Tell Us About ... Dance

I have been asked if I'd like to participate in the Global Writing Challenge on the second Thursday of the month. This is the second time for me and I really enjoyed reading all of the posts about sunshine last month.
My posts will go live a little early (to avoid collision with the silent films), so if the posts of the others are not live yet, please check back later.
The current membership consists of Deb’s World, Suzy Turner, Within a World of My Own, Once Upon a Time Happily Ever After, Marsha in the Middle, Coffee and Cocktails at the Casa, and me. It's fun to learn how differently everyone interprets a topic.
You can play along and link up with us!
If that's too short notice for you, maybe next time? 

Photo of German dancer Mary Wigman
by Jacob Merkelbach, 1922
Public domain via Wikipedia

The prompt for today was "Dance", chosen by Suzy.

Let me tell you right away that I have never been a dancer. I can't remember ever having been one of those children who hear a song on the radio or TV and immediately start dancing to it happily.
I had friends who took ballet classes early and later jazz dance, and once I was taken along to pick one of them up from class because we wanted to meet at her house afterwards and I was early. It was a world that was utterly strange to me, and I honestly never envied my friends for the experience.

Ballerinas Barbie and Cara from 1976
(Barbie and Cara swapped their outfits)

Peer pressure - aka my best friends - made me take the basic dancing class. Here in Germany, dancing schools have a long tradition with the oldest one existing since 1787.
Originally, classes weren't limited to dancing, however, they were also about manners, dress codes, and conversation. Of course, all of that has evolved and changed, even in my time already. Over time, the dress code has become less and less restrictive and new dances are being offered.
My own experience was, hm, meh (not just the dancing itself, but also the whole teenage mating dance ritual around it 😉). I just couldn't get into it and never contemplated going on to the advanced class (also called bronze today), much less silver, gold, and gold star.
As an adult I usually got around having to dance and mostly danced only at home with Merlin, Greebo or Ponder (sometimes even two of them).

That doesn't mean, however, that I hate dancing. I just want others who are so much better at it to do it for me to look at - classical ballet, musicals, tap dance, rock'n'roll, folk dance, I could keep going.
Those performances can be breathtaking, acrobatic, incredibly elegant, but also hilarious sometimes.
Here are just a few very randomly chosen examples for your entertainment. Unfortunately, the videos seem to show directly sometimes and sometimes they don't, also depending on the browser, so I always added the link in the description as well.

I can't condone kidnapping, but the barn raising dance from "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" - wow, just wow.

Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman dancing a Scottish reel in "Indiscreet".

Audrey Hepburn doing a kind of expressionist dance in "Funny Face"

Bobby Banas (who also was in "West Side Story") and others doing the "Nitty Gritty"

Whitey's Lindy Hoppers in "Hellzapoppin'". No words.

You may think about Bollywood what you want, but the dances are amazing, here "Dola Re Dola Re".

I learned about "eccentric dancer" Jack Stanford through a YouTube suggestion.

Or how about this incredible snake dance by Janine Janik and Christian Arnaut?

In the 60s there was a couple named Fern on German TV, with short lessons for classic ballroom dancing, but also for "play dances" for parties, like the letkis (spelled Letkiss in Germany) which is based on a Finnish folk dance or the Hoppel Poppel (not the East German recipe!) in this video.
It never fails to make me snigger.

Enough, enough!
Of course I could keep going and going and going, but I think I've proven my point. I like to sing along with a song, but the world doesn't need me to dance, there are other things I can do better and like doing better.
Sometimes you just need to know your limits.


Now let's see what the others have to tell us (Debbie is still travelling).

Suzy shares why dancing has meant so much throughout her life, and how one night on the dance floor changed everything forever.

Sally discusses why she can play music but she can't dance to it.

For Leslie, this month's prompt - dancing - brings lots of things to mind: a favorite memory, ballet, and a great Ginger Rogers quote.  Which will she write about? 

When Marsha was teaching, her students would beg her not to sing (she still did).  But, when it came to dancing, they were all for it. I mean, who doesn’t want to see their teacher make a complete fool of herself?  Read Marsha’s post to discover all the goofy things she and her class used to do!


And now you. Tell us about "Dance" and link up with us!

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