Some observations on dancing

I love a good dance. It doesn’t take much to get me on the dancefloor but I do require a few pre-requisites. Good tunes need to be blaring at a reasonable decibel level. There’s nothing worse than dancing to music that isn’t positively blowing your ears off. And the mood needs to be right. I’m all for dancing by myself but there needs to be at least one other person dancing so I don’t feel like such a dork. Often is the case that its just Jem and I and the dance floor and I’m quite happy with that, as long as she doesn’t go wondering off leaving me to dance with my imaginary friends, which has also happened.

The Spanish consider themselves wonderful dancers. And they are. They can swing their hips and salsa like no-one else (only usurped by the Brasilians, whom I’m afraid, shit all over the Spanish in the dance-like-a-sexy-beast stakes). I’m often set into a trance watching the girls here move their hips and I try I hard as I can to copy them but I always somehow manage to revert to running man or Bec and I’s “Pendulum dance” which really just consists of a lot of jumping around madly.

BUT, one thing I will say about the Spanish is that they have no versatility. Sure, they look great when dancing to Samba or Salsa or Flamenco, but put them at a Pendulum concert, or in the mosh of Karnivool and they would have absolutely no idea what to do. That is where I come in. I don’t believe I’m a great dancer, and have disappointed many Mexicans/Spanish with my ability to tread all over their shoes when they try to dance with me, but you should see me go at a Chemical Brothers concert! I can switch my dancing style with the change of a tune. I can flick my hair about in a girly fashion to 80’s tunes, I can trance around in my trainers to hardcore techno music, complete with glow-stick arms, I can bang my head with the best of them to Mudvayne and I can roll my body to R’n’B (although I prefer to in jest as I think R’n’B dancing is hilarious and I have learnt most of my moves from Bec’s Eminem-loving-boyfriend, Mitch.) Hell, I can even successfully complete some very tricky boyband moves, I have photo evidence of that below!

Friday night I went to a fiesta that wasn’t particularly pumping, but people were dancing all in a circle, there was about 15 of us and they were all doing the side-step, hip-swinging dance that they all do here, and I was dancing like the band was playing Prodigy. It must have been somewhat of a hit with the local boys because one guy asked me to dance and I downright refused because I know exactly what they do when they dance with you. They take you in a ballroom-like pose and swing you around in a series of twirls and dips and the last time I did that was with my friend Paco in Mexico and it ended with a few feet injuries and us fighting because I wasn’t trying to “embrace the culture” because I refused to dance with him again!!!

So, I may not be able to twirl gracefully in high-heels with a Mexican man, I may not be able to salsa with the Spanish girls, but I think I’ve been able to hold my own in the clubs/concerts/fiestas of more than 16 countries this year, chopping and changing my style man! I’d like to see you do THAT Latin mofos!!!!