[This started out as a comment on this post on Aishwarya’s blog which references this ‘blessay’ by the inimitable Stephen Fry, but it ran a bit too long so I figure I should post it here]
Apparently when I was younger I had a good sense of timing (in the back row of a filmi group dance performance), but this comment came from my mother, so I can’t believe it entirely despite her generally pragmatic view on things.
These comments, my own hyperactive nature and my shyness led to many an afternoon spent bouncing around our cavernous Muscat house to an imaginary soundtrack and my own improvised moves. Is it any wonder that Fame is one of my favourite movies?
Then I turned 12 and dancing became that thing you did with girls you had the hots for. But this being the early 90s the jeans were tight and the sleeves pouffy, so we looked like two penguins saying goodnight (Also, Glen FRIGGIN Medeiros: argh!).
Since then Hip Hop happened (we still called it rap and R&B back in my day, younguns) and the term booty entered our vocabulary. It seemed like far too much exercise, and besides, this is the kind of stuff we in the civilised East had rightly left behind a decade ago. I was back from my short preteen sojourn into ‘normal’ society so I thankfully missed all of this. I do not think I would stand before you today as the crazed lunatic I am if I spent my sixteenth year bopping to Jeniffer (pre-J.Lo) Lopez’s Waiting For Tonight.
Still, Hip Hop isn’t all bad, really*.
*(okay, so my definition of hiphop is not very traditional)
I don’t dance anymore. I haven’t had the opportunity, and ten years of being generally inactive means I wouldn’t want to attempt it without getting into better shape, or I’ll risk major (or at least irritatingly long-lasting) injuries. The urge is still there, and I suppose if I were to reclaim my body-as-temple and pursue a sport, it would be some kind of mad and wonderful mix between parkour and, um, this.
I would be so legend.
V