Those days, dance was a form to be appreciated in films, television or theatre perhaps. These days it is just a next-door thing with so many dance classes mushrooming everywhere. Today anybody can dance and dance teachers love it – for Rs 3-6,000 a month, they are a lucrative business too.
But it is not all about dancing. Having attended some of these classes for over a year, I can say for sure that dance is actually just being yourself. A look at any dance class happening in the vicinity will tell you it takes all kinds to learn dancing. Old, young, short, fat, dark, tall, celebrities, salesmen, students, housewives, brokers, teachers, doctors, dentists, aspiring models – a single class will have almost one of each kind. And they are all learning dance for different reasons.
For the young it is the aspiration to turn into an ace dancer some day and sizzle into glamour-related careers. But for the bulk of those, who are middle-aged, working professionals, dance is actually peace. A 45-year old businessman makes sure he locks his office by 5.30 pm on two days of the week to attend dance class on time. A dentist makes time for the class between two clinics. A housewife finishes her kitchen chores on time to put on her dancing shoes. “For me this one hour class is to get away from the maddening reality. To be myself,” says the businessman. For the housewife, it is to fulfill a dream she could never cope with when younger. “Those days it was taboo to learn dancing. Today, am older and no one can stop me.”
A pathologist says that he gets no emergency cases in the evening so he closes shop for the day and attends class. For a Japanse woman who came to India post marriage to a man she met while studying in the US, dance is a way to mingle with the locals. Quite a few see it as a measure to lose weight. Two years of dancing had made sure one salesman has lost ten kilos and this is after following no strict diet at all. Still others come by because there is no family back home and dance partners turn into ‘confidantes.’ Of course, reality dance shows have also pushed this craze to a different level and many dance learners harbor a dream to turn choreographers some days. If not anything else, dance also enhances one’s knowledge about different dance forms and music genres and also betters posture and gait. Not to forget, acquiring a ‘happy face’ – happy dancers make happy dance movements, learners are told.
After the first 2-3 dance sessions and all pre-conceived notions about ‘touching’ another person or swinging with part-stranger, part-friend come to nil. Somewhere dance just takes over the body, the soul and the one hour of class seems like walking the stairway to heaven.