I wish I could dance. Actually, scratch that! I can dance and in fact I do at the slightest provocation!
My mother was a dancer in her youth and loved watching all the MGM musicals. So naturally I grew up watching them as well. 'On the Town', 'Kiss Me Kate', 'Seven Brides for Seven Brothers' - you name it we'd watch it. Not surprisingly I loved the comedic dancers best with the top position going to Donald O'Connor in 'Singin' in the Rain'. I would watch him perform 'Make Them Laugh' over and over again and emulate his every move (with exception of the final back flips!)
Drama school finally gave me an opportunity to truly try my hand (or should that be foot) at various forms of dancing led by our marvellous tutors Leslie and Norm. It was also Norm's dance classes which first introduced me properly to MW(TG) as we teamed up for ballroom dancing and pumped up the Polka to 10. As with most things I found that my memory was part of the key to my success. Just as I could easily memorise lines I was also very quick to pick up and remember routines. I may never have had the body of a true dancer, even in my slimmer youth, but the mind was on the ball and the feet wished to follow.
The one style I really wanted to get to grips with was tap but although I had a fair stab at it I was no Fred Astaire. In our first term we had to do a group dance to Kenny Ball's 'Midnight in Moscow', a tune which still rattles round in my head to this day. I can remember trying to lead the rest of my group in some additional rehearsals and getting very 'Miss Grant' from Fame on the asses - "Pay me some sweat people!". Alas I never took dancing any further, but in quiet moments alone I still try to perfect a simple time-step...
Shuffle-Hop-Spring-Tap-Step-Step
Shuffle-Hop-Spring-Tap-Step-Step
Today I'm getting to show off and pass on the odd trick I do remember to my kids, both of whom have the dancing bug but prefer a little 'popping and locking' to 'tapping and stepping'. I also get to introduce them to all the musicals I enjoyed with their Hollywood Hoofers. Only last week I had them sitting round watching Gene Kelly do the sublimely impossible dance on roller-skates (and in case you're wondering I refer to 'It's Always Fair Weather' as opposed to 'Xanadu').
But I also still cut my own rug! Either to the radio in the kitchen or more often to the personal soundtrack in my head. Anything from simple steps to something a little more adventurous - such as trying to pull off a barrel-roll down an empty corridor at work. "Dance and the world dances with you" and if that's not true then it certainly should be. So go on! Get up right now and boogie! It the best of times even if it's the worst of time-steps...
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Five top dance routines
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