Of course it was never in any doubt!
I mean... it wasnt for nothing that I won the "best dance move" award at the Fonterra Xmas Party last year was it?
But on that occassion, I was reliving the moves and trickery of the one-time "King of Pop" to the adoration of the mostly kiwi dominated Fonterra staff audience.
The setting was slightly different here.
It was the celebration of the Colombian National Day and the venue was the classy Ellersille Center a few klicks from central city Auckland. There was some 800 people... latin people... there. The hall was grandly decorated and needless to say, I didnt notice any of the decorations because of the drop dead gorgeous Latin women all over the place. Dark haired, smouldering eyes, laviscious curves and almost every single one of them had a wedding band on her finger!
Since the promise of so much latin beauty on display had lured me to the event in the first place, I contented myself with just admiring glances and started mental exercises to determine how the gorgeous women managed to remain in such great shape after 2 or 3 kids. Perhaps having to balance one of said kids on her hip whilst dragging the other one by the hand 6 days a week ha something to do with. The fact that their beauty paled in comparison to Tope's own also helped quite a lot!
After a very varied and wonderful display of different folk dances by different age groups, and gouging myself on the Chili Kankani(sic) and rice and drinking a couple of glasses of very good red wine... I was certainly in the mood for some gyrations on the dance floor.
The main stage had transformed into one huge dance floor and I had 'cliqued' up with some ex-AIESECers and some colleagues from work. At first we danced in that annoying way which is popular in parties in Europe. That of standing around in a circle and not having a specific partner. But hey! This was a latin party in full swing and THAT didnt last long at all.
There was a live band there which was actually very good and from the crowd's responses, churning out popular hits! I danced Salsa first with a Mexican colleague and she exclaimed, "Oh Ladi... you dance so good!" And here I was just moving to the beat of the song and trying to keep up!
And then there was Karen!
Karen is English, an accountant by day and teacher of dance by night... 5 nights a week at the local salsa dance club. Karen and I first danced to a particularly provocative song which required lots of hips touching, pinpoint accurate sway to the beat of the music and grand flourishes and twirls! Again, I managed to barely keep up and truth to tell, Karen was leading 80% of the time!
But damn, she made me look much better than I really am!
I havent sweated, laughed and danced that much since my brother's wedding! Amy, Ana, Robert, Mauricio, Gerrado, all praised my dancing skills and I just smiled and shrugged as if it was nothing. Like I did it all the time. Yeah Right!
But I guess when it comes right down to it... dance is not about counting your steps and following the rules. It's about being in tandem with the rythmns of the song and letting your body give expression to that rythmn.
Its Friday evening in Auckland now... and I will pop round to the Mexican Cafe a bit later and see if my body cant give expression to some rhythmns!
_____________________________________________________________
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows out tomorrow! I am dead-broke from paying off the last of my travel debts but not so broke I wont be forking out the NZ$23.00 balance for the book at 11am 2moro! I already pre-booked some 5 months ago with NZ$10.00
There's already a review of the book in the NY times. I havent read it. At least not until I finish the book. Jo Rowling railed at the whole lot of them trying to spoil it for us faithful readers and I dont want to partake of any curse she might have placed on those websites.
She's very powerful you know! (whichever way you look at it!)
No comments:
Post a Comment