Step, Slouch, Step

What’s the latest dance step?

Well, it isn’t the frug, which certainly had its day. And it isn’t the Watusi, a dance that’s come and gone. What it is, is something alternately known as the slouch or the spider twist.

“The dance is, like, you have really bad posture and it’s, like, you kind of have cerebral palsy,” explains Burbank production secretary Nance Billington, who is extremely trendy. “Your knees are bent,” she says. “Your arms are bent, and you are all hunched over, so you really have to use your stomach muscles--then you start hopping.”

The dance is distinguished by a definite fashion look.

“The guys who do the dance wear short hair and sideburns, like the ‘60s, not the ‘70s,” she says emphatically. “And the girls wear these long dresses with gold Russian lettering on them.” But, most important of all, says the secretary, both men and women wear clunky, black, lace-up orthopedic shoes.

The dance also has a definite sound. “You dance it to a lot of Latin rhythm, a lot of Brazilian music, a lot of drums. When I heard the music the first time, I was just right into it--it was easy,” she says. And, of course, you play the music loud, “so loud you can’t even talk.”

Perhaps one of the best things about the slouchy spider twist is “you don’t have to look pretty when you dance it,” she says with a giggle.