Amy’s Journal

So, most of you around my age have experienced what social dance means today. I think the name sums it up nicely, “freak dance.” Some of you from my parents’ generation have experienced this through your children, and for those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, I’m not going to describe it. You can use your imagination. As a little girl, this is not what I thought social dancing was. I had dreams of Disney ballrooms and flowing dresses and swirling endlessly around the room with my prince charming. My first junior high dance was a serious wakeup call.

But no longer! This quarter at Stanford I have been taking Social Dance three times a week with my boyfriend. We have learned swing, cross step waltz, rotary waltz, club two step, merengue, salsa, cha cha, and tango. My personal favorites are swing and the waltz. Swing is so exuberant and fun, and the beat is so easy to sink into. Plus it reminds me of the rockin’ 50’s and their awesome clothes.

I love the waltz because it is such a romantic dance. When you lock eyes with your partner and go swirling around the room, everything around you fades to a dizzy blur and you feel giddy and lightheaded—the only thing in focus are my boyfriend’s eyes and I feel swept off my feet all over again. I get to feel like Belle from Beauty and the Beast! (Not that my boyfriend is a beast, I just identified with Belle as a little girl because she is brunette, not a princess, and always has her head in a book).

My dance teacher gives us a little social dance history lesson every class, and the general trend that he talks about is that every generation rebels against the dances that were “cool” in their parents generation, getting less and less appropriate every time. My question is, how on earth can dancing get less appropriate than it is now? What are our kids going to do? I have come up with a new theory, which is that we have already hit bottom right now, and that our kids are going to rebel against our “cool” freak dancing by heading back in the other direction and learning social dances from past generations, like the waltz, and swing. I think this trend has already started, since the social dance class at Stanford is filled with hundreds of students every quarter, and Stanford throws old fashioned social dances every quarter that are completely packed! I may be wrong, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed