craggy. It was a bizarre experience which I still don't really know what to make of.
But I'll definitely head there again. Our vouchers are still good for another one or two classes, and picking up some dance moves--even clumsy ones--is no bad thing.
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On an unrelated note, later at night I saw an online journal entry that opened up universes of yearning in me. What she wrote reminded me that (i) people like her do exist; (ii) such people are always imperceptibly out of reach. For the umpteenth time this year, I looked at what someone wrote and realised: I could the one. And together, we would be legendary.
With about thirty others, we learned four basic patterns (basic step, cross-body lead, simple turn and cross-body lead with turn) that we'd probably forget by next week. The environment was dim; the instruction rushed. I enjoyed it nonetheless, once I got used to the idea that this was no dance clinic, and I wasn't going to receive any specialised attention.
I guess the non-technical nature of the session really sunk in when the instructor called out for us to change partners after trying out the basic step. As my first 'social' dance experience, I felt extremely uncomfortable about placing my right hand on a woman's back as the first gesture upon meeting, especially since I wouldn't normally even want to meet some of the women I danced with.
It didn't help that as a first-timer, I had no idea where I should look when dancing. I figured that looking at my partner's face would make me a flirt; looking away would make me rude; and looking anywhere in between would make me look like I was checking out her boobs. In the end I settled for staring straight down at my feet, and mouthing "1,2,3 ... 5,6,7" repeatedly to emphasise that it was indeed my feet that I was looking at.
The rate at which we switched partners made the evening feel like a speed dating session. Yet in a way, it also felt like commercial sex, since each brief tryst was marked with tacitly accepted physical contact. In half an hour I had apprehended over two dozen intimacies: young, old, seasoned, inexperienced, friendly, distant, bulky, slender, instructional, agreeable, polite, impatient, fresh, craggy. It was a bizarre experience which I still don't really know what to make of.
But I'll definitely head there again. Our vouchers are still good for another one or two classes, and picking up some dance moves--even clumsy ones--is no bad thing.
----------------------
On an unrelated note, later at night I saw an online journal entry that opened up universes of yearning in me. What she wrote reminded me that (i) people like her do exist; (ii) such people are always imperceptibly out of reach. For the umpteenth time this year, I looked at what someone wrote and realised: I could the one. And together, we would be legendary.
posted by The Empty Signifier @ 8/20/2005 02:39:00 pm
2 comments
2 Comments:
You change partners at any social dance class, actually. And as to where to look, your feet are fine if you're still learning, but once you're a little more comfortable with it all, may I say as a girl that all my favourite dance partners look at ME. It doesn't have to be flirty at all, and no girl who knows her social dancing will think so.
Where the place by the way. Sound interesting!
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