dancing on my own
there's a radical kind of groove happening in a dark community venue near you, FYI
“Music sounds better when it’s danced, and when it’s communal… The day-to-day art of moving to music is not about quantifiable excellence; it’s about coming as you are and contributing to the dancefloor.”
from Dance Your Way Home by Emma Warren
I have this neighbour, Lynn. She became my neighbour long after she had become my friend which was a good order for things to happen in. We both had/have fussy cats and conduct various and convoluted rituals with our house and greenhouse-based plants so, altogether, her moving onto the street has been mutually beneficial. When we had the same size feet she’d attempt to pap her wacky impulse eBay purchases off on me but she’s stopped since I started wearing barefoot shoes and toe separators. Now, it’s the more welcome offering of grower’s glut or the loan of a particular ladder for a particular job.
What trumps all this is the deep yet uncomplicated joy that comes from bumping into one another on the street, which happens often enough. Invariably, one of us has something of note to impart and – back in May time – it was news of a thing she had been going to on Wednesday evenings at a local community centre.
Groove is in the Dark is Glasgow’s answer to the global No Lights No Lycra movement: a network of no-frills dance gatherings that began in Melbourne and has since spread to cities around the world. The premise is gloriously simple: you show up, you dance, you leave.
It might have taken me some months to finally make it along, which I did on Wednesday just past, but don’t mistake that for lack of enthusiasm. I am a woman with little shame and few inhibitions. I dance in public as and when the mood strikes, much to the chagrin of those forced to witness it.
I often talk about missing my clubbing days because there, slick in my youthful body and cloaked in little more than dry ice, I would have said I experienced complete abandonment. I wonder, though, if mentally replaying those heady days so often is a coded articulation of loss. A comment on the immutable changes that have occurred in how we experience both our bodies and time, as well as the paucity of opportunity to step outside of both.
Long since I last poured myself out of a club, I’ve dabbled with various forms – Five Rhythms, Nia, KundaDance – in an attempt to recapture some of that feeling. Even a weekly family class called Dance your Socks Off, which I still miss or miss that time, rather.
On Thursdays, a fabulous facilitator called Wils led about 20 parents in various states of exhaustion or delirium – kids in tow – through an hour-long class. It was play disguised as exercise or maybe the other way around with the bell-topped ribbon sticks and the chiffon scarves but – oh – when he put Proud Mary on at the end I knew he’d really seen us, by which I mean me. Understood that what was needed was to put the toddler down and let go in a big way before coffee and Empire biscuits in the café and enclosed gardens. Thursday’s surroundings dialled down our collective hyper-vigilance for a spell which was hard to achieve in the city and we were lucky for it.
But back to the dancing. As Wednesday teatimes have come and gone this summer, I’ve thought about Groove is in the Dark. Imagined others just a 15-minute walk away, surrendering to the music as I served up another meal, thinking it might be a bit like
‘s Before Midnight club nights which have exploded in popularity by tapping into what so many of us are craving – the release, the euphoria, the sweaty joy of the dance floor – but only when it fits neatly into the lives we actually live now. There’s been a lot written about the “existential deprivation for generations coming of age” in the post-club era and I get it. Under-18 nights and then, while we were still under 18, “the Overs” served a social function that school discos, youth club, the ice rink and the bowling alley had when we were on the cusp of adolescence. Back in the pre-mobile-phone era even if you turned up on your own, it didn’t matter. Your pals were inside.
They’ve gone back to school here in Scotland so, normal service having resumed, I popped out after dinner on Wednesday. The day had been hot and I left pre-emptively half-dressed and ready to bust a move, the kids’ laughter about my “little Millennial Dance Class” ringing in my ears.
Larkfield Community Hall is a 1980s build tucked within a more modern housing development in Govanhill, the rush-hour hum of the M74 beneath it. The mustard-coloured corrugated roof was bathed in late afternoon sunlight and I stepped over the threshold early enough to see the room for what it was: rectangles of well-used blackout material duct-taped to the walls around high windows; wire-encased radiators beneath them; stackable chairs running the length of the back wall and age-softened posters advertising other community events tacked to the shiny painted walls. It was strangely moving.
