Dancing through Life

Hopefully this stage of being stranded on the 5 blocks of the neighborhood and feeling sick most of the times will go away soon (By the end of February?) and I will be able to pick up my life exactly where I left it off.

I miss doing all those things that I mentioned in my intro .... "I worked, I studied, I played and traveled and fell in love ... I love life ..." and I danced!
I forgot dancing! I love dancing since I first pronounced the word mom, "anyu" or "mama" or maybe since I heard some wild song on the radio and shook my cloth diapered boody.

Being an only child I had to look for entertainment by myself and what better way there was than cranking up the old TESLA radio to the max, finding a space in front of the standing mirror and shaking what momma gave me to the rhythms of the soundbox?

Dancing is connected to happiness in my mind. It is not whether I know the steps, can follow a partner or hear the beat, but about unchaining my soul and some sort of unexplainable freedom.

During my elementary school years I was a part of a class dance group, which danced a pathetic and simplistic choreography to a Bananarama song.

I made another attempt during my high school years, in Kosice to become a dancer. I found a leaflet that searched for talent and showed up for an audition. As it turns out, the group was looking for dancers for acrobatic rock and roll. Being 174 cm I did not exactly fit their image of a porcelain doll to be lifted above heads and thrown over the shoulder in the air and so I parted with the idea on the spot.

On my first visit to a dance house a few years later I fell in love with men in knee-high black boots beating at their legs, girls in 50 skirts and the dirty lyrics of hidden meanings of Hungarian folk songs.

* * * * * * * * * *

("Kecskemeti hid alatt.
Leany a legeny alatt.
Azert fekudt alaja ....
.... viszketett a szoknyajaaaa Tyujujujujuujjjjjjjjj"

"Underneath the Kecskemet bridge,
A girl is lying underneath a boy.
She lay there, because her skirt was itching .... Lulululuy .. ")

Kecskemet - a town in Hungary

(Not my best translation .. just to give you an idea :)

* * * * * * * * * * *

This is when I left and moved to London, where as a nanny "as poor as a church mouse" I was forced to stay with the mirror act.

New York City opened a new dancing era. Working my night shifts at the Beach Cafe I met the Belorussian Irina and caved in to her repeated invitations to join her on her weekly dancethon (men-a-thon in her case :).
Irina was particular about her dating policy - "No men with skin tone lighter than the inside of an M&M".

She's always been the Russian, stubborn "don't mess with me" toughie; I was just a rookie.

I remember standing in front of Nells in a piece of nothing, shivering cold on line to get inside and sticking out like a "black" sheep in a crowd. Irina and I were obviously a very small minority at the R&B, Hip Hop and Reggae club. Liked by men, hated by women. Irina, being one the frequent guests was also entitled to many privileges, like cutting the line to the front of the velvet rope or the free drinks offered by her favorite bartender.

Looking back, I was so innocent.

Upstairs we listened to some live reggae, but downstairs the R&B room was a more action filled setting. Just after a few songs of producing my best performance to Mary J. Blige I felt a body tightly squeezing behind and something hard .... I jumped from surprise ....

Those steamy nights spent with Irina (Rest in Peace) are long gone. She was one of the unfortunate victims of 9/11 and I never regained the self-confidence or my spirit to return to Nell's.

When I heard Shakira's album in Spanish for the first time I decided to start bellydancing. It was the only dance that I could think of that did not require the gracious participation of the other sex, and so empowered by the whole idea I enrolled in Serena's classes, who is a 70 years old bellydancing icon in New York City.
I rolled my stomach, shimmied my hips and ondulated my every body part to the rhythm of zills and drums three times a week for an entire year.
I bought a scarf with trillions of blinding silver and gold coins, tied it around my hip and with every move I made I jingled with ardor. This dance is capable of transforming ordinary women into creators of pure magic. I walked into the studio as a regular woman but as I left, with every step I felt as the most powerful Godess.

South and Central America gave me the passion for salsa, Brazil made me fall in love yet again with forró and samba. The Sound of Brazil (SOB's) is still the place where I long to be these days. If I can't have the Summer, at least the atmosphere of the Carnaval and the Caipirinhas should bring back warm memories of dancing bare feet in a tiny bikini on the beach.

Just when I was diagnosed, I was on my way to start classes of the Argentinian passion - the Tango. Well, this has to wait and so does my most loyal dance partner, Misa with whom we shared the worse dance partner, JM while almost drowning in our tears from laughter.

I am excited for the future. Geoff promised to take Tango classes with me (I think he did this under the influence of some powerful drug or some alcohol :) after the horror is over.

Soon enough I shall dance again!