A Drop of Pure Joy

A few weeks ago, my beloved dance studio threw its bi-annual Showcase, an afternoon of dance performances by students and teachers for our own pleasure and satisfaction after a lot of hard work and many lessons—and, we hope, for the pleasure of our families and friends. I’ve been taking lessons for many years and yet there is a moment of exquisite terror when I first step out on the floor with my teacher and dear friend, Lawrence Black, and then moments of exquisite joy as the music starts and we begin to move.

Lawrence with his tongue firmly in his cheek chose an old tune for our Foxtrot. It begins, “My sugar is so refined/she’s one of them high-class kind” and goes on to make a great case for the foolishness of all pretenses to refinement. It has a rollicking beat that sets my feet going almost without volition and as we spun across the floor, close to the spectators, I had not a care in the world and I felt as though we were flying.

I’ve competed for years, not only here at home but at the big national competitions in Los Angeles, Denver and New York, finally making it to Silver but realizing that getting to Gold would require more hours of work I need for my writing. Since then I’ve danced mainly in Santa Fe, finally accepting with gratitude one of my teachers’ compliments: “You’re a performer.”

There is so much to enjoy in the dance world. I love the way we women help each other, none of the cat behavior that for a long time was the only way women competing were ever portrayed. Because our custom-made ballgowns are cut tight through the bodice (and every now and then we gain a few pounds) there are zipper crises in our shared dressing rooms when a pair of friendly hands are essential to inch a zipper up a back. Now that the gowns are designed with an elasticized step-in bodice, the zipper crises are no more, but there is still essential help asked for and graciously provided to comment on make-up or hair and generally encourage us.

And those saints, our dance teachers! Becoming whether they want or not our confessors, they silently absorb all kinds of disturbing secrets while steering often not very gifted dancers around the floor.

Friends often seem amazed that we “of a certain age” dance in two-and-a-half inch heels, but it is easy to do in shoes designed for dancing. If the street shoes we wear were designed with the same care—padding, flexibility—we’d all wear high heels to our dying days.

And then there are the break-throughs: the woman giddily performing in a ballgown she designed and made herself, the potato-shaped twelve-year-old boy, a student since early childhood, steering his twig-like partner across the floor with a confidence that brought tears to my eyes, his pals in the audience cheering. That confidence won’t go away.

So here’s to ballroom dancing or indeed any kind of dancing that sets our feet tapping and our hearts soaring.

In New Mexico, Theater dancing