I Hope You Dance (but not to the Commodores)

I’ll start this blog with a confession. The truth is….I love to dance. As revelations go, I know this is a disappointing one. In fact, you might think it doesn’t qualify as a revelation. (Especially if you’ve seen me salivate in front of Kevin Paige, nerd-stud lead singer at Alfred’s on Beale.) But wait -- there’s more.

I love to dance when nobody’s watching. This sounds like a bad lyric from an inspirational country song, but I assure you that my living-room dancing would make Leann Womack blush. My dance-alone songs of choice are Britney Spears’ “My Prerogative” and Chingy’s “Balla Baby.” Sometimes I’ll vary it up with “Son of a Preacher Man,” but mostly I stick to the bad-influence-on-kids stuff.

Yesterday I danced in public for the first time in about four months. After weeks of searching, my friend Mary and I located a live band within a 50-mile radius of Honesdale. Four guys named the Cunning Stunts (yeah, I know…) played a 10 p.m.-1 a.m. gig in Callicoon, New York. They favored Jimi Hendrix tunes, though they also dished out Van Morrison and The Calling. Body count at the bar outnumbered the count on the dance floor, but there was no question in my allegiances. Why dodge elbows for an overpriced vodka-tonic when you can talk a friend into buying v-ts and delivering them as needed?

Bar/club dancing is a little different from living-room dancing, as you might guess. In the privacy of my apartment, I can try any dance move that suits my happy feet. In bars and clubs, I generally alternate between The Seductive Wiggle and The Flirtatious Shuffle. These are the only socially acceptable moves for hapless white girls like myself. Certain songs are no-nos, too. Informal research has convinced me that “Brick House” is an inside joke among the music scene, played only for the purpose of singling out the rhythmically challenged.

Prior to my evening with the Cunning Stunts -- back in January -- I danced at the Winter Blues Fest in another small New York town. Like any Mississippi Delta transplant, I translated “Blues Fest” to B.B. King and “My baby done lef’ me.” Not so. For New Yorkers, “blues” means “doldrums.” This is understandable, in a region where sub-freezing temperatures can last through April.

I don’t remember the name of the band that played the Winter Blues Fest, but I’m certain that it was devoid of sexual double entendre. The Fest is an alcohol-free event meant more for energetic 10-somethings and their parents than for the restless bar crowd. I tagged along with five or six coworkers, ranging in age from 24 (that’s me) to early 60s. The venue was a refurbished barn, decorated with Christmas lights and paper streamers. A dessert table offered three types of chocolate chip cookie, also buckeyes, and sugar-coated Chex mix.

Not soon after I left the sweets buffet, I hit a problem: the Seductive Wiggle and the Flirtatious Shuffle weren‘t exactly good Fest fare. Much as I wanted to join my coworkers in their “Johnny B. Goode” grooving, I feared the consequences of “shakin’ my money maker” in the club-patented way.

Well, long story short -- I didn’t sit out. I roof-raised. I hopped. I spun around. I did some weird version of the late ‘90s “running man.” I mouthed the words to most of the songs (big faux pas in club dancing). Such lack of dancing sophistication had previously only existed in my living room.

I half expected the Dorky Dancer Police to escort me from the floor, but the DDP must have thrown up their hands at Blues Fest long ago. Either that, or they didn’t have the heart to arrest septuagenarians for fox-trotting to “Good Vibrations.”

Here’s the part where I’m supposed to embrace adulthood and champion community dance-a-thons. Well, I have to say, I’m not yet mature enough to discount the Cunning Stunts. I realize that club dancing involves an agenda -- yesterday I Wiggled and Shuffled in the direction of the pool table, where many of the 20-something males staked their territory. I hadn’t worn my favorite tight-jeans, tank-top combo for nothing.

I will admit, though, that as a “private dancer” (apologies to Tina Turner), I felt more at home at the Blues Fest. For a few hours in that barn, the Macarena came back in style, along with the Grapevine and Chubby Checker’s twist. Self-consciousness was….dorky. I missed that yesterday. And as I wiggled at midnight, I wondered: how many of my coworkers were moon-walking in their pajamas?