Tags
Atanas Pavlov, ballroom, Bulgaria, contra, dance, traditional
When I told Atanas once that I divide my weekend social schedule between ballroom and traditional dancing, his face lit up. “Ahh, traditional—like this…?” He held his hands out in front of him, fingers pincer-like, in imitation of a folk dancer daintily swishing her embroidered skirt. As passionate as he is about ballroom, my teacher is full of puppyish enthusiasm for anything ‘dance,’ and understandably so, since he has told me that dance plays an important cultural role in his country of Bulgaria. Children there begin dance lessons when they are very young and the talented are channeled into competitive tracts early on. This is why all the world-renowned ballrooms dancers are European.
Things are very different in America. The only dancing I ever saw as a child was in movie musicals and occasionally on the variety shows of the sixties and seventies. Even though I often daydreamed about dance, I grew up thinking I would be a real klutz if I ever tried it. It took turning fifty and the desperate feeling that I was on a downward spiral into old age for me to give dancing a try. It was a traditional form of dance known as contra that felt most accessible to me in the beginning. Contra was like a playground game which only required dancers to follow simple caller-guided steps and keep pace with the music—an Everyman’s dance, indeed. I still find contra dancing a delight, even though I’m now thoroughly captivated by the artistry and nuance of ballroom dance.
There is a Sunday afternoon contra dance in my hometown the day I return from the Star Ball, the last in a three-day weekend event. Weekend dance fests like these attract people from all over the country, and attendees establish warm bonds with other ‘gypsy’ dancers. After two days of whirling to lively fiddle music, everyone is bleary-eyed, but game for one last woozy spin with their weekend friends. I’ve missed most of the fun and so am more energized than most. My spins and flourishes are showy—I’m letting my ballroom side show—to the delight of these contra friends. Their faces brighten when they encounter me in the line and they respond with all the energy they’ve got left. Contra is like this—brief interactions that are part dance-challenge, part flirtation. Within the thirty-two bars of music allotted for each iteration of the contra tune there are mere seconds for two dancers to mingle through gaze, breath and sweat before moving on to the next, but what potent seconds they can be!
You can find this kind of dance-play in ballroom—as in a heated tango, in which the dancers’ contest of wills may leave watchers wondering if the two are, in fact, lovers. While I haven’t experienced this level of drama in my tango yet, I have already grasped the full-out physical joy of swing, the sexy teasing of cha cha and the subtle innuendo of rumba. It’s these visceral connections, even if very fleeting, that gives dancers a sense of being truly alive.
If I could, I would create a perfect world in which dance was an integral part. In every walk of life, in times of peace or strife, people would seek release through music-inspired movement. It could be as simple as this: at the end of each day in the cool of the evening someone would strike up a tune and family and friends would slowly gravitate to the front porch for a few minutes of toe-tapping, twirling interaction. For now, though, my happiness will be found in the simplicity of contra, the beautiful precision of ballroom and the physical and emotional connections I make in both worlds which are, ultimately, the best part of what it is to be human.