I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor

I don't think it's really telling tales out of school when I say that there's always a lot of musical energy crackling under the surface for me. It's not entirely uncommon to see me stop in mid-sentence when a song starts or softly sing along with whatever's playing in the background. Sometimes not so softly. That energy and appreciation carries over to dancing. I've never really had any formal dance training but that sure as hell has never stopped me before.

I would tell you that a background of growing up with old Hollywood movies is what informed that. The big, showstopping musicals of yesteryear were definitely on steady rotation. Fred Astaire dancing with Ginger Rogers in Top Hat. Gene Kelly's Gershwin-fueled fever dream in An American in Paris. Dick Van Dyke leading a troupe of chimneysweeps across the rooftops of London in Mary Poppins.

But I honestly think it comes from Michael Jackson.

The late 80s was the last real period that my parents listened to contemporary music, the height of the MTV era was the twilight of their modern music appreciation. And even though it predates me by several years, I remember the music videos for Thriller and Beat It getting heavy airplay. Thriller was something that terrified me as a kid (And still does?) but the sight of Jackson in that iconic red jacket leading a horde of zombies in a choreographed dance number definitely struck a chord. Beat It was a little more tenable and perhaps the better song there's just something cool about dance-fighting; just watch West Side Story. In a time ruled chiefly by hair metal and arena rock, Jackson led the charge of musicians putting out full-on bubblegum pop.

There's video footage of me as a toddler dancing around before I could even form memories. If I thought of this topic further back, I'd include it; maybe on a reedit down the line. So that's been around for before I can remember but it wouldn't be until high school that it no longer existed on the periphery; the annual yuletide trips to see Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker being the usual source of that appreciation before that.

Just imagine a version of this thing dancing and you get the idea.

For me, the epicenter of social activity in high school would always be the homecoming dance which, now that I'm typing this, I realize is within the first month of school. Huh. Didn't think that analogy through. Anyway, I was never really a wallflower at those things even in the occasions when I didn't have a date. The old saying is "dance like nobody is watching" but fuck that. Dance like everybody is watching; give them a real show. Whenever a circle would clear on the floor, I'd get in on it replicating the moves I had seen Michael Jackson do over a decade previous with maybe a little Bollywood and Blues Brothers thrown in for good measure. This didn't go entirely unnoticed and I was actually nominated for Best Dancer when it came down to senior superlatives.

It's important for me to point out that I absolutely didn't win.

I think the one move you can expect me to do at least once a wedding is this weird kind of half-split move where I jump up and land on one knee; I've been counting on that move to catch people off-guard for like fifteen years. That was something I picked up from watching Mortal Kombat; that dropdown punch Johnny Cage does. Tried doing it in martial arts tournaments but it turns out I'm not Johnny Cage, looks decent on the dancefloor though. The weird hand shit and down low sashay is another martial arts thing; a mix of grindhouse Shaw Brothers moves coupled with Bruce Lee's economy of movement.

The inspiration for this blog post came about because I've been to two weddings within a month's time and I was asked several times following the respective receptions where I got my moves. At the most recent wedding this past weekend, there was this whole salsa dance number and this young woman remarked that I looked like I knew what I was doing.

I laughed it off because let me assure you right now that I do not. It's all just mimicry; that eidetic memory redirected to replicate and blend things I've seen before. But that's what makes it so much fucking fun, right?