“Dance first. Think later.”
The “Elaine dance” from Seinfeld. Those of us of certain age remember this scene well. (And the 2.4 million who watched this on YouTube.) At a wedding, Elaine stands up and asks: “Who’s dancing?” No one gets up. Elaine looks around, and then proclaims: “I guess I will get us started.” And she does — in her Elaine way. “Like a full dry heave set to music,” in the immortal words of George. The thumbs, the kicks, the facial expressions, the contortions.
I wasn’t that bad, but I did my own type of Elaine-like dancing. And found the right word to describe it, one that dates back some five hundred years to Middle English: balter, to dance clumsily but with great enthusiasm. And that it is what I do.
Now that would be fine if I were dancing by myself, in the privacy of my own home. But no, I often did this in front of several hundred people. You see, for many years, I was a senior government official serving overseas. At a moment’s notice, I could talk about nuclear throw weights, trade wars, and disaster relief efforts, anything and everything that was related to foreign policy.
But when music was turned on, something came over me. I couldn’t resist and would be the first on the dance floor. Now some said because my dancing was so bad, no one else feared getting up in front of others. Some called this the best type of “soft diplomacy”.
I remember my first diplomatic assignment in the Caribbean. I was dating someone who was an amazing dancer. He couldn’t believe that I could not dance until he saw me. And then his mother saw me. She declared I had no future with her son … He did gallantly try to teach me how to dance. And for a while, I did a fair imitation of the merengue, but only when he led. Left to my own device, ‘my inner Elaine’ would take over.
I had a nightmarish moment when I was serving elsewhere in South America. A U.S. company, celebrating a landmark anniversary, threw a big party, which was held in a mirror-filled ballroom. A colleague who was a great dancer had heard that I danced merengue. He grabbed my arm and drew me to the dance floor. Big mistake! Every turn he made, I went the wrong direction — and each time, I would see myself magnified by the ballroom mirrors. The song could not end soon enough for him — and me.
Over the years, I learned to fake some dancing skill, less clumsy, more enthusiastic. When I hosted dinners or receptions, I was anxious for the formalities to end so I could put on music and dance. Bruno Mars to the Beatles, Madonna to the Monkees to Major Lazer. The music was contagious. Government officials, interns, journalists, military officials, and yes, even a priest — were dancing — and in some cases, baltering…
In these pandemic days, dancing seems too frivolous. But one night, I Zoomed with friends. We put on the same Spotify 1980s hit list and then we danced. And while we danced alone in our homes, we were not alone.
“Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass…It’s about learning to dance in the rain.”
― Vivian Greene
