Shall We Dance?

Growing up, I was enthralled with all things musical theater. Singing, Acting, and Dancing. Watching my friends and then my younger sister being placed into dance classes always plucked at a little twang of jealousy. Swimming was the sport for my family... and for 11 years it was a constant for me. Eventually, though, I made it onto the dancefloor in high school. It started with taking dance as a P.E. credit and then rolled into my experience on the stage. I got good fast.

What attracted me to dancing? The freedom? The expression? The vulnerability? Choir did the same to an extent in those categories for me. 

Then my musical theater friends dragged me to a swing dancing event. I already knew how to two-step and that was always fun... but something about the unspoken conversation during a partner dance at a swing dance was unlike any other. Pushing, pulling, twisting, jumping... all of these commands given and received without words. A different energy fills the air at these events.

Partner dancing is a lost art in today's society. Whether it be salsa, cumbia, tango, waltzing, country dancing or swing dancing... all of it is becoming a lost form of socializing. Instead of dancing with people, you dance around them. Bouncing your booty, pumping your arms, swaying your hips. Only making contact with another person by essentially dry-humping... there is not much communication to figure out there. 

However, after pondering, one can't help but wonder if dancing is a looking glass into today's society and how we interact now in relationships. In Theology of the Body, which was just becoming popular when most of my generation was going through middle school and high school, there is a concept that a majority of our culture is missing... The complementarity of men and women. Where one is strong, the other is weak. Now, this isn't a compliment where a guy says you have a great smile and you return one by saying he smells nice... I am talking about the true push and pull of the different sexes. There is a sliding scale of strengths and weaknesses... but I fear we have done a disservice to each other by trying to be exact equals instead of celebrating and embracing what makes us complementary. 

If you sit back and watch dances nowadays, you will see a lack of leaders on the men's side, and a lack of women (who can totally lead by the way) allowing the men to take ownership of their call to leadership. The men instead sit hesitant waiting for the woman to show what to do, then hear us women complain about the lack of good, strong, quality men despite their efforts. What would happen if we went back to social dance like swing, salsa, and ballroom? 

I encourage you to sit back at the next event that has dancing and observe... because as one of my favorite misunderstood Disney villains likes to say, "don't underestimate the power of body language".