“if I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.” -emma goldman

I know this might come as a big shock to some of you, but I really love to dance.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve embarrassed my sister by dancing in random places. Like grocery stores. I mean, that floor is just so perfect for turning, how can you not dance on a checkered and smooth surface like that? But sometimes my random dancing can be dangerous, like when I danced my way out of my hotel lobby in South Korea, only to give some drunk Korean man the idea that I wanted to dance with him. I suppose he got the point, though, when, after having to forcibly remove his vise-like grip from my arm, my friends and I all ran away from him. But that sure didn’t keep him from chasing us for a while.

Oh, and this has nothing to do with dancing, but the hotel where we stayed while in Seoul was called The Human Touchville Hotel. And no, I’m not even joking. Also, what quickly became our favorite after-show hang out was a restaurant called Our Place. This made for lots of fun misunderstandings. Like when one of the guys who played in the pit and who I didn’t know too well came up to me and asked me if I would like to go to “our place.” And I would be confused for a bit. I barely know this guy, I’d think, Why does he think we already have “a place?!”

And then I’d remember the restaurant. Our Place. Oh right, and oh sure, and oh man, I’m glad this guy doesn’t think we have a place he fondly refers to as ours.

But dancing, there isn’t much else like it. Sometimes I wonder if drumming might be a little bit like it because you seem to use all of yourself and you ARE the rhythm. Kind of like dancing. You throw all of yourself into it. You become the score; there’s nothing between your body and the music anymore. It’s a grand and old connection and I’m grateful to be able to tap into it.

One time, a while ago, I had to go to the city for something–the city being NYC–and a certain guy had been telling me that he was planning some great big surprise for me. That I’d get home and I’d be happily shocked by something great he’d done. Well, I’m all for happily shocked, so I was looking forward to this mightily. I got back from the city, opened the door to the house, and saw…nothing. At least, nothing that was different. I looked around for a bit, confused. And then I found that this surprise had not happened because the surpriser was still asleep. And it was evening now. He’d slept all day and hadn’t done a thing and I was so sad and disappointed and yes, even mad.

So I told him that I couldn’t talk to him right now, that I needed to go…dance, I decided. Yes, I need to go dance. So I jumped in my car, exhausted from the trip I’d made to New York already, but now I was more mad than exhausted so that beat all.  I knew there was a modern dance class happening nearby and I had my leotard with me, so bam.

I danced.

I danced hard.

I felt quite a FLOW.

And that felt good.

And by the time I got home from this dance class, I could talk to the guy. I could listen to his apology and I could say that’s okay, I guess.

All because I got to go dance.

I cannot imagine life without dancing.

And I just got called in to an audition in which I will have to dance, which I am excited about.

But (GULP), the casting agency was all, “and bring your tap shoes.”

(Gulp, again.)

But tapping is dancing and I love dancing, which is what I will keep telling myself over and over again as I search through my stuff to actually find my tap shoes…the ones I hardly wear…the ones I am privileged to wear for an audition soon. And by privileged I probably mean scared.

But the point is, I do love to dance.