Dance Your Bliss — My Year of Dances

I’ve always been a dancer, from age five to now, a few decades later. I’m lucky because unfortunately, most of us stop dancing when we no longer fit into after school ballet class along with those pink tights and tutus. But some of us don’t ever stop because we simply never got the memo. I never got the “stop dancing” memo.

I began dancing at Elsie Solomon’s Dance School in Montreal. Elsie was something of a black swan of a dance teacher. Talented, beautiful, and a unique dancer, she apparently went only so far in the ballet community and no further; rumour had it she wasn’t accepted into the fold but I don’t know the full story. At any rate, she became a modern dance teacher who eschewed pink tutus. Instead we all wore black which was very Martha Graham and so non-conformist for the times. She taught us the same classic techniques as ballet class does but she also emphasized intepretative, creative dance. She also hired a jazz pianist as our accompaniest who was adept at Chopin as he was for our barre work but musically inventive for the improv stuff we did.

Classes with Elsie were magical! You could be a star, a leaf, a fairytale princess or just dance to portray or express a feeling. The opportunity we all had in that class to explore through dance, our physicality and our creative, emotional selves was an experience that has lasted a lifetime. I was with Elsie from five years old until about fifteen at which point I reached the glass ceiling and reluctantly ‘graduated’. From there, I took jazz classes for several years at various drop-in studios. It wasn’t creative but it was expressive and a terrific work-out and hey, I was still dancing.

In my mid-twenties, I was a chorus dancer in amateur, community Broadway plays . My favorite memory is descending a large staircase (on stage) in a red satin ballroom dress for Hello Dolly produced by an ambitious Temple Beth Ora. I was 25 at the time and was thrilled to pieces to be in that show, complete with (daring) lifts and twirls. Months after that show, I still could barely come down to earth.

As a new mother in my early-thirties, I found a jazz and modern dance classes at the local YMCA that also had a ground floor daycare center where I left my year-old son for ninety minutes. Upstairs, on the rickety second floor, I danced up to Sting and Simple Red, doing barre work and choreographed routines to Earth, Wind and Fire.

But in my early forties, I found tango and there I stayed until this day, which is to say over two decades of tango. Tango was a groove I couldn’t quit. Ah, tango, which I usually love….. Alas, after many years of the same old, same old can breed contempt or content and I began to experience a tango ennui. I complained to everyone about the bad music play lists, the shortage of good leads, the poor manners on the dance floor and my disenchantment with the changing manners of tango. I also constantly regaled people with the wonderful world of tango past that I experienced two decades prior as if trying to recapture a lost experience or convince myself tango could be that again. One day a friend simply said: If you like dance so much and tango sucks, there are so many other dances why not try one of them? Good point.

I heard about West Coast Swing from my eldest son (the one that was in YMCA daycare while I did jazz dance three decades prior) and seeing his enthusiasm, I figured I’d give that a try. West Coast Swing is peppy, sensual, not as rigorous as its Lindy Hop cousin and the music is not dedicated to any one style. That means, musically speaking, almost anything with a beat can be used for West Coast Swing. You find yourself dancing to Bieber, Sheeran, Shawn Mendes, Imagine Dragons, Halsey, Adele and almost anything else. That alone is worth the price of admission because the music at any given West Coast Swing event is outstanding. I showed up to the trial class for WCS and quickly saw I had a few years on everyone but still, I was made to feel welcome or more to the point (since clearly I am the ageist one) no one cared or seemed to notice. The steps were relatively easy, the ambience was wonderfully casual (compared to tango) and I was dancing/following my partner pretty well in no time flat. I signed up for six lessons on the spot. My WCS class was made up exclusively of millennials (including the energetic two teachers) but no matter. Each week, I quickly improved and left class smiling. I haven’t yet been to an evening social dance but I might go sometime soon. Overall I give West Coast Swing (for me) a solid B+. It’s upbeat, something you can do easy or complicated and still look good and essentially is walking (not unlike tango).

Still on ‘find a new dance’ trail I happened to hear about something called Semba (semba, not samba, although I didn’t realize that until I showed up). Semba is (to quote Wiki) “Semba is a traditional type of music and dance from Angola. Semba comes from the singular Massemba, meaning “a touch of the bellies” — one of the most recognizable and entertaining movements in semba.

