Dance Little Lady, Dance

Everyone has their own little dance moves, their favourite steps and their preferred genre of music. But next time you find yourself in a nightclub, bar, black-tie ball, wedding or anywhere else with a dancefloor, take a moment to watch the people dancing around you.

Sure we would all love to have dance moves like Justin Timberlake, but in reality, most of us are far from breaking out the moves on the street like Gene Kelly while he was singing in a downpour.

As you watch the crowd dancing, you’ll notice that some people have their own little quirky dance moves and believe me - it’s hilarious to watch. Doing this little experiment has provided hours of entertainment for my friends and me. This is not to say that I am a world-renowned dancer, in fact, far from it, however, I’d like to think that I at least have a sense of rhythm…I hope!

I apparently once told a friend that she couldn’t dance to save herself and boy did that set off a chain reaction of events that would lead me to eat my apparent words. She ended up taking salsa classes to prove me wrong and now can burn the floor with her hot Latin dance moves.

One night in Melbourne’s Latin Quarter, I remember seeing a middle aged couple who were amongst the salsa dancing crowd. They had either stepped out of a bad 80’s teen movie or a Fast Forward sketch as they “bounced the basketball”, “raised the roof” and “weaved their hands for a giant jumper” while the crowd were swinging their hips, gyrating against each other and twisting to the Latin beats. A friend and I watched them for 20 minutes as they were burning the dancefloor with their crazy moves. We were in hysterics and to this very day we mimic these exact moves whenever we are in a club together which sends us back into fits of laughter. I’m sure fellow clubbers wonder what the hell we are doing.

Watching my friends provides me with fodder also. One friend I go dancing with regularly tends to push his butt out, hunch over and clap for a little while before he straightens up. Certainly an odd way to dance but then again, another friend claps and waves his arms like his still thinks he is Ibiza or he is a sea lion whenever he dances and the rest of us have to duck and weave to avoid any contact with his long flying limbs. Actually come to think of it, a couple of friends do the sea-lion mating dance.

But it’s not all protruding butts, long limbs and sea lion-like movements; another friend pretends he is a member of Manpower or The Chippendales with his suggestive moves – pretty odd considering he was dancing, back in those days, in a group of straight guys. Another just doesn’t move at all and basically keeps to the tried and true side-to-side bop.

Of course everyone is different, but honestly, next time you are out and you find yourself on a dancefloor, keep an eye out for the crazy dancers. You’re bound to have a quiet chuckle to yourself. Unless of course you are the one that people are laughing at…