Rants and Ramblings: random commentary about culture, media, politics, technology and whatnot.

tiny dancer

This was the final week of our ballroom dancing class, and a very busy week it was: a review of waltz, foxtrot and tango on Tuesday; a review of rumba, cha-cha and swing on Thursday; and our public “debut” at Hollywood Ballroom in Silver Spring, Md.

It’s amazing how great an effect getting steps wrong or remembering a move you thought you’d forgotten can have on your psyche. We stepped easily through Tuesday’s review of the waltz, then came to a crashing stop when we moved on to foxtrot (whose rhythm I have a difficult time following). We redeemed ourselves, though, by remembering, with only a little prompting, how to do a “man’s turn” move in tango, which brightened our spirits (and raised our confidence) immensely after the foxtrot debacle.

On Friday night, we met our dance teacher and some of our classmates (along with some of her other students) at Hollywood Ballroom. Dinner ran late and we got a bit lost en route, so we arrived too late for the free salsa dancing lesson.

Observing the other dancers was one of the most fun parts of the Hollywood Ballroom experience. We noticed one older man who looked like a cross between Ken Hastings (a character in the movie Strictly Ballroom) and Johnny Cash. Another dancer we named the “Dread Pirate Roberts” because of his loose white shirt that seemed to come unbuttoned more and more as the night went on. (Rob came up with this name despite having never seen The Princess Bride.) Another reminded us of a friend of ours, just aged ten years. We noticed a woman who, early in the night, sported a white fur coat that seemed too big for her; later in the night, she’d shed the coat, but her tight, ankle-length skirt seemed to be constricting her movement.

All that said, the dancers out on the floor were pretty intimidating, demonstrating far more skill and experience than any of us had. It was also interesting to observe that, for some dancers, “singles night” seemed like a means to an end: Dancers would randomly pair off, but not necessarily seem at all interested in their temporary partners. They were here to dance; if they met someone interesting in the process, then all the better — but that wasn’t the priority (especially given the relative age differences of some of those pairings).