When you go to a quirky dance class and really like it.
Whenever I am home in Cape Town, which is for several months each year, my husband, son and I stay in the cottage next to my parent’s house. Twice a week, early in the morning, my mom and I grab our water bottles.
“We’re going to dance,” I tell my son, who has already eaten two breakfasts. “We’ll be back later. Have fun with the men!”
We drive past the horses, the coffee drinkers, the mall, and turn into a road in a light industrial area. We beep the horn, park inside an electric gate, and enter a yellow building. Upstairs, the walls of the passage are covered with images of tweens in heels, kicking their legs up to their ears or caught mid-jeté, eternally flying through the air. Bodies are lithe and Lycra-clad. Smiles are big and bright. There are inspirational quotes among the photographs.
IF YOUR DREAMS DON’T SCARE YOU, THEY’RE NOT BIG ENOUGH!
DANCERS DON’T NEED WINGS TO FLY!
But inside the dance studio, it is not a group of lissom Rockettes who gather. I am usually the youngest. I will be 40 next year. The oldest is almost 80, but this is just a guess.
My mother has been dancing with this group for years. Previously, I was too busy to dance with her. I had important things to do – like go to TV commercial castings with crowds of six-foot tall models, in the hope of being chosen and making lots of money; or perform earnest, soul-searching plays with other theatre school grads that made absolutely no money at all. I missed dancing. I had done it all my life, but I didn’t anymore. Still, tempting as it was to join my mom, her class seemed – how can I put it? – a bit embarrassing. If I was going to dance, I told myself, it would be with a Pina Bausch trained choreographer, or with Jazzart, or while being filmed on top of a bus or something…
But eventually, after years of seeing her return home so happy and sweaty and filled with the joy of life, I succumbed. I went to dance with her. And when I got over my self-consciousness and the fear that someone important (?!) would spot me there, I absolutely loved it. The music was loud and quasi-global. The group of women (I have been at one class with one man, once) were genuinely welcoming and wonderful. But most of all, the instructor, a tall, strong Afrikaans woman, with a long brown braid and an unbreakable spirit, was incredible.
With her leading, I danced, I kicked, I punched, I sweated, I flowed, I cried, I laughed, I pretended I was a tree, a sunbeam, a dragon. I was a happy, red-faced child. I healed.
I loved the dancing so much that one morning in class I had an epiphany and realised that I too should become a teacher of this dance. I knew that it would give me the endorphins I craved, the flow I sought and, hopefully, connect me with a community I needed back in Europe. My epiphany had been preceded by a guest teacher sharing an oft uncredited quote:
“Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
I googled it. Howard Thurman. An astounding mystical thinker, theologian and writer. African American. Appreciated all art as a form of holy communion. (There is an inspirational documentary about him and the civil rights movement on YouTube called Backs Against the Wall: The Howard Thurman Story.)
“…What makes you come alive…”
What makes me come alive, among other things, is moving my body, in community. So, my fate was sealed.
However, as I scrolled through the online info for teacher trainings, I recoiled involuntarily.
I am not a fashion icon … but am I really brave enough to put on a pair of stretch bell bottoms and a flowing blouse and have a real smile on my face? Then post those images online? Or rather – am I middle-aged enough?
This is where you find me, dear reader. I know you must understand.
You see, I am the ironic generation. I wear hand knitted cardigans that make my mother’s skin crawl. I have industrial style jumpsuits in various colours. Yes, my generation has its horrible fashion moments (think velvet hats, platform sneakers, visible thongs) but has it really come to this? Am I ready to join the legion of middle-aged moms and gleeful grandmothers? Am I ready to swop my straight legs for a flare?
Maybe this is just the kind of ego-death I need – to be splashed over social media, red in the face, grinning blissfully, sweat-wet and over the hill.
And this is the thing. Technically speaking, I am a middle-aged mom. Maybe I am just kidding myself thinking that putting on a flowing skirt and a halter neck top is in any way a stretch for me. It’s true that I am older, a bit lumpier, less toned, more wrinkled and greyer than before. But I’m also happier. My smile is brighter than a tween. I give less fucks. My laugh is ageless.
I want to move like our instructor, who has grown-up kids and the energy to climb a mountain every day of the week. I want to giggle like my mom does, when she’s hopping around the space to a bright beat. Whether it’s in bell bottoms or a baggy T shirt, I’m in love with women who dance and dance and dance their whole lives through.
“What the world needs is people who have come alive.”
So, I’m going to pull on my tights, let the music move me and get dancing.
"Maybe this is just the kind of ego-death I need – to be splashed over social media, red in the face, grinning blissfully, sweat-wet and over the hill." LOL 😆