I paid my fiver and chatted briefly with the equally lovely Lucy and Imogen who've been running it without pause for over two and a half years. I marvelled quietly at their stamina for community building. It's hard graft keeping a thing going, even when you benefit from it, believe in it and see its value for others.
A trip to the loo later, I returned to find it pitch black except for a red disco light in the far corner and, as my eyes adjusted, some of that late summer sunshine bleeding in at the windows’ edges. Altogether, there was enough light so you wouldn’t bump into your neighbour but not enough to see their face. I found a space and, while the first track played, either Lucy or Imogen reminded folk of the rules. Lynn had told me already that there was no talking, but I needed to hear that it was actually banned to absorb it for the radical message it was.
No talking, but actually no interaction of any kind which meant no one brushing past you. Prodding you. Reaching for you. Grabbing you. Snogging you. Even just trying to dance with you or beside you. All of this had been my/our (welcome) experience of 90s and 00s clubbing, of course, though I think about all of that differently now. Back then, not only had the lights, the mirrors and the clothes I wore dictated how I moved, the inevitability of engaging with other people had, too. In the community hall, though, I would see myself only when my body cut a momentary shadow across the thin shard of light running the length of the hall from a sliver of uncovered glass lighting the way to the toilet. It was a far cry from the podiums and the cages I gravitated to over a quarter of a century ago. Maybe what I'd experienced in the club hadn't been complete abandonment? Could I find it here? See how it felt and what it did to know no one was watching or caring what kind of shapes a short middle-aged woman was throwing towards the back corner of the room.
Earlier that day, I delivered training on the importance of exposing babies and toddlers to rhythm, explaining to a group of early years workers that it’s vital for wee people to have opportunities to feel, copy and make steady beats. That it reminds them of being in the womb so is soothing and comforting as well as a predictor of early literacy skills. But the thing is, I think we grown-ups need it still too. There’s something about feeling the music actually moving through your body; experiencing the pounding beat as a mantra. It could be spiritual, if you think that way. Be a kind of ecstatic meditation. You don't get that when you're thrashing about in your kitchen, even with your best headphones on.
Another thing: Confronting what it feels like to dance when the music isn’t your choice. That family class would’ve been the last time I wasn’t in charge of the playlist so when you can’t nip to the bar to while away the minutes of a song you don’t feel compelled to dance to, your only choice is to vibe it out, which was a nice wee exercise in acceptance for me. In patience. In waiting to be moved again.
Which I was.
Moved also when I acknowledged that in that room, the only sweaty hands that would be taking my t-shirt off would be mine. That my dance-damp hand would be the only one running across my hot chest or sweeping my hair away from the back of my neck. As I edged the waistband of my baggy trousers down lower than I ever would in the mirrored gym, I realised the delight to be had engaging with your own body in non sexual ways just because doing so felt really fucking good. When did I last make time for this? Maybe never.
Bob Marley brought the BPM down at chucking out time and I, unsure whether it felt like an hour or three or just minutes had passed, put my clothes back on before the door leading to the toilets was eased open and we emerged, hands over our eyes, into a perfect Glasgow evening.
Later that night, a message from Lynn.
how did you enjoy le dancing!!
I loved it!!!!!!
amazing. it’s good!
So good.
I’ll bump into Lynn on the street before too long; take a chance to talk to her about le dancing and probably make a plan to go together some time. When we do, maybe she’ll call in for me so we can walk down together and then walk each other back when we’re done but for the dark hour in between, we’ll be dancing on our own.
This is wonderful -- I want this place in the forest in France but will have to fake it :)
I'm jealous you have this near you, the darkness is very appealing! I've been thinking about going to 5rhythms but bit apprehensive the vibe isn't going to be right. but all hail dancing freely in our bodies, feels needed more than ever.