{"id":3407,"date":"2011-06-21T09:17:26","date_gmt":"2011-06-21T08:17:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/?p=3407"},"modified":"2011-06-21T09:17:26","modified_gmt":"2011-06-21T08:17:26","slug":"the-dance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/?p=3407","title":{"rendered":"The Dance"},"content":{"rendered":"

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*This post is a slightly modified version of an essay on T’s blog<\/p>\n

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\n
On with the dance! let joy be unconfined;
\nNo sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet
\nTo chase the glowing hours with flying feet.
\n~George Gordon, Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage<\/i><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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This weekend we attended the epic wedding of friend Axel and were the on-the-spot photographers, as our gift to him. It was an epic wedding because a.) it\u2019s Scotland, and people here party like it’s 1999 pretty much every night, b.) Axel is Romanian, and the Romanians party like it’s… 1989 (when Communism fell) as often as possible, and c.) it lasted for two days, and many, many, many sweaty, midge-biting (at the outdoor bbq) hours.<\/p>\n

T is an introvert, socially backwards in some ways, and sometimes weirdly shy \u2013 so there were parts of the whole thing which made her break out in a sweat, including waltzing into the bride\u2019s dressing room and photographing she and the groom’s sister getting ready (We teased Axel a long time about his imaginary girlfriend, because we’d never met her – so, “Um, yeah, hi. Don’t mind me, I’m just here to photograph you while some random chick puts lipstick on you. Just ignore me, thanks,” was T’s introduction.). D. was the quietest photographer on record, and also was too shy to be as bossy as he needed to be, but with a camera in front of his face, he is fairly impervious, and got some amazing, excellent shots (most of which we cannot share, because they are not ours. But! We will share some innocuous ones soon).<\/p>\n

There were moments which were beautifully surreal, which included the sung Greek orthodox service with the cantor and the priest singing lovely duets, and the mystical looking gold-leafed icons, and the marching around the altar three times, and the crowns \u2013 the bride and groom are crowned in an orthodox service, which, along with the sugared wafers they got to eat was pretty great. (NB:<\/b> The sugar represents the sweetness of marriage; some use sugared almonds for this symbolism. The crowns represent their new authority as a couple, since marriage gives them their own wee “kingdom.” The crowns also stand for the crowns of martyrs (!!) as the sacrifices of marriage are many. ::cough::) The cake was adorable – a stack of suitcases for all the bride and groom’s travels over their long distance, Minnesota-Scotland Skype dating; the Romanian gents, resplendent in their kilts, were too cute – they wore them well. But the moments we loved the best were the dancing. <\/p>\n

Like many of you reading this blog (Hi, Adventists, Muslim ladies, Pentecostal folks, and Southern Baptists!), we were raised not dancing. The Hobbits, during their Bad Movie Nights, have never yet sat through (okay: suffered through) FOOTLOOSE*<\/i>, that angsty 80’s dance film, but we’re told our lives run a parallel to the theme \u2013 churchy folk Just Didn\u2019t Do That, because dance Led To Lust And Other Things. The only differences we see are a.) we’re not angsty 80’s boys, and b.) we figure we’re too physically awkward to worry about dancing anyway. (True or not, that’s our conclusion, and we’re sticking to it.)<\/p>\n

The not dancing, though, takes something away from a person. We’re talking actual dances with steps, not what the “kids” these days call grinding or freak dancing or whatever \u2013 please. Real dance. To not dance — as families, as cross-generations, as human people — is to miss a pair of middle-aged women attempting the Virginia Reel and ending up in a breathless giggling tangle \u2013 or to miss being the groom quick-stepping his mother around the floor and singing with her some silly ABBA song, and to miss first-date couples and grandparents and shy Scots boys paired with shyer Romanian girls attempting c\u00e8ilidh dancing for the first time, trying desperately to remember which way to step, hop, clap, and twirl. To not dance would be to miss all the suddenly unselfconsciously delighted Romanians of all ages — resplendent in their kilts, oh, yes — who ran shouting out onto the floor, arms raised, at the first strains of their traditional music. To not dance is perhaps to miss the turning of the world.<\/p>\n

It was joy in action, celebration embodied. And we both felt crippled that we couldn\u2019t stand up and join in. (Technically, we could have, but we weren’t really guests. And, T. begs you remember the descriptor “socially backwards and weirdly shy.” Thank you.)<\/p>\n

English 102 in the undergrad years gave us William Carlos Williams\u2019 The Dance<\/i>, and T. recalls first looking up the painting. We still laugh at the words to the poem — Williams was so right about the round butts and heavy shanks — and this weekend we remembered again the circular phrases that remind us of the dances \u2013 running along, laughing, stepping and trying to keep up with the crazyfast Romanian circles, or the amusingly named “Dashing White Sergeant” or “Strip the Willow” or “The Pride of Erin Waltz” in the c\u00e8ilidh \u2013 all stumbles and laughter, wild twirling and fumbles — learning grace with a slow, slow, quick, quick<\/i> step. The laughing, the joy, the freely swinging hips, the stomping feet — all of those images swirled through our heads. So, these are our fantastic memories of someone else’s celebration \u2013 and a reminder to learn to uncripple ourselves and join the dance, metaphorically and literally.<\/p>\n

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The Dance<\/h2>\n

\n~ by William Carlos Williams~
\nIn Breughel’s great picture, The Kermess,
\nthe dancers go round, they go round and
\naround, the squeal and the blare and the
\ntweedle of bagpipes, a bugle and fiddles
\ntipping their bellies, (round as the thick-
\nsided glasses whose wash they impound)
\ntheir hips and their bellies off balance
\nto turn them. Kicking and rolling about
\nthe Fair Grounds, swinging their butts, those
\nshanks must be sound to bear up under such
\nrollicking measures, prance as they dance
\nin Breughel’s great picture, The Kermess\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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* Okay, here’s the scoop on Footloose<\/i>, which we know is deeply unfair to hate without ever having seen. It’s T’s fault, totally, and let us tell you why: A#1 Reason She Hasn’t Seen It:) the music. Okay. It’s fun, catchy, whatever. But. T. had this Eeeeevil Aerobics teacher, pre-Zumba days, when people still did plain old aerobics. She made T. do this… well, it can only be called a chicken dance thing — complete with rapid, full-extension can-can kicks, arm flailing, and side hops — to the title song to this film.<\/p>\n

A lot of hate going on, after that. A lot of hate…<\/p>\n

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*This post is a slightly modified version of an essay on T’s blog On with the dance! let joy be unconfined; No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet To chase the glowing hours with flying feet. ~George Gordon, Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage This weekend we attended the epic wedding of friend Axel […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-glasgow","category-identity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3407\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}