Dancing with myself

Growing up in New Mexico, fairs and festivals inevitably included pump-stomping, skirt swinging presentations from Mexican folkloric dance troupes.  I would stand by mesmerized, jealous of the big wide skirts, the makeup, the thick black braids wrapped around buns that just looked so fly.  I would never get to be one those girls.   

Or would I?

A couple of weeks ago, one of my teacher-counterparts told me to come to school that evening to see dancing.  Sweet, I thought, and showed up that evening ready to watch what, for some reason, I thought was going to be a presentation.  Instead, what awaited me at the school was a group of out-of-uniform students that I recognized from the morning session and a boombox.   The teacher looked at me, and said, in plain English, “are you ready for practice?”  At first, I held back, unsure of my role between chaperone and dancer.  Then, little by little, I inched my way to the back of the line of girls shuffling, swaying back and forth to accordion-laced music.  By the end of practice, some students from the night school had shown up and begun to dance around in the back of practice as well.  The music changed and I felt awkward dancing solo in the back, so I humbly excused myself, making up some excuse about getting home too late.  Yet as I walked away from the library, a kid from night school came rushing out after me.  “Where are you going?” he shouted, “We’re going to dance!”  It was my childhood dream come true.

Yes, ladies and gents, I may have joined the junior high folkloric dance troupe, better known around here as the conjunto tipico.  The troupe has 12 boys and 12 girls, so at practice I’m usually left to dance alone or with the instructor, unless a girl is missing and some poor awkward middle school boy has to dance with the tall gringa (although, in my defense, I am a gringa who dances bien suave, which I have no shame in claiming.  Also I’m really not that tall.). 

The last practice I went to was in our school gym during the afternoon session (that’s 10^th,11^th, and 12^th grade), and since it was an exams day, schedules were light.  At one point during practice, I looked over the shoulder of my invisible partner to see the gym doors wide open and the students crowded in the doorway staring at their teacher dancing alone with a bunch of junior high kids.  I remembered the immortal words of Billy Idol: If I had the chance I’d ask the world to dance.  I motioned the gape-mouthed students over, hoping that one would join me and allow me the luxury of having a dance partner for a few seconds.  Thanks to the Panamanian custom of pena (which deserves its own post), no one moved.  Ah, well, I thought, finishing the song in my head: for now I’m dancing with myself.