Dancing for Dummies
Today is not just the first day of summer, but the anniversary of when Boom Boom and I tied the knot long, long, long ago. When I posted on this last year, I mentioned how we skillfully, maneuvered our limbs and hips to this song :
Macarena
Perhaps in an effort to gain back dignity and distance myself from the Macarena, I went into a period where I thought line dancing had to be right up there with fanny packs in terms of things that are monumentally uncool. I mean, dancing is supposed to be free-form, spur-of-the-moment, and an expression of your individuality or mood. Or at least an expression of how much booze you have in your system.
fengtastic.com
drunk dancing
With age, I’ve mellowed out a little and I’ve come to meet a lot of different people who just aren’t that good at expressing themselves in that way. Many are like bakers, they need that structure and order that dancing with instructions offers. And many just have two left feet or were born in Germany – they just can’t dance. (Sorry, Winegetter) So I’ve come to realize that line dancing is an important public service to many a hopelessly honky person.
Then I thought about it more, dancing to a script has been around for a long time. I’m sure it was there when Nostradamus signed the Magna Carta. Heck, isn’t that what square dancing is? You go dance around to exactly what the redneck Young MC is yelling out in the microphone? And who better to demonstrate square dancing than Bugs Bunny –
cartoons
Which eventually evolved to the Achy Breaky –
redneck
I personally like my music a little more on the city side. And the oldest I could think of is The Hustle…
70s dancing
For the past few years, it seems everyone’s been doing The Cupid Shuffle –
family dancing
Now, the latest and greatest is The Wobble –
dance craze
Ah yes, now there’s a whole new generation of people who are going to be embarrassed when you show them videos of them dancing ten years from now.
What was your favorite line dance?
dancing
Happy Anniversary, Boom Boom!
wedding
anniversary
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9 comments on “Dancing for Dummies”
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Reblogged this on The Blogspaper.
I can’t believe that I watched The Wobble.It’s only redeeming qualities were the real estate porn and the Terrible Towels.
I can’t believe that you left out my favorite dance (at least in jr. high): DA BUTT. Which, I don’t know if it is an actual line dance or the choreographed grinding was the result of adolescent hormones gone mad. We also used to do some sort of weird Macarena to “Personal Jesus.” Bizarre.
I was I was invited to this wedding. They go crazy at 3:45.
I don’t line dance, on principle. I’m a freestyler. That said, I have done the chicken dance and the hokey pokey. Novelty dances, if you will. I had probably been drinking. 😉 But there aren’t enough cocktails on earth to get me to hustle or macarena.
I don’t know how far back dancing to calls goes. It would have been more challenging to do in the days before amplification; few callers can be easily heard over music without help.
Dancing that is pre-choreographed and done by large groups certainly goes back a long time. One examples are the almans (more commonly spelled allemande modernly but the simpler spelling was used in the period documents) that were done in the Inns of Court (basically fancy balls attended by lawyers); there was a small fixed set of them called the Old Measures (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_measures) that were danced every time.
Many kinds of folk dancing are simple patterned dances that people do together in lines or circles. Modernly these are taught before dancing rather than called while dancing. In the folk tradition of the places they came from they were probably never formally taught at all; children would learn them by watching, and then by participating once they were ready.
More recently, we have the tradition of doing the Alley Cat at weddings. I’d like to see something like the Macarena usurp that role; it’s got more of a beat, it’s more sensual, and it’s no more difficult to learn. And the whole point of doing the Alley Cat is to look stupid together, so it won’t be any worse in that regard.
Ah, The Hustle. Takes a bar or three to remember, then it’s, ” Not sure I really liked The Hustle but this is fun”.
Hahaha! Happy anniversary! And you haven’t even seen me dance, buddy…:D
Happy anniversary!! At first glance when I saw that wipe-out pic, I was really, really hoping it was from your wedding. (Does that make me a bad person?)
I don’t like any line dances. Because I can’t do them. I have left-right dyslexia. It’s serious.
Happy anniversary! While I commend your open mindedness, I just can’t get on board with the line dance. I LOVE to dance, especially after a few wines at a wedding, but I immediately get uncomfortable and head for the hills the second the choreography lines start forming. I just can’t do it.
Unless its Beyonce’s Single Ladies, because, well, its Queen B and you can’t disrespect her.
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