I don't dance well. Sometimes when I'm alone I will fake hip-hop to hip-hop, fake salsa to salsa, or fake conduct to Tschaikovski. And by "sometimes" I mean every day. For most of my life I've been satisfied by this faux-fandango, until I noticed one of my better-dancing friends picking up girls more efficiently by peacocking his skills. I wanted to peacock, too; so I decided to get mad dancing skills. To train, I have watched hours of MTV Hits, worn out my Napoleon Dynamite DVD, and taken a few free salsa/swing lessons. (offered at Wilson Gym Sunday nights at 6:00). I feel that these efforts will also help to round out the list of things I do well, which you can find at the end of this entry.* I find great joy in dancing, and notice that it reminds of something that I can't quite put my finger on, but is a lot like looking at a sliced cantaloupe. I used to find it really odd how differently people acted towards each other while dancing than during most other activities. In the right venue , the composure of almost anyone dissolves like sugar and resolidifies as soon as the DJ flicks the lights back on. We also encode cultural information in dance; One of the theories behind the motionless upper body in Irish dancing is that it fooled occupying British soldiers attempting to stamp out Irish culture.** Maybe societies that ban dancing are concerned that individual art forms could create subcultures to threaten their supremacy, in addition to the cantaloupe reason. God bless the USA.



*Add
** That way, if a soldier walking by looked in the window, they'd just see some sweaty people standing in a line, and pass by assuming the Irish were on stationary bikes.
http://www.reagoso.com/irishdance.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_dance