Taking Steps to Fit In

The white-haired man was short and spry, whirling around the dance floor on a Saturday night at Charlottesville’s Boar’s Head Inn.

Whirling with him, as if she were tied to his ankles, was a white-haired woman in a full skirt. They dipped. They bowed. They spun in unison, as perfect as a wind-up toy, so perfect, in fact, that the dance floor cleared of perfunctory shufflers to give them room.

I was the first to retire from the competition, there in the heart of Virginia, but I did my share of staring from the bountiful Southern buffet in the dining room called the Tavern. After an encore of pecan pie, I paused at their table to compliment the performance and ask if they were professionals.

“No,” they said in unison. “We just love to dance.”

“I envy you,” I said. “I’ve never been a good dancer.”

Words in the Way

“I noticed,” the man said with the kindly smile of a doctor announcing a diagnosis. “You can’t talk and dance at the same time, you know.”

No, I did not know.

But I do know the difference--that carefree, confident dancers get an extra kick out of travel. You plop them down in Papeete and they are willingly pulled into torchlight shows. You let them loose in the countryside of Greece or Sardinia or Israel and they flow happily into the circles of village folk dances.

Remember the special grace that Betty Ford brought to President Ford’s trip to China when she slipped out of her shoes and joined a Chinese ballet class in practice? Her classic moves were a turn for diplomacy.

Some vacations are planned around dancing, either to attend grand performances or as participants in a frolic. I have rarely seen groups have more fun than the couples at square dance conventions in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina.

Oceans of Opportunity

On cruise ships, dancers really shine. Music is everywhere, at almost any hour. Lessons start shortly after breakfast. You can choose your pace. Male staff and crew show up at night to dance, because there usually are more women on board than men.

I have a bachelor friend who is earnest about his assignment as a member of Royal Cruise Lines’ Host Program: Before he sails as an invited guest of the line, he brushes up on the latest steps at a dancing school. He needs no refresher course in charm or conversation and, I’ve always felt, being a psychologist in real life doesn’t hurt.

Dancing is one of the attractions of New Year’s Eve at Torremolinos, I am told by a spunky widow. She has returned for several years to the Costa del Sol of Spain and always brings home lively tales of dancing with Moroccan men who cross the Mediterranean for the holidays.

“They aren’t allowed to drink or dance at home because of religion,” she explained, “but in Spain they go wild. We can’t understand a thing they say, and it’s a riot.”

So it must be OK to talk and dance at the same time if you talk in a foreign language.