Getting Freaky, Balkan Style
If you are missing two or more teeth, Sarah Mourra wants to save the last dance for you. Squeeze her pinkies at sarah@dailycal.org.Friday, March 9, 2001
Category: Opinion
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."
Comments (0) »
Comment PolicyThe Daily Cal encourages readers to voice their opinions respectfully in regards to both the readers and writers of The Daily Californian. Comments are not pre-moderated, but may be removed if deemed to be in violation of this policy. Comments should remain on topic, concerning the article or blog post to which they are connected. Brevity is encouraged. Posting under a pseudonym is discouraged, but permitted. Click here to read the full comment policy.














Printer Friendly
Comments (