Full disclosure: I probably should done more due diligence and checked out YouTube videos for Semba to see what I exactly what I was getting into. I also should have confirmed the drop-in class was really a class and not a practise, i.e. there wasn’t any demo of the steps — it was game on immediately. Instead of an intro evening where I could learn the steps, I had stumbled into a well-established practise session that was to last three hours and brimming with veteran dancers. Everyone but me knew what they were doing and everyone (male) was in excess of 6’4 (I am 5’3); each and everyone led with style and precision. Conversely, I wasn’t able to follow at all! It was like I had three left feet and had never danced before! The dance music was loud, brisk and rhythmic and within three minutes I knew I was out of my depth; there was no way to fake it. I was tossed from partner to partner (in the partner change) and while everyone was extraordinarily warm and polite, I’m pretty sure each guy groaned inwardly I walked on everyones’ feet or collided full body slam into anyone in my vincinity. I even took down the teacher who was so offside that taking him down showed a rare talent. It could have been the height differential but it was like I was a Woody Allen dancing with a room full of Gene Kellys, only Semba-centric. I couldn’t keep up for love or money and at the three hour mark I ran to a corner, gathered my bag and fled! While Semba is great (and I’d like to get better at it someday) and the people were phenomenal I think it was a minor fiasco. Still it was a success in that at least I went and I lasted but there was a lack of fit, physical stamina, and the problem of my shaky dance mechanics. Of course, this was about me, not Semba, but I give it a C-.

Then I saw an ad for Dance Your Bliss on Facebook. Dance Your Bliss seemed to for solo dancing (mostly women but men were welcome) instead of couple dancing.

I messaged the organizer and she said anyone, any age was welcome and she’d be pleased to share the dance floor with me when I showed up. Who could resist that? Dance Your Bliss was held in the suburbs in a multi-functional dance studio. I got there 7 pm on a Tuesday night and found a waiting room of 40-something parents, watching their dancing offspring. Was this the place? Sort of. The Dance Your Bliss studio was a doorway over from the kids’ dance studio. I opened the door to the right class and inside it was dark with tons of wall-to-ceiling mirrors and oscillating pretty lights. The dance teacher hugged me as if we were long lost sisters and I joined the other women, ages 30–74, mostly early forties. The dance teacher turned on the music and just told us to ‘dance free’ and so we did. No one looked at anyone else and after a while I forgot to check myself out in the mirrors and just danced. I danced for fun, for the joy of it and I danced for myself. I haven’t danced like that (the no one is watching type of dance) since I was around eight years old in Elsie Solomon’s Dance School which is where I first found the magic of dance. It was sweaty and exhausting but I didn’t quit. I totally didn’t pace myself; the music was fast, heavy with base notes and a featured a strong beat no matter what the cut was. But it was, breathless or not, irresistible and amazingly transportive. At the end, we had a brief meditation and a small chat about empowerment. I felt great on my drive home — it’s as if I had sprouted wings. I signed up for a full session of more bliss.

Bliss was wonderful but it wasn’t ballet. Soon after I started the Dance Your Bliss class it turned out my yoga studio now offered adult ballet barre lessons. One class of rigorous barre exercises and I was an addict. So now twice weekly, I’m back in ballet after a 60 year sabbatical. What can I say? Dancers are like roosting hens and eventually we want back in the nest. Ballet is, in a word: fantastic. (So are the new ballet shoe styles, thank you Amazon).

Not to long after Dance Your Bliss and Ballet Barre, ironically, I found myself back in a new tango class. Maybe it was the time out and time away at other dances, but I once again found joy at tango. I remembered what I liked about it and how good I was at it. I settled in for a new era of tango. Hola, tango, I’m back. I have new shoes — sexier but with lower heels, new dresses to be worn in and a new palate of perfumes that are strictly reserved for tango class. (Sweet, subtle, unique and non intrusive — tango perfumes are quite special)

What’s next? Line dancing, contra or ballroom? I think for now I’ll stay put but at least I know there are other possibilities out there and I’ll never limit myself again. The world of dance is experiencing a resurgence like never before. There are more dances and derivatives of each dance for every taste and energy level than ever so why stop at one dance? It’s a buffet out there — nah, it’s a feast. Shall we dance?

Bottom line: never stop dancing.