Let's Dance!

The night that Claudine and I went to see David Byrne at the Wellmont, we left our husbands seated in the row and ran off to the aisles to sing and dance. The Wellmont is a theatre, not a dance club, but you’d never know it by our behavior, swept away, as we were, by the infectious beat. At one point, Claudine leaned in to me and shouted, “You know, my secret career fantasy has always been to be a back-up singer.”

“Mine has always been to be one of those dancers,” I shouted back, pointing to the white clad women on stage with Byrne executing perfectly choreographed moves.

I took so many dance classes in college that it could have been my minor (if they had offered such a thing). I wasn’t good at them, though. In fact, it was those dance classes that kept me from graduating with the highest of honors. I usually got Bs, and once maybe a C, because, among other things, I cannot turn, or leap, or master anything beyond the most basic steps. The only thing that kept me from getting Ds was that we had to attend two professional performances a semester and write about them – and apparently I was the only one in the dance department who could string together a sentence. My reviews pulled my dance grades out of the toilet, but the dancer in me has never been entirely extinguished.

So the other day, when I saw this video of a bunch of people breaking out in dance in the middle of Ben Yahuda Street, I posted it on Facebook with the comment: "If anyone is putting together one of these Flash Mob thingies, I’m totally in!”

That line was my way of expressing my love of and enthusiasm for what I witnessed in the video. In no way did I expect Claudine to send me a link to an open call for a Flash Mob a week later. “You wanted a Flash Mob…” she wrote. “you got one.”

These Flash Mobs are top-secret events, so I can’t give out much detail. But I will say this: That Ben Yahuda video was done a year ago November where, in Israel, the average temperature is about 65 degrees. And I, on this very 32-degree day, have just given over to wearing my big, long, black down coat every single outing until May. I can’t imagine that the heft and loft of that wrap is going to add much to my already dubious dancing skills. But I’m hoping that, as usual, an essay at the end might save me.

(As a complete aside -- this post is my 200th on this blog. I think I celebrated my 100th post last year, so I just thought I'd keep the tradition alive.)