Dance Dance Dance
“Can’t stop the feeling…I got this feeling in my body,” sings Justin Timberlake into John’s earbuds at 5:00 AM as John dances around our living room with the shades still drawn. He found a new way to work-out. Our boring elliptical just wasn’t funky enough.
Marty Rowley, SueAbbott-Jones, Beckie O'Neill, John O'Neill
We heard a salsa dance was taking place at the Harrietstown Town Hall at the end of February [2017], coincidentally on John and my 47th boyfriend-girlfriend anniversary. We were in! Or, do I mean down? Up? Well, we went. But not before I googled “how to salsa dance”.
John and I practiced, the “1, 2, 3 pause – 5, 6, 7 pause” routine, for the first time, on the old wooden floor of our village’s town hall while Wayne Davidson, a former high school music teacher and member of the live band, blew hip-swaying notes alternately through his trumpet and then saxophone. We imitated what the forty or so other dancers were doing and shook it up spicy and hot for two hours. But that’s not the best part.
Prior to that event, Tim Fortune, a local artist extraordinaire, had initiated a dance-lesson craze at the “Dance Sanctuary” on Saranac Lake’s Main Street to dispel the pall cast by the presidential election. Many of those class participants were attending this salsa dance. To pique still more interest, Tim hopped on the stage of the town hall and declared, “As many of know, Miss Vanessa…,” he pointed to a woman with a wide smile and swishy skirt, “…teaches dance at Main Street’s Dance Sanctuary. Friday nights will now alternate between salsa and swing. We hope more of you can make it.”
Swing, too? Cool. We attended a swing lesson and I was pleased to discover it is basically the jitterbug, as in, 1, 2, rock/back, repeat. Singles and couples practiced the basics and then, we switched it up. Though I prefer dancing with my husband, it’s novel to be held by another man who presses his hand on my back and steers me around the room. I feel lightweight, rhythmic and attractive with the harmless, sanctioned flirting. But that’s still not the best part.
John and I were still feeling the beat when we heard the Saranac Lake Women’s Civic Chamber was hosting a fundraiser at the Elks Lodge. The Dance-athon was advertised as 60’s, 70’s and 80’s music with cash prizes. Looking the part was also encouraged. I donned my hand-embroidered jean skirt from the 60’s, a tie-dyed top, and multi-colored beads. Off we went.
“If you want to compete, you need to register and stay on the dancefloor the whole time except during breaks,” we heard as we entered.
“We’re not here to compete. We just want to dance,” John said. He paid the twenty-dollar admission fee and we grabbed a table with friends Marty and Sue.
Decorations hung from the ceiling and adorned the walls. One woman wore a shiny black and gold disco-outfit. Many others looked like hippies, including Janie Bevilacqua in wide paisley bell-bottoms and a sash around her forehead. Suzanne Muldowney Nicholas, a thirty-something and friend of ours, spun around on the dance floor with four of her girlfriends wearing red lipstick, body-hugging clothes, lots of necklaces, giant bows in their big hair and numbered name tags. Based on their outfits and song requests, they were clearly part of Madonna’s nine million followers.
There was a cash bar and pulled-pork sandwiches, chips, lemon bars and brownies for sale. We grooved to the good, the bad, and the downright ugly, as in Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean”, ABBA’s “Dancing Queen”, and “Bat out of Hell” by Meatloaf.
Three women: Janie Bevilacqua, Vanessa Pillen and Marilyn Bigelow officiated as the judges. While John and I moved together but apart, expressing ourselves, one of them called, “Where’s your number?” I noticed everyone else seemed to be wearing one.
“We’re giving out two hundred dollars in cash prizes,” Carol Reyell said during the first break. Hmm, John and I had danced the whole first round. There were maybe fifty people in attendance, ten working the event, and perhaps thirty on the dancefloor.
What the heck we might as well stay in it to win it. No one was at the registration table, and it didn’t cost extra to sign-up, so I grabbed two stickies, printed on them “69” and gave one to John. After all, it really was the year I graduated from high school.
We danced through the next two rounds which lasted about fifty minutes each. Prizes, meanwhile, were being awarded left and right. Two Madonna look-alikes won bottles of wine. A young woman shaking it up solo got a ten-dollar gift certificate from Origin. Then the announcement, “Couple 69, you won for best assets.”
“What? What does that mean?” we asked.
One of the judges leaned over the table and lowered her voice.
“John has a great ass.”
We laughed ‘til we cried. In our envelope, were ten lottery tickets. Oooh ee. But that’s still not the best part.
Corey Hart’s “Sunglasses at Night” motivated the Madonnas to pull out their shades.
We all brought it, drinking, dancing, eating, laughing, snaking around the room, forming lines to dance the “gauntlet” and cheer each other’s fantastic moves. We blended, wove, high-fived, and smiled until our faces hurt.
Prizes of maple syrup and more treats from Origin were distributed to a couple for their “longevity”, to another for their “gusto”, and to two dancers for their “smoothness”.
The last song was, what else? “YMCA” And then…
“Ladies and gentleman, the moment we’ve all been waiting for, the Grand Prizes go to…Tim and Diana Fortune for Third Place.” Round of applause.
“Second Place to Couple 69.” Oh my God. That’s us! More applause.
That was also the best part.
“And finally, First Place goes to…” imagine a drum roll here “…Kristin Parker.” A Madonna, natch, very deserving. Hear thunderous applause.
“I wanted to thank my parents, hair stylist, and Maybelline for my long lashes but there wasn’t time,” I told John, in an aside, as I opened our envelope and pulled out a fifty-dollar bill. At home, our scratch-offs yielded ten more bucks. Our passion for dancing is paying off.
Beckie O’Neill March 1, 2018