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Ballroom Dance Resource - Articles on Dancing A touching account of someone who fell in love with ballroom dancing!~ from the Hughes Dance Club www.hughessocialdanceclub.org LETTER (source: Hughes Dance Club http://www.hughessocialdanceclub.org/) The Perfect Storm The following was submitted by a member and published in the Hughes Dance Club September Newsletter. This letter was written in response to a letter found 35 years after it was sent. The sad ending is, the letter was returned "No Such Person" Dear Bobbie, How did I go from not ever wanting to dance to working at a dance studio? It was a perfect storm, a odd set of circumstances that causes an event that otherwise could not have happened. It began at a friend's 50th birthday party, an all out black tie affair at the Biltmore Hotel. When the band started to play there was, as there usually is, a shortage of male dancers. Like most men I thought, "real men don't dance." Most of them went outside to smoke cigars. One of the girls at the party was literary trying to pull me out of my chair. (I should have taken up smoking.) It looked like a sitcom, I wouldn't move and she would not take no for an answer. She finally asked me why and I had told her "I don't know how to dance." She then said "No one out there knows how to dance, they're out there to just have fun." I should have accepted her invitation but I said "If go out there I would want to be able to dance." Holding my hands even tighter, as if she didn't already have my full attention, she said "I will let you go only if you promise to dance with me the next time we see each other." Needless to say I gave my word that we would and as they say it was "a narrow escape." A few months later while scanning the adult class schedule for Santa Monica City College, the words "Ballroom Dancing Level 1" jumped off the page as I remembered my promise. I picked up the telephone and a few minutes later I had added $50.00 to my credit card bill and I was registered for my first dance class. A indication of my enthusiasm was that I asked what was the last day I could cancel. My first day in class was painful and the second day was worst. The second day would have been my last except the instructor, Kay Gordon pulled me to the side and said "Are you free on Monday nights? I'm short men, I won't charge you if you can help me and it will make it easier for you to keep up with the class." After my first Monday night class Kay asked me if I was free on Sunday afternoons. In spite of having two left feet I eventually learned to dance the first six steps in American style Cha Cha, Rumba, Swing, Waltz, Foxtrot and Tango. The problem was I still could not really dance. I could do a few steps but I still was a deer (in the headlights) on the dance floor. Dancing changed for me when a friend gave me "Shall We Dance" for Christmas. This was the first time I heard the words "International" and "Dance" together. American style dancing allows for a lot of interpretations and variations, great if you have little ability or a feel for the music. International Ballroom Dancing is the opposite. It's very strict, a series of exact dance positions, and something I could try to copy. When done correctly you move from one Kodak moment to another in time with the music. The last part of the storm was when one of the guys asked me if I had taken any lessons at the dance studio near USC. With little research I figure out he was talking about Westmor (not near USC) the only International Dance Studio in Los Angeles. I did not know it at the time but I had just found what I would be doing for the rest of my life. ~ Anonymous One more dance story. I kept calling one of the new girls at work "Victoria" and her name was really "Veronica". She was nice enough to not correct me, but everyone else was willing to. After making the mistake several more times I felt that I should explain. I said "Veronica, I apologize, I keep calling you Victoria because that's the name of my dance partner." She, of course, was very nice and said "It doesn't bother me .. so you like to dance?" That and the look in her eyes told me that she was a dancer. I interrupted because I did not want to give her the wrong idea and said "I should explain I do the kind of dancing that isn't any fun." Then with a great smile she said "Oh, you like ballroom dancing". |
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