The Last Time I Danced

The last time I danced was in the 60s (not my 60s--the 1960s). Swing, which I grew up watching on American Bandstand, had gone out of style before I was old enough to go to dances. By that time, even the Twist had come and gone. My friends and I danced the Frug, the Swim, the Mashed Potatoes, and other writhes and twitches that a girl could do at her own pace and whim.

These developments made me happy since I'd never learned how to follow a boy's lead.  I knew the steps, but that was different from actually doing them myself or taking my cues from a partner. I tried to practice with my best friend Joan, but we both wanted to lead.

In high school my friends and I started going to college mixers. By then we were all doing our own thing to the music pounding through the houses on fraternity row. We girls would quaintly wait for a boy to ask us to dance and then, as if set free by his choice ( a kind of lead, I suppose), we would each begin to move to the beat of our own pulses. Sometimes we faced the boy and sometimes not, depending on our mood and how much we liked him.

Mostly, I remember not touching and not responding. I liked that at the time. Dancing on my own terms helped me feel powerful and independent. There was no pressure from the boy's hand on the small of my back to tell me where I should move next. There was no submitting my hand to his clasp  to determine our pace and pattern.  The boy was as apt to take the lead from me as I from him.

At weddings I watched my father lead my mother through dips and turns with a grace that seemed charming and archaic. When they danced the Fox Trot, my mother's femininity magnified ten-fold.  She was light and easy to maneuver. I watched her anticipate my father's every intention as if an invisible cord connected them.

On the rare occasions when my father took me as his partner, I was stiff and dumb. My mind could not allow such relinquishment of control, and I didn't yet understand how little the mind had to do with it. Part of me would have loved to experience such grown-up elegance, but I submerged those fleeting wishes to ally with my generation's idea of dancing. Lessons were discussed and dismissed. I was adamant.  The earlier dances were not cool. By rejecting partner dancing, I would be part of the new youth movement.