Dancing Fever

I think I mentioned a few weeks ago that I had started taking dance classes. Latin ballroom specifically. It's only been four weeks, but it's probably the best decision that I made for myself all year.

I cannot tell you how much I love dancing. My parents enrolled me in dance classes when I was around 3 at the advice of my pediatrician who thought it might help me develop my arches (I was born with flat feet).

From the beginning, I loved it, particularly ballet. For awhile, I thought I wanted to be a ballet dancer, but puberty betrayed me. At best, I would have been a mediocre corps dancer in a regional company, which is not what I wanted. The corps at ABT yes. Even back then I was incredibly ambitious.

I continued to take dance in college. Syracuse had one of the first musical theater departments in the country, and being in the drama department, I was allowed to take theater dance. Part of the fun of dance in college was that we had to do showcases at the end of the year in front of the whole drama department. People used to do the craziest stuff. Ostensibly we were supposed to take a piece from class and choreograph a beginning and an end to the piece.

Well, people decided to just run with it and add skits and funky music. The two actors who played Elizabeth and John Proctor in The Crucible came out with ropes around their necks and did a dance to 'Hernando's Hideaway' from The Pajama Game. They called their piece 'The Proctors in Hell.' Other people did pieces like 'Four Jews and a Goy in a room.' But the best was a piece that blended Tony Orlando and Dawn's 'Knock Three Times' with Hernando's Hideaway that they called 'Orlando's Hideway'.

The last piece I did with my college roommate, we decided that we were two hookers on 42nd Street corrupting a young girl who comes to the big city to make it big. We did this to a Judy Garland song called 'It Seems to me I've heard that song before.' We dressed in leather miniskirts and skanky tops. It was so cool!

Coming to New York and taking class, I realized that I was only ever going to be an actor who danced. There was no way I could compete with actual dancers for Broadway shows. So I stuck with acting. Occasionally I got to dance on stage, in The Winter's Tale, and the tango in The Misanthrope, but not often.

After ex sweetie-pie moved to LA, I took classes for awhile on and off. I took salsa and merengue, North Caroline shag and Swing dancing. But I think that Latin ballroom is my speed. Doing the rhumba, one of the most romantic dances, and also the cha-cha, are just me.

When I dance, I have no inhibitions. I don't care what I look like on the dance floor, I just let go. It's the freest I've ever been, on stage or off. I'd loved to be able to take the way I feel when I dance and translate it to my writing.

Besides, it helps to have a hobby that doesn't involve drinking!

Thanks for reading.

EKM