Dancing in the Streets

Just got in from an evening of live entertainment at the New Victoria Theatre in Woking, and when I say 'live', there was so much energy it was electric! This fantastic show features many of the old Motown classics. If you ever enjoyed music from The Four Tops, The Temptations, Marvin Gaye, The Supremes or Stevie Wonder, I can recommend it. Certainly had the audience on our feet dancing in the aisles if not the streets, and brought some 'sunshine on a cloudy day' to my life, after another depressing stint over the allotment clearing up from the arson attack on the sheds.

From Powerpoint to Cha cha cha

High winds and heavy rain today, but happily a friend was able to give me a lift to Rachel’s house for my lesson on Powerpoint. The rain had eased off by the time I came out, even though I wasn’t there long, and the bus was waiting for me at the stop.

In the evening at the Improvers’ dance class I didn’t seem to be picking up the cha cha cha routine very quickly. However … I have now bought Anton’s Dance Class which takes you through step by step. Perhaps by next week I’ll be up to speed.

New Term - No Go

My regular dance partner and I started learning dancing at Adult Ed in September 2006. After a year the teacher decided he’d had enough of the bureaucracy and form-filling that infects the Adult Education system these days and defected with his students to start up the Dance club from a community hall which we were attending until August this year. Much as we enjoyed the Monday night sessions and the social connections we’d made there, we didn’t feel we were making much progress with the dancing, hence our recent decision to sample other classes. Tonight was the first session in the Ballroom and Latin-American Dancing Improvers’ course at the local Adult Education Institute on which we were enrolled. Late in the day I received an apologetic text from my dance partner saying he was stuck at work and wasn’t going to be able to make it back for the start.

I arrived in time to watch the end of the Beginners’ class. It was fully subscribed and appeared to be very enjoyable, judging from the students' faces and the buzz of excited chatter. Different story for the Improvers’ class – there were only four of us enrolled, making the course financially unviable, and of the four enrolled, only two of us were there. The teacher explained that the policy is to run the first class anyway in the hope that more students might turn up to enrol on the night, but in the absence of sufficient interest, the rest of the course would be cancelled. We could either join the beginners or get a refund. The other prospective student, a man, opted not to stay for the lesson. That left me and the teacher, who proceeded to give me a private lesson in Rumba. It felt a little awkward, just her and me. She was a good head and shoulders taller than me, wearing a sleeveless vest despite the chilly evening. Her skin felt as cold as marble beneath my hand. After she had taught me one figure (the fan), I called a halt to the private lesson so that she could go home and warm up. I went to reception to claim the refund and wait for my dance partner who had been racing back to try and make it before the end of class. We talked things through and decided to continue with the Monday nights at the place where we’ve been enjoying the Thursday night classes.

Dancing

Forsaking our first Ballroom/Latin-American dance teacher, my regular dance partner and I have been going along to different classes recently, sampling different teaching styles. The Thursday night teacher, whilst the youngest, has an excellent style which definitely facilitates the learning process. Taking the man’s part, she first demonstrates the steps with one of the dance school’s numerous competent young female dancers as her partner. We all adopt the starting position and then she calls out each step as we move in formation to her calm voice. Her pragmatic approach seems entirely free of ego or the showing off that seems to infect some of the other teaching styles we’ve encountered. Besides that, she’s pretty with a delightful figure and very easy on the ear, qualities my dance partner hasn’t failed to notice!

We’ve also been along to the complementary class on Monday night, in theory learning the same routines set for the month (a Samba and a Waltz for September), but in practice slightly different. The Monday night teacher, a man, is closer to my age and puts his focus more on technique than on the routine. He demonstrates the routine then simply counts the beat, expecting the class to remember the step to perform to each beat (and for the most part, they seem to be able to memorise the routines quickly, something I’m having difficulty with so far). This Monday his regular co-teacher wasn’t there and he was partnered by a young lady (late teens?) we haven’t seen before. He demonstrated the forward/backward pelvis movement he wanted us to practice in the Samba routine, showing how his head stayed at the same height and the movement was accommodated through his hips tilting as he changed weight. Then he broke in on his own commentary to encourage us to watch his partner, saying how beautifully she accomplished what he wanted us to achieve. You could see the surprise and pleasure glowing behind her modest acknowledgment of his high praise. It was sweet.