Dancing Queen?

One thing that I am not very comfortable with is dancing. This was actually the folk knowledge that I was trying to avoid learning about. I was going to learn to knit, but after riding my bike around town and getting hopelessly lost on the way to look for some yarn, a completely failed attempt, I decided that I had to switch. I have always enjoyed watching people that know how to dance and do well at it, but my excuse has typically been, "I'm white, I can't dance!" For me, that applies to both freestyle dancing and partner dancing. Although I have learned how to do the minimum required dance required for church and school dances-you know, the ones where the partners basically step back and forth-I always want to go the wrong way and lead or to put my feet in the wrong place and do a little hop to avoid stepping on toes.

Rosalind teaching me her dancing skills!!!

 Picture that, I bet I look like a professional now, right? No? Well, today I asked my friend Rosalind, a lover of dance, to show me a couple of moves. So she taught me a little about stance and how you hold your arms so that you know where the guy wants you to go when he leads. She also taught me how to waltz. Although for the first couple of minutes, I was completely failing, (I guess I'm not very coordinated when it comes to dance) I became better at it to where I could put my feet in the right spot at the right time. Huge celebration time, yes? NO! Then it was time for adding going up and down on your toes at certain counts and spinning. Finally, though, I was able to do these as well-for the most part.

Looks a TON harder than learning the waltz!

Learning a little about this type of folk knowledge reminded me of a movie I watched recently based off of Jane Austen's book Emma. As I watched one of the many dance scenes in the movie, I thought, what if we all learned complicated dances like that today, as part of our society? I certainly wouldn't be barely learning the waltz at 18. Here is a clip of a dance from that era. Learning dance was one of the social requirements of young women during that time, just as Alicia's post on needlework showed another. If I was magically transported back to that time period, I would have been a social outcast! That's how much our times and values of different types of knowledge have changed!