When the music changes, so does the dance. — African proverb
I realize I haven’t talked about dancing in a while. Things have changed, and although change is, of course, to be deplored (my favorite line ever from Thunderbirds), this one has been good.
Last year, the boss of the dances (the lovely Pauline) decided for cash-flow reasons to lay off all the Seattle go-go’s. I was disappointed: it had gone from a lark to something a little more important for me. I had (finally!) started to own the part of me that likes public attention and approval, and the feeling of power that comes from being able to draw that response from people. I went to my job every month hoping people would like me.
And then I began to watch some of the other dancers and realize that there was a lot I could learn from what they were doing. I could be an even better dancer if only I was willing to stop “hoping” for approval and actually start working for it.
I went online and watched some other women and men dance. I worked on some new moves at home. I went to Goodwill and bought some new dancing outfits probably no more than a week before Pauline sent us the Thanks for all your hard work email. And I sighed and thought, well, so it goes. Back to dancing on the floor, fighting it out for space without a legitimate reason to take the stage and put on a show. Pauline told me I was welcome to get up on stage anytime for fun, but I shook my head because it felt too much like showing off, too much like desperation or… something. It felt (brace yourselves) inappropriate.
Perhaps you can see what’s coming. I’m glad someone can, because it always seems to take me a really long time.
I started going to the dances early so I could have a lot of room (I Do Not Like to dance in one square foot of space without being able to swing my hips or raise my arms). And when the music started and no one else would get out on the floor (high school is with us forever in this way), I thought that I could either lose my dancing time or just get out there and dance. So I did.
And then I went back next month and did it again.
The month after that, a woman approached me as I was buying my pre-dance beer. She wanted to tell me how much she enjoyed watching me dance, and how much she enjoyed that I was willing to get out there on my own. We chatted; and then I went out to dance, by myself. She wouldn’t join me on the empty floor. But later I saw her out there, in the crowd but dancing by herself. And I thought, You go, girl.
And then there was the time that a woman came up to me on the floor and told me she’d always enjoyed my dancing and was sorry I wasn’t a go-go anymore, but if she gave me a dollar would I get up on stage and dance? I blinked; and at first I said no, and she went away. And I had one of those Just kick me now because I really need it moments, where I realized that something I wanted had just come knocking and I wasn’t answering the door.
I hunted the club until I found her, and I told her that if she still wanted me to dance, I would. And I did. And she gave me a dollar. The best damn tip I ever had.
More things have changed. We’re at a new club now. I show up early, and I dance. When the floor becomes crowded, I get up on stage (usually with my friend Tami, occasionally by myself) and dance my ass off. I do it for myself, and I do it for anyone who cares to watch. I put on a show. I do it on purpose, and I work for the approval I get. I dance full-out for a couple of hours, by which time I am exhausted and literally covered in sweat: my hair drips, every bit of clothing is soaked through, my legs hurt. During that time, women on the floor catch my eye and dance for me, and I dance back, and everyone smiles. Sometimes a woman will come to the foot of the stage and then gather her courage, climb up, and we’ll dance together. And it always pleases me to see how much fun they have when they realize that it isn’t inappropriate at all to let the music move you with other people, for other people, in the joy of being alive.
There’s more on this topic. It runs deep, and turns out to be connected to a lot of other things happening in my life right now. But for today, I will just say that I am having fun in ways I always dreamed of but was never willing to do. I am powerful when I dance, and sexual, and beautiful, and a lot of other things that are not “appropriate” to a woman my age in this culture of youth.
And I like it that way. I don’t want to be young anymore. Young women come into the club for these dances, and they are lovely and fearless in their own way, but their dancing does not move me because it is only Look at my body! dancing. They don’t yet understand what it means to dance themselves. Sometimes they look at me and my friends, and sometimes I can see them thinking how weird it is to see old people shaking it with so little inhibition. My hope for them is that when they’re old, they don’t let themselves believe it’s weird anymore; that they will dance themselves too, and transform themselves from pretty girls into beautiful women moving with all the joy, anger, pain, power, fire that is in them.
You know the expression “Age before beauty” that people use sometimes as a sideways put-down? Well, I’m thinking now that the only appropriate response is Yes, that’s how it works. But hang in there, someday you’ll get there too.
