After hearing J’s talk of the fun to be had doing old-school American jive dances, and finding a series of lindy-hop instructional videos on YouTube, I figured it had to be worth trying some classes. I’ve felt conscious of being a lot – dancier? – all this year, and been lacking an outlet; like feeling a wave form passing through, with nowhere to go, wanting to act on it; like hearing a song to which one doesn’t know the words, occasionally letting out a yelp in synchrony because one can’t help it.
As a very young child, I used to do a lot of ballroom dancing, Latin dancing – had a scad of little medals – at aged 8 or 9 moved away from where it was beign taught, and never picked up again. Perhaps it was some compensation for not feeling in synchrony myself; never really feeling comfortable unless I am moving.
So a couple of days ago I hauled myself down the West End to a beginner’s lindy hop lesson. This was a dance class equivalent of speed-dating – learning the steps in a big circle, and every three minutes or so rotating dance partners two places – just enough time to pick up a feeling of sync before having to move on. I am an antisocial bastard, and that much personal interaction was more tiring than dancing.
But I struggle to lead or to follow; I want power without control. Interacting with many people at different levels of – physical consciousness, knowledge or awareness – was a fascinating experience.
I had about the most fun with another complete novice, clearly a fellow graduate from the happy hardcore, banging jungle school of raw enthusiasm dancing. We inappropriately flung one another through approximate lindy turns, just about keeping from falling over. I would tune in to others who were nervous, fist-footed and attempt to work with them, encourage them to move in a way which probably didn’t make much sense according to the rules.
My hardest experience was with an older gent who to some extent clearly knew what he was doing, but would insist on dominating, never on collaborating; at one point physically stopped and said, “If I don’t do anything, then neither do you”.
How deeply are these rules built into these dances? To lead and to follow, to be set in steps according to gender divisions, never getting to learn how it feels the other way round. There’s an undercurrent of sexual domination pretty near the surface and that unnerves me, and I wonder to what extent that is just inherent in the art form; how it can be mutated, reworked into something more collaborative.
But this is from a perspective of knowing next to nothing, not knowing the ruleset well enough to see how to transcend it in every interaction. I had one moment that felt close, learning to dance that evening; with the one person there who seemed to have a kind confidence, and paid attention. Little nudges on where to look, on the right tension in the arm, and on our last turn and spin round I felt a sensation of flow, of “rightness”, of having become subconsciously part of a waveform passing through; and then partners rotated around again as I quite regretfully let go.
I’d hope that muscle memory would, at some point, engage; that becoming more versed in steps, in interactions, would supply triggers for what I once knew well at a level I can no longer wilfully access. I’d like to take more classes, but perhaps find a less hectic one after learning more of the basics. I know one other dancing hacker in town, who wants to learn to tango; we plan to trade off and learn together. Perhaps we can engineer a craze; there’s bound to be some “open source process” spin in this. We’ll reverse engineer dances from internet videos and teach each other collectively; teaching and learning the same thing.
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