Rock-step backwards, triple forwards, step and sto, triple backwards… Practicing doing complex calculations with the mind was one of Italo Calvino’s advice and the steps of a dance resemble a graceful form of calculation. Dancing, it is established, is good for the brainfull of endorphins and promises elasticity to the body… Many learn to dance (also) for this, but, in my case, looking back on it, the push came from the shoes. The pleasure of wearing a pair of décolleté in cheeky colours and the golden crosses, soft, but with a popping heel, is irresistible on us elderly dancers, at least it balances that “dancing makes you young”, a mantra probable from Romagna: in short, I do it for shoes, not because I’m agè! In one click the red shoes are mine and, like domino effect jokes, they trigger a chain of events.
Desire to dance… but how to convince him?
First of all signing up for a lindy hop class, swing dance of irresistible period charm. I still have some doubts when I’m about to swipe my credit card and start the adventure: I don’t have a partner (I do, but unavailable to the idea, he says, of “swinging” on the track) and we know that women are more and more numerous in dance halls: the risk of making upholstery exceeds the danger level. Very prompt, the girl at the reception sweeps away any hesitations: «Ma’am, the room rotates, the teachers make everyone dance, whoever is being accompanied knows that she has to make her man available. And viceversa”.
The musical version of a common sixty-eight without erotic implications convinces me. It could have ended there, but instead the kind blonde utters the phrase that underlines my uncoupled status and overflows until it becomes a question of life or divorce: «Then, if your husband wants to join us, we’ll also give him a nice discount». If dancing keeps the brain supplethe woodworm that has crept into mine dances on a spring mattress and performs pike flights, so after a couple of lessons as a single, the thought becomes fixed: how to hijack a man whose horizon outlines between tennis and soccer in a room where Lindy hop is danced, swing music and possibly themed clothes (a headband, a circle skirt…)?
The desire to dance when it comes, it comes…
Steps and lies
I consult with the colleague who has enjoyed Lindy the longest and goes to a dance hall with her boyfriend. “At first she didn’t want to, then he too became passionate and is the first to want to go”. Where have I heard this before? For a son? A cat? Burraco matches? It’s an encouragement, but I know from experience that a boyfriend is more malleable than a husband. I try with the married women in my class, the ones who “My husband is delighted! He almost takes me there.” It is not true! It’s pure lie! This is the evolution, years later, of the fresh mothers who with dreamy eyes said to me: “My baby sleeps all night after feeding”.
Certainly the husband sleeps all night, but he is not happy and the deception is soon discovered. The rule of couple dance courses is to have the couple turn around, we have already said, the teachers don’t want a single girl with a grim eye leaning against the wall: it refers to certain teenage parties and ruins the mood of the room. So, turning, turning, to the liar’s husband sooner or later you get there. And between a triple step that doesn’t start, a promenade that doesn’t arrive, a “sorry, I beat you” and “no, I didn’t understand the lesson on the circle”, it is clear that he was deported by the scruff of the neck.
Communication strategies
With my husband, I put it down as if I had finally found a solution to a problem (which had never occurred to her mind): «So, I’ve been starting longer, but at the School they are very kind! They allow me to start over to enroll us together in the lower course, think what luck». Yes, think what luck: I pay back my share and add my husband’s! That he welcomed this stunt as a big deal I take as proof of affection. I’ve done it! I’ll start lessons all over again (it’s good for me, I strengthen myself) and I’ll be in pairs!
The first lesson passes smoothly or almost: he is awkward, a little ashamed but he is an adult, he knows how to dominate the instinct to escape and the hour passes. Even the second and third time… Then the retreat begins in reverse and after one “it rains too much tonight” and a couple of insurmountable work problems I return single in a patchwork pattern: one night yes and two no. I put her on emotional blackmail, bring up the aforementioned liar’s husband, with a whiny “Did you see how nice it is that she comes to dance even if she doesn’t like it?”
Hypnosis to convince him
I’m counting on the emulation effect, but I lose across the board: it reinforces her conviction that men hate dancing and I suspect she’s gone to piss off the liar’s husband, because he disappears in the next lessons too. Have you ever tried hypnosis? It is known that certain phrases can have a hypnotic and convincing effect if repetitive and dropped carefully. I pretend to work and read an article to a friend on the phone in a sustained tone: «Peter Lovatt (Professor of Dance Psychology, nicknamed Dr. Dance) has directed a study for the University of Hertfordshire on the so-called “dance confidence” factor : women would be more unleashed when young, while men become more familiar with the hated dance and give their best moves after 50, perhaps reassured by a greater shyness of their companions».
Provocation is a failure
Now he will understand that by now we are perfectly aligned, but… silence, no reaction, the sentence falls (carefully) on deaf ears. I continue and focus on the provocation: «The journalist Flic Everett conducted a survey of two thousand women in the United Kingdom, asking them if they believed that a man who can dance can also be a better lover. Over 80 percent responded that there was definitely a connection. This does not mean that all dancers are successful in love, however…».
But the desire to dance does not pass
Now he looks at me with his head slightly bowed and the arrogant Rhett Butler look. Well, Rhett Butler, let’s talk about it… I glance back mischievously, then I discover that he has headphones on: he hasn’t heard anything, he listens to rock, it’s swing that doesn’t care… But by now, whatever the cost, I have taken the path of science: according to research conducted by the American Enterprise Institute, the number of men’s friends has halved since 1990 and this is certified by studies on the social brain that women have always more friends than men. Maybe I’ll find someone who dances. I already have the shoes.
© REPRODUCTION RESERVED
iO Woman © REPRODUCTION RESERVED