Feel It, Move With It, Bend, Rock, Grind: It’s Lambada

Most of them had seen the clips, those sensuous prime-time television teasers about the new movies. And naturally they’d all heard the music, that sultry, pulsating Brazilian beat.

So they came, sojourners en route to the cutting edge, to Garden Grove , a place that until now, you may not have recognized as being where it’s at.

But here, at the city’s Community Services Department, was indeed where it was happening, hot and hilarious, on Monday night.

We’re talking lambada, in case you still haven’t guessed, the super-hyped new dance craze, and for anybody who still doesn’t know what that means, the only question remaining is “Where have you been ?”

Feel it, move with it, understand it. Lam-ba-da! This is about the closest anybody’s come to figuring out what safe sex really means. Insert legs, close and tight, then bend, rock and grind. Viewer discretion is advised.

OK, so at first the participants--in business clothes, bicycle shorts, high heels, running shoes, sweats, minis and midis, plaid shirts, jeans and polyester perma-press slacks--could be considered just a tad bit shy. It takes all kinds.

Maggie Lorentzen, an elementary school teacher, tells me that it’s not really the sexiness of the lambada that has drawn her and her boyfriend, Daryl Hawls, a legislative analyst with the city of Garden Grove, to the class tonight.

“I was an extra in the movie ‘Lambada,’ ” she says. “It’s an art form.”

“So is sex,” Daryl says.

The lambada class is a first for the city and even the instructor, Rita Kyselka, just picked it up at the end of last year. Still, there was one couple, their pelvises perfectly paired, who say they have done this gig in public once before.

“We went to Club Rio, in Costa Mesa, on Valentine’s Day,” says Mario Zermeno, an engineer. “It was lambada night.”

“And it took him five weeks to get over it,” adds Eva, his wife of 13 years. “There was this Brazilian professor I was dancing with. He’s still mad about it.”

“Yeah, the real guys from Rio were there,” Mario says.

From elsewhere on the floor, nervous giggles are filling the air. Palms sweat. Legs fidget. The dancers--22 women and 14 men--are surreptitiously checking each other out.

Then Rita separates the men from the women, lining them up against two opposite walls. Deja vu horrors of grade school dancing class surely abound.

“OK, this is a learning situation, so we change partners,” Rita says.

More nervous smiles and twitters here and there.

Petite, lithe Rita, black jeans, black T-shirt, her gray hair in a wavy bob, next shows the neophytes just how it is done. Move those hips, rock your feet, up and back and side, side, side.

“Get close as you want to stand,” she says. “Just make sure your feet are between your partners’, the closer the better! Get as close as you want!”

Giggles, and then some, from the floor. Things, however, are taking off. The music begins. Some couples--you can tell the ones who know each other well--are taking Rita’s suggestions to heart.

“Then, guys, your hands are going to go down on her back and do a back rub!” Rita says.

Is that what that was? From my position on the sidelines, it’s hard to tell.

One guy looks like he’s imitating the itsy-bitsy spider crawling down his partner’s back. He and the lady have only just now met.

“We’re not supposed to kick our partner, are we?” shouts another woman.

Rita adds some instructions for another step. The women are to lean back, across their partners’ leg, and hope that the men have the strength to hoist them back up.

“This step is up to the ladies,” Rita says. “So, guys, be prepared. You don’t know when she is going to do it.”

Due to the man shortage, sisters Joan Ong and Gisella Oei are practicing this in each other’s arms. Then Gisella falls flat on the floor.

“I let her down,” says Joan, with a smile.

Off in a corner, Edie and Ed McGlynn, both Northrop employees, have finally come back into each other’s grasp. Edie sat a few rounds out rather than dance with strangers with whom she wasn’t quite in sync.

Now she and Ed are happy, shimmying and shaking and doing all the right stuff.

“My daughter’s an attorney in Vegas,” Edie says on her way out the door. “She’ll go crazy when we tell her we did this!”

And then it was over, two hours of sweat that went just like that. Sexy? Well, that depends on who was doing the steps and if they kept their mouth closed when they were counting to the beat.

Oh, there was one holdout. Travel agent Sonia Tiyoni and her boyfriend, UPS driver Kevin Dickinson, both 22 years old, sat the whole class out.

Seems that Kevin was a bit embarrassed. All that rocking and gyrating in the company of strangers wasn’t his cup of tea.

“We’ll go home and practice by ourselves,” Kevin says.

So, who knows? Maybe Kevin’s right. The lambada may be safe sex, but do it in public and people will always be watching your technique.

Dianne Klein’s column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Klein by writing to her at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626, or calling (714) 966-7406.