Dance Like It’s 2011

Tonight, as I walked through the Grand Front Entrance to the Mansion, I was met by a calling card on the welcome mat. Well, I would have been, had I had a welcome mat, but details aside, a small, rectangular card was inside my door.

I creaked as I bent down to pick it up. I was expecting it to be from one of the nearby pizza houses, or car wash centres trying to drum up business. Or, it could have been a card from one of those charity clothing collection companies, or an Avon card. I get them all the time (although I don’t buy anything).

I was wrong on all four counts. My fifth choice, had I gone for it, would have been correct.

I hurried into the Living Room – as quick as my stiff neck and aching knee would allow me, anyway. I switched on a light, so that I could read the darkened card a little easier, and that was when I realised that my fifth choice (had I gone for it) was correct. A new dance studio is opening up, and this flyer would allow me to have a free session. Other sessions would cost £5.00.

The sessions are open to anyone, of any age, but they have two time slots. Kids 6pm – 7pm and adults 8pm – 9pm, on a Tuesday. The dance they want to teach everyone is Break Dancing. I’m not saying that I have two left feet or anything, and I can – or could – cut a mean move on the dance floor (I’ve always been hip!) but I’ve never been into the break dancing scene. I’m wondering if I would be a laughing stock if I went now, with my neck and knee, bad hair and being ever so slightly (…) out of shape… ahem.

I turned the card over, and found that there’s more! Between 7pm – 8pm on a Tuesday (for kids) and 9pm – 10pm (adults) they will also teach Street Dance. I always thought that break dancing was street dancing, ever since I used to know a street dance group who went by the name Body Rock (see: hip, me). They were too cool by far to admit that they’d misspelt their own name on their t-shirts, and argue to this day that ‘Bodie Rock’ was their intentional marketing ploy, had they been discovered (which they weren’t in the month they performed outside the shopping centre in all weathers back in 1983).

Could I be the one to show them how to do it, after all this time?

I think not. I’ll leave my place for someone more agile than me to fill. Besides, my time is needed for more important things, such as saving the Universe, or filling the pages of a magical book. That I can do with a bad knee. And, yes, I am aware that I could do with losing five pounds a week for the next so many weeks, but weight not wealth is the order of the day here.

I think I’ll continue to trip the light fantastic in my own style. All these thoughts of dancing have caused me to have a very strong urge to lie down.

And lie perfectly still…

This post originally appeared in 2011; although it has now been slightly modernised.