This is a dreadful question for someone who does not dance. And I'm afraid I would not, could not, do not dance. Dance like a child, yes. Dance like an adult, no... not without plenty of time, space, and loads and loads of patience. And I won't enjoy it very much, even with all those accommodations.
And not only can't/don't/won't I dance, I think I must have had a lobotomy at birth in my dance appreciation center. I just don't get it.
Modern party-dance is simply writhing to suggestive music. It is ridiculous, silly to watch and excruciatingly embarrassing to perform. It is ridiculous, and yet absolutely everyone does it, so that it is the person who does not want to do the ridiculous thing who feels out of place and uncomfortable and self-conscious... in a word, ridiculous. Right out of Kafka: the person who does not want to do the ridiculous thing is the person who is ridiculous... Modern party-dance is an evil thing.
That's from good ol' DFW, in The Broom of the System. Which I have not read. I can't add much of value to that. Although it isn't just modern party-dance that appears so strange to me, it's most dancing, period. Ballet? The alleged beauty is almost entirely lost on me. It just looks like an unnecessarily complex, dull, and conspicuous kind of social signaling, and a little bit of a straight-up status/mating dance.
I'm not saying I'm special for disliking this particular game. It's a game I could never possibly win, so of course I don't prefer it. And we're all signaling. I'm signaling right now. Aren't I so cute and special-after-all and smart and different, for a woman? (AREN'T I?!?!? lol) Aren't I such a valuable, perceptive part of my group? Aren't I totally irreplaceable?
Wallace signaled and he hated himself for it sometimes. And he hated himself for it verbally, in public, which was also signaling, and which he knew was signaling even though he also knew it felt compelling and honest and good and necessary and attractive as fuck. Attractive as the air we breathe.*
And he said so. And he said all of it. Repeatedly. More signaling. You could make an infinite spiral of this heartbreaking game of catching yourself being human, if you were going to live forever. In fact, if you did, I'd find that very attractive. This is all so messed up. Kind of funny, too. But mostly messed up. Mostly I don't want this, i.e., the way things are.
So I know other people notice things about me and my passions and the words I choose to use that would make me very, very uncomfortable to think about all the time. Just like I might notice theirs. It's just that this one (dancing) is not my bag.
I made the mistake a couple times of dating people who were very good dancers. They didn't seem to mind that I didn't dance so well (which was nice of them). But almost everybody likes to be genuinely appreciated for what they do awesomely. I wanted to be nice, too, so I tried to be appreciative... but I couldn't dodge the fact that inside, on some level, I really felt more like Condescending Wonka.
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| Oh, so you like dancing. Isn't that precious? |
Not the greatest foundation for everlasting mutual devotion.
I didn't want to feel that way. It's not that I look down on dancing from an intellectual standpoint; I recognize that humanity by and large loves dance, that I'm the odd one out, not them. But can you make yourself be moved when you're not?
Or, contrariwise, can you make yourself not feel moved when you are?
(Actually, I think the answer to that second question is, "Yes, with great difficulty." At least in my experience. But I still don't know the answer to the first.)
I thought about answering something by The Brian Setzer Orchestra. Like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. I don't mind swing too much. But it doesn't really make me dance. It just makes dancing tolerable when something else is the real motivator.
Sooo...
Bananaphone by Raffi.
Ding-a-ling-ling-ling-ling-ling-ling-ling!
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*Sometimes I think about how Elliott Smith stabbed himself in the heart, Gary Webb shot himself in the head (twice!), and Wallace hung. I will never do any of this, mind you, but I feel I am most like those who walk out in the forest and wait for the world to kill them through sheer exposure to it.
2 comments:
I too OFTEN think of Elliott Smith, DFW, and others.. guy from Sparklehorse.. Vic Chestnutt.. many more. And I too cannot, do not, do not care to, nor appreciate Dance like the rest of the race. Me too, on all of the above.
Impeccable timing.
..and YES, I am totally signaling too.
Ironic, this fight to be unique and "entirely irreplaceable" and in doing so, probably to many, something more like "pretentious" or "pompous" or.. "ass" or any combination of the aforementioned, and while aching to find more signaling in similar ways, writing off the majority- who dance and damn well enjoy it and do not feel such an ache for connection, signal as they may.
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