Getting Freaky, Balkan Style

Sometimes, at clubs, squeezed into masses of sweaty gyrating bodies, I forget

what it's like to dance. And when I say dance, I don't mean the traditional get-freaky-on-the-dance-floor-as- some-balding-guy-you-hardly-know-tries- to-grope-you-while- pelvic-thrusting-to-the- latest-Alice-Deejay-song-type

dancing. I mean really dancing.

It took Balkan Folk Dancing Night, a band called Anoush and a whole bunch

of senior citizens in peasant skirts to make me see what I had been missing.

The whole place emits the "I want to get to know you" vibe-but not a la "Blind

Date." And it's not because they have just consumed five Long Island Iced Teas

in 15 minutes and are rearing to go make out in the bathroom. These people are

high on the Armenian beat and the prospect of linking arms and prancing around.

Everyone in the room seemed to have been donning dentures since the early

80s, while I was still heckling my parents to up the tooth fairy's rate from

25 to 50 cents per molar. The instructor, Leeza, a boisterous lady with wispy

hair down to her mid-thighs, instructed us to link pinkies and move our bodies

in "waves" to the jaunty harem music that featured what sounded like a dying

woodland creature in the background. The dance, a shuffle step and crossover,

was more strenuous than it sounds.

As the person who muttered, "Step together, left...step together, right" at

my high school graduation, my lack of coordination is no secret. Being that

I can't simultaneously chew gum and operate a moving vehicle (golf carts included),

my dance style has an uncanny resemblance to the antics of a confused gerbil.

Anyone who lacks rhythm knows the pain of rejection. Like when the person

you're dancing with at a club suddenly has an unexplained need to either go

to the bathroom, get a drink, or find a "friend" who has been "missing all night."

When that person is wearing a velcro shirt, waving pink glow sticks and crossing

their eyes due to intensity of inebriation, you know you're bad.

So, as I shuffled my feet around in a pathetic imitation of Leeza's quick

steps, I was anticipating remarks about how my movements looked more like an

epileptic fit than anything resembling the waves on the shores of Crete.

The heavily bearded fellow next to me, who had been squeezing my pinkie a

little harder than I imagined was appropriate for a complete stranger, turned

to me and asked if it was my first time dancing. Nodding, I was quite flattered

when he informed me that Balkan folk dancing is in my "soul" and that for him

it is also a "tribal instinct." He also had no teeth.

Before I could inquire about his fetish for oversized accordions, Anoush came

onstage. Everyone went wild.

Well, as wild as these 60-somethings could possibly get without a body part

giving out-which is more wild than you would think-the crowd got even more excited

when Anoush's members whipped out tassled tambourines, an enormous accordion,

and what looked like the illegitimate child of a violin and a ukulele. A heavy-set

woman started wailing into the microphone and the real dancing began.

There were pinkies, hips, arms and legs swinging, swaying, waving and kicking

in every direction as far as the eye could see. All I could do was grab onto

the white-haired dynamo next to me and leap around in a desperate attempt to

avoid getting crushed by the clog-wearing beast to my left.

I soon realized that there is a hierarchy in the folk dancing world. All the

really good dancers congregate in a small circle in the middle and prance around

while the rest of us on the outskirts of the group try to keep up. I guess you

could say it's the Slavic equivalent to the dichotomy of the club scene, where

the abs-of-steel girls get to man the cages, and the rest of us are herded into

a communal "hump" in the center of the dance floor.

When did dancing go from doing the Charleston to "bumping and grinding"? How

did it devolve from an action through which one lets oneself go, to another

self-conscious action? These days when you dance, its all about looking sexy.

It's about being the pissed-off anorexic model in a Calvin Klein ad, wearing

nothing but a flap of fabric covering her nipples.

I would really like to see Balkan Folk Dancing get popular-but I don't think

it's going to happen anytime soon. First of all, people would have to get the

media message that it can be cool-and that would necessitate something like

MTV having their spring break special on an Armenian hog farm, starring big-bosomed

ladies in head wraps kicking up their heels, rather than in Cancun, featuring

screaming girls in bikinis getting freaky to Destiny's Child.

Folk dancing really has a bad rap. What most people don't realize is that

it is just as fun as any trendy dance club. First of all, you don't need an

ID to get in. Also, it's a great way to meet a lot of really eclectic people

who don't really care whether you look sexy or not-as long as you don't care

whether they look sexy or not.

Everyone there is quite encouraging-and the only groping that goes on is between

hands. Everyone gives each other a friendly hand squeeze at the end of each

dance-that's my favorite part. Well, that and the freestyling.

Nevertheless, I had no qualms about abandoning Stefan, who was getting so

excited while squeezing my pinkies, I was afraid he was going to invite me home

for a personal dance party in his pants. Hopping into the car, turning up Tupac

as far as the volume could go, I finally managed to harness my inner "tribal

instinct."

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