One of my dance instructors recently said - I believe it was either Devona Cartier or Noëlle Gray - that partner dancing is a conversation between two bodies. I returned last night from a weekend of delightful conversations in southern CT, and all that movement rattled some parts of my brain that have been dormant for a while. Dishes can wait while I run through some of the thoughts I’ve had today.

One thing that struck me after my first workshop weekend is the social strata that exists in the swing community. The dancers at the top separate themselves from the dancers closer to the bottom, and I know that this is a frequent gripe among beginning and intermediate dancers. It is So. Difficult. To break into that crowd at the top. It’s like high school all over again. And it frustrates me. But I also think that much like in high school, a lot of that is an illusion created by awe-based intimidation and the natural tendency of humans to create small social pods out of larger communities. Some people will do whatever it takes to join the “cool” pod. Some people gravitate there naturally. Some people reject the whole game and keep to themselves. It’s unavoidable in any large social group.

I also feel that if the swing super-stars, starlets, and their groupies keep their distance from the rest of us, I can’t completely blame them. It’s normal to want to feel loved, and appreciated, and accepted, and to feel worthy of friendship with celebrities (especially if they’re pleasant celebrities to be friends with). And within the dancing itself, the experience can be the difference between small talk and deep, soul-to-soul sharing. You can have a pleasant chat about the weather, or converse about your deepest secrets and desires; likewise, you can have a simple, uncomplicated dance, or a druggingly rich, detailed, exquisite dance that leaves you barely standing afterwards. When you’ve had a taste of the later, it’s hard to really appreciate the former. I had dances this weekend that left me nearly speechless, and dances that I’ll hardly give another thought to. And often, the nearly-speechless dances come from the really fabulous dancers.

But if we really, as dancers, want to get the most out of our dancing, and give the most from our dancing, then we need to keep this idea of conversation in mind, and realize that even very basic conversations can be intensely fulfilling if we give our all to our own half of the conversation. Sometimes the reward comes not from the complexity of the dance, but from the feeling of camaraderie that is created and shared, and the smile on your partner’s face. For the length of a song, you two are each other’s worlds, and there is a lot that can happen with that intimacy if you are open to it. I notice that even when I’m dancing with less-experienced dancers, the effort I put into my own dancing - when I’m being fully aware and giving my best - doesn’t go unnoticed. It pushes my leader to do the same, to maybe overstep his or her boundaries, to try new things with dancing that s/he may not have been brave enough to do before. My most memorable dances are not necessarily with the best dancers, but the dancers who really gave me the best they had, and did so with joy and love and compassion and a spirit of fun.

In thinking about this weekend, and social hierarchies, I’ve thought a lot about my reasons for dancing, as well. Some people dance to move their bodies to the music, and don’t care much about their technique. For others, technique is everything, to the point where they forget the “social” part of social dancing. Some people dance to be celebrities, and some dance as a social outlet. A friend of mine commented that she didn’t interact well with some of the people in rotation, and she thought it was because they were there for different reasons than she was. I had the same impression with a few of my leads, and there was a certain incompatibility when the difference was too great.

Dancing for me is a pleasant way to learn what my body is capable of, and to keep myself grounded in that body. I tend to live in my mind too much; dancing forces me to live in the material plane and focus on muscle and mass and momentum and flesh and skin and bone and breath and movement. The best dancing would ideally move me out of the realm of thought into the realm of pure sensation and muscle memory and emotion. I dream of climbing to the top, and further, because I want to always be challenged, to push myself, to always be learning and evolving and improving. (This means, of course, that I need to stop being lazy, get off my butt, and actually practice in the off-time between lessons and dances. And work out to build up my strength.)

And I dance for the conversations, the connection between two souls that can be much deeper than speaking just with words can ever be. It’s cheesy, but I like cheese. I like romance and passion, and there is little in the world that is more passionate than dancing. People throughout time have danced in their joy, in their fear, in their sorrow and pain. They have danced for their lovers, and danced to escape the absence of love. Dancing has been used to petition gods, to seduce, and to misdirect attention. And when I dance, I want to remember all these things. Dancing can be an escape, or an affirmation of life and love. I dance to forget my troubles, and to celebrate my victories, and even to practice my flirting and my sex appeal (there is nothing sexier to me than someone who knows all the wonderful ways they can move their body and connect with a follower. It makes one wonder what else they know how to do…)

I could go on, but it’s getting late, and have you actually read this far? You get a gold star. I’m headed to the kitchen to fix some toast and jam for dinner, and then to bed - my body protested being awake in time for work this morning, and I don’t expect tomorrow will be much better. But it’s completely worth it as a price for the fantastic, self-affirming weekend that I had. And that just just a warm-up for the real weekend of dancing, Boston Tea Party at the end of the month. This is the best birthday month ever!