Liberry Air

Saturday, October 28, 2006

Why do they call it a "dance"?

Chaperoned the first school dance last night. Seldom do any of the kids actually dance really. There are packs of girls who dance together, consistent with the history of school dances. There are also the traditional packs of boys who spend the evening running around the gym. There are still wallflowers, although they now sit and take pictures of others on their cell phones and/or talk on said phones. Oddly, there are now also packs of boys who dance together (or twitch in unison).

What the group really lives for are the group dances - the electric slide, the hustle (yes, it's back), the chicken dance, and a newer, extraordinarily popular gem called Cotton-Eyed Joe. After the first two or three notes sound, the crowd erupts in shrieks (literally!) of glee and dashes pell-mell through the crepe paper streamers and sagging Christmas lights to the front of the gym, streaking into lines and "dancing" in the prescribed pattern. Is this really descended from the kind of line dancing engaged in during Mozart's time?

You really haven't lived until you've watched the 8th grade Elvis impersonator tribute artist doing the macarena - or maybe you have.

1 Comments:

Blogger comebacknikki said...

Ha! I remember those days. The group dances were the best b/c you could be close to the boys w/o actually having to express interest... and it was the perfect time to carefully calculate where to stand so that you would eventually end up standing next to the boy you had the secret crush on. :P

10/30/2006 2:02 PM  

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