MOVEMENT
The jig and jive of dancing can give you two left feet
The old “dance like nobody’s watching” is all very well on a framed print or scatter cushion, but it holds no water in our televised age. Ask Theresa May. Video of her bopping along with pupils at ID Mkhize High School on her visit to SA has gone viral and garnered social media scorn. Look, she doesn’t have mad moves. Sure, she’s a little stiff (hence the term Maybot for her dance style). She doesn’t know what to do with her arms — but then, who does? But she manages to mostly keep the beat, and she’s got a bit of a smile on her face, and frankly, we’ve all seen worse at weddings.
You can’t help but feel sorry for her. It is bad enough having to run a messed-up, confused and divided country in which half the citizenry despises her, her party, and its policies. But now she has to dance. And be good at it. In Africa, where — I feel I should tread carefully here, but what the heck, I’ll just wade in with a humdinger of a stereotype — people know how to bust some moves. Oh, and she must do all this on camera.
So, the school kids are having fun, singing and dancing for the assembled big shots (and presumably missing Geography — always a grand thing). What’s the prime minister to do? She joins in, as the moment demands. To sway and bob along is a sign of enjoyment, of community, of appreciation. What would be better? Not dancing? Should she stand there rigid and stony-faced while the little South African children frolic for her entertainment? She’d be ridiculed for that too. So she dances.
The very reason so many people hate dancing is that they fear ridicule. They worry they’re doing it wrong, and that people will judge them. But dancing — assuming you’re not Beyoncé, or in the corps of the Bolshoi Ballet — is not a performance. It’s fun. It’s communal. It feels good. You don’t have to be good at it.
“When you dance, you can enjoy the luxury of being you,” as Paulo Coelho once wrote. But then again, he’s Brazilian, and they enjoy the luxury of being more natural dancers than the British.
Life is long and the opportunities for dancing are few. Even fewer if you’re a WASP. Or over 30. You might get to squeak some takkie at a bar mitzvah or tipsy 40th, but the era of regular dancing is behind you.
If you have teenage children, you will know that a dancing grown-up is hilarious in an embarrassing, shameful way. Whatever you think you’re doing, you’re doing it wrong. My teenagers once taught me a move called “dabbing”, which is a sort of jerky horizontal arm thing, accompanied by a head drop, so it looks a bit like someone sneezing inside their elbow (I’m not a dance critic, OK?). They weren’t intending me to use the move in public. God forbid. It was more like when they were small and they dressed the dog up in a tutu and one of those headbands with googly eyes attached on springs and they laughed and laughed while the dog looked happy to be played with but also rather confused and embarrassed.
Have I just become over-sensitised to the horrific burdens of being a no-longer-very-young woman, or is there a sexist, ageist aspect to this whole Maybot conversation? May is 61 and everyone knows that 61year-old women should not be flinging their bodies about. In fact, for preference, they should not draw attention to their bodies at all. There should be no dancing. No frolicking or skipping or jumping or hulahooping or swimming. Older female bodies are not to be enjoyed — by their owners, or by anybody else. Particularly in public. Unlike running a country, which is a serious business (and honestly, what the heck were they thinking with Brexit?), dancing is a delight. It’s OK to be enthusiastic yet basically hopeless. You shouldn’t have to be good at it, young, gorgeous, or the Obamas.
We should all dance more. Even if everyone’s watching. LS
FRANKLY,
WE’VE ALL SEEN WORSE AT WEDDINGS