Back in the swing of things?

So teaching begins this week after a long weekend of dancing and practising. This was my return to social dancing after a long break and it was great to see a load of old faces, to practice with some dance partners on some new moves and to refresh on the old ones. But now a stinking cold caught from goodness knows who; and a big adjustment from a weekend of late night dancing till 1am and then early mornings for work. Having a car again makes a huge difference to mobility and being able to attend events.

(previous Empire social dancing pic with Sam)

Friday was devoted to dance - research, practice and dancing. A lunch time interivew, an afternoon practice with one friend and instructor, and another practice in the performance room with someone else (i feel like i'm juggling different dancers, but that happens, and one dancer is 'for' ballroom and the other for social salsa), honing a few moves from a DVD, but then forgetting them on the crowded dance floor. That's the Empire - packed with students returning. The salsa dancers waited in the wings for the class to finish and then join the dance floor and try to make their own space amongst the non-dancers, general 'boppers'.

(absorbed in a salsa move at La Tasca)

Saturday was La Tasca in the Odyssey, an 'old skool' night with it being the first w/e of salsa in Belfast and attracting those who have been in the scene - community?? - for a while. There was a show dance from a visiting couple, and the consensus of opinion was interesting; it didn't quite work with the lady black, dancing in a fantastically loose-limbed style (Afro-Cuban?)
but the guy all formal and upright and looking like out of a ballroom tradition. One of my dance respondents thought they came from different dance backgrounds, and that the piece - set to folky salsa music - just did not quite gel.

Teaching also began y-day. Course outlines, assignments, dance ensembles hopefully explained, and Bea helping out. We've come a long way from me starting out as one of her salsa students when i was visiting Oxford in 2002/3, to her now becoming one of my students studying the teaching and learning of salsa!! Of to another dance interview again ...

Early morning thoughts:
- social dancing as a leisure requires a certain degree of mobility (and good health)?!
- the physicality of the dancing and close personal spaces, the late hours and times of the dancing all contrast with the day job and social spaces - the saced and the profane?