Saturday, December 29, 2012

Dancing at the American Legion


Each year, I make my annual visit to Baltimore and come to the American Legion for holiday socializing. I'm a member - a 'Son of the American Legion' - my dad is a veteran.

Each year, I watch, listen and take in a variety of experiences, all worthy of the visit (and many more) when I come to Maryland.

As a dance teacher, I am always taken by the people dancing at the American Legion. They are smiling. They are 'on beat'. They dance with musicality that is difficult to teach. They dance with ease, personality and, most of all, fun.

What I ponder on each visit is how these dancers don't claim to be dancers, but to me, they are dancers. Most of them have not taken formal dance lessons. They are from a generation of dance and music that was the standard of American social life and the foundation of our American ballroom dancing that we enjoy today. One can see the intuitiveness and remembrance of days gone by...but those days are still here, for them. A good thing!

As a dance historian, I watch things that I teach in my college classes. It is a marvelous opportunity to find people still dancing some of the dances we think are part of the past. And in many ways, I feel we have disrespected our historical roots by assuming these dances are not danced any longer. The truth is that we just don't teach all of these dances in our dance studios. But, these dances are, indeed, still danced.

I watch Break-a-way Foxtrot, a delightful dance fusing swing and foxtrot. I watch the people do shag, a fast hopping dance based on swing movement and music. I see the original styles of the Latin American dancing, so popular today, but with the authentic movement designed by the American social dance culture. The visuals are perfect for anyone who is curious about why we do what we do on the dance floor. You can follow the historical journey of dance and dance development - right here at the American Legion. But in another moment, you will see contemporary styles of the same dances, danced by the same people to newer music. Newer is all relative! A given couple can go from a dance style demonstrating the 40's through the 50's, into the 60's and 70's.... it seems to stop there. And indeed in our dance world, new dances seemed to stop in the 70's as we retraced the dance tracks of previous decades, advancing the moves, creating new looks on vintage styles of dancing - just like it is in fashion.

I am always reminded, while at the American Legion, why I got into dance. Why I loved it so much and why I wanted to teach dance. This is a good reminder since I get so involved with daily business, in dance and in life, that frustrations build to the point of confusion as to 'why am I doing this?' And I get the opportunity to get the experience of music and dance from this particular point of view, given to me by my 'American Legion Homies'. Each year I profess I am going to take it back to Maine and distribute this old/new emotion in dance. And each year, it fades soon after returning to Maine. Through no fault of anyone or any group, it just isn't going to be repeated or recreated in the same way. But I treasure the authentic-ness of my tactile experiences at the American Legion, each year, as I will do on each visit to my Post in Maryland.

This year offered some unexpected experiences. Some were sad, bitter sweet and cute. Each and everyone one of these experiences are important to me as I survey life and the way people live it. Here are some of my experiences:

~While watching the people dance, they bump, but never loose their balance. The dancing is polite. Each dancing couple is aware of other dancers on the floor. They appear to be family at a party, not strangers at an event. This falls fast from some of today's dance floors. It is an era gone by!

~The band leader makes jokes that play on the memory of the seniors at the dance. It is tender in the way he distributes silly comments. He says things like 'I got this request last night, but I forgot to play it', - everyone laughs and reflects on their own memory loss from time to time.  They have not forgotten the music!

~One man speaks to another about his terminal cancer. He is not a senior, but he is a veteran. He sits as a single with another couple. "Today, I picked out my mausoleum", he says to one of the women he is friends with. She is in her 80's.

~One senior lady sits with her boyfriend. She is in her late 70's, older than her boyfriend who is in his early 70's. She is dating a younger man! She is thin and smart looking, very stylish in every aspect of her being - her dress, her makeup, her walking and sitting. She takes care of crack babies!

~The recorded music during breaks is Frank Sinatra and other crooners. Never during the evening was the music absent. The music seems to represent life continuing, folks are always smiling and chatting and loving being out and about. What would they do if there was no American Legion? My parents have given me the answer before I asked the question: 'We wouldn't know what we would do if we didn't have these friends and this lounge". Life continues at the American Legion - There is a reason!

~I dance with an 80+ year old lady. She is an artist, and was once a dress designer in California now living in Maryland. She is quite tailored, everything has a place. Her outfit, her hair, all the way to her fingers and toes, so delicately placed during every move I take her through on the dance floor. I take her through the moves from my knowledge in dance history. I feel she knows every step I am dancing. She is a marvelous partner.  I am improvising!

~ I hear one man talking to another about the a step he just danced with is partner. "I do that step in disco too, but you have to lift your leg up" and he demonstrates. They both wobble as they loose their balance. It's never too late to learn a new move (from the 70's)!

~ The band begins to play one of their many songs. My mom says "I don't like these slow songs, but there are good for the old people". My mom is 79!

~A man with a cane, and with his cane, walks onto the dance floor with his partner. He props the cane on a chair. He takes his partner around the waist. They glide around the floor, break into a swing type action, smiling and laughing during the whole song. Another couple joins them, more couples enter the floor. Before long, the floor was packed. Every one bouncing and dancing fiercely. The music and camaraderie take them back to their youth. They are all young men and women again as they listen to tunes that take them back to life without wrinkles. They forgot they were old! The music stops and they return to their slow walks and the cane.

~I dance with mom, she smiles the whole time. I dance with another woman a few times only to have necks bend to see what we might do. I'm the dance teacher from Maine. I know many of the names of the people in the lounge as I have been there many times. These folks live for each other's company. This is a blessed place. Joy and happiness, even if it is for a moment, lives on in the American Legion. Life is good!

~ I ordered a drink, a vodka gimlet. The drink costs under $2. It comes in a martini glass, as it would in any bar. Mine has an additional glass with it. It's called the 'left over glass' from the bartenders mixing flask and it includes an extra cup of ice. What? That's two drinks! What else would one do with the left over? Throw it out?

These are blessings I never would have expected to receive. These are the blessings that are so often forgotten or ignored. These seemingly small experiences grow into great, vast wonderments of love and gratefulness.

Blessed Be and Amen!

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