Alors Danse

Oh the dreams of a life like no other, a life outside of the one you already know… The hope and childlike innocence that resonates from the what if I…

Before moving to France I had a short list of dreams that were simple and by all intents and purposes completely achievable with a little effort and perseverance, of course! One of those was to learn to dance. And not just any old dance, but the couple style dancing I remembered from my past visits to France, where despite age, gender, or occasion, people enjoyed dancing together in a sort of lightly swing influenced, du-whop, possibly 60’s or 70’s inspired crocodile rock style of dance. Armed with the crystal clear reality that I am haphazardly uncoordinated and can barely follow the fluid bodily motions of a relaxing qigong or tai chi session, let alone understand or follow the ever embarrassingly popular hustle or other synchronized group dance; I merely kept an eye out for dance studios and advertisements. And over the past year, this once thriving idea shrunk into the background becoming a nice idea instead of a must do….

Much to my surprise, a couple of weeks ago I got together with a French friend I met through the Act4 English group. It was to be a soirée en français, where I could fumble my way through French and enjoy a night out in pure French fried fun! Paying much less attention to just about everything than I ever have, I knew that we were going to some theatre, play, music thing… Clearly I had a very vague idea at best of what was to come…  Even better was that I had a copy of the advertisement (below) as reference, but chose to just show up to the soirée for a night of unexpected fun.

After a mixed-up meet-up at one of the larger metro stations in Lyon, Juliette and I set off to the Bal D’hiver event, complete with a 2 piece band, no table or chairs and an open space filled with the creative artsy type, most in funky socked feet, all ready to jive and spin and follow the instructions of the dance club leader.

Okay, so here I am uncoordinated and uncomfortable in any sort of coordinated group activity whether aerobics, Simon says, or dance, and in a still fuzzy language, and I was following the gradually increasing 2 to 4 to 6 step solo dance choreography. The night was separated into 5 radically different dance combos, each with varying movements, rules and degrees of creativity. Most started with a basic introduction and steps that gradually morphed into a revolving couple or group dance; and all were artistically creative and fun; much less coordinated and more childlike and innocent. As the two piece band played on, we followed the guided instructions of our dance hall master and twisted and turned and weaved and wiggled to the likes of mirroring each other without touching, swaying blindly around the dance floor, and tapping into our inner penguins!

                                                                                                                                                

Not exactly what I had in mind when I dreamed of dancing in diner style rock and roll, but that is the beauty of dreams and reality… sometimes the little differences and unexpectancies are more revealing and fun and just as memorable as the memory you wish to create.