Dancing with the Blind, on Whales and Bad Accents

I wrote this over a night of dancing, a night of surprise, harmony, and laughter.

I am at a dance class, a dance I know, so I am sitting down, watching, until the social dance starts after the lesson. It's cold, how else. I am not very inspired when I'm cold and have not danced, but never mind.

... 

Now I'm a new woman. I danced, the first time since the New Year. I got a few gremlins out of my system.

It's very funny to go dancing, and sometimes sublime, or somewhere in between. 

One of the guys dances like a grasshopper, jumping around with bent legs, just like an insect.

Another one looks like he is moving wardrobes - I make a mental note to avoid him. It's a couple dance - I'd be the wardrobe!

None of them has any idea of how he looks like, or how much I am giggling in my head, or with my girlfriends if we go together. Usually I go by myself, since one of them let me down, and I decided that passion matters more than being accompanied.

Back to boys. One of them tells me that "you look like you can be made love to", to which I obviously say - "Absolutely!" - but I don't give him my phone number. Which is good, because he starts on some spectacular moves to show me what he can do - he lifts me in the air. This is rare and high skill, because without skill we can both fall flat on our faces. (It wouldn't be the first time.)  He gives me back my shaky confidence, as I often forget that some like me just the way I look, and that they also come "in my size". 

It's great to be lifted up, on time, on the beat, with full balance and control. Both I and him need to know what we are doing, I need to hold on to his shoulders to control my weight and balance, and to bend my knees around his, so we don't hit someone else, and for aerodynamics. Practically, together we become a spindle that tuns for a second or two in the air, and then we come back down on our own, personal feet, on the beat, in time for the next move. It's fab!

I am wearing my black work trousers, trainers and a long-sleeved top - OK, with a cleavage, but that's it. Dancers know each-other by the face and its expression. Anyway, I invite, I choose.

At the quiet end of the bar I see something very strange. A cane. Someone sits with a big stick in his hand, although he is sitting down. I stop to look closer. He is blind. He nods his head to the beat, he likes the music. He has a small, tiny woman with him, who talks to him. I feel something in my chest, something that tastes salty, like tears, the tears when I cannot dance. 

I carry on looking over - there are a few "good-lookers" that are looking at me from the bar, but I am not interested. I danced with men without a hand, old and frail, short, obese, sweaty like freshly fished out of a lake, smelly or perfumed, but a blind man, I have never seen one at a dance. Only in London. I look at him - he doesn't bob about, but I can see the tip of his shoes flicking up and down like the tip of the tail of a cat at ready - so he can dance, he knows something. 

You know good dancers when they are standing aside, because they don't bob about. Usually they stand without moving at all, or they give out minute signs. The less a man knows how to dance, the more they jump around, wiggling, usually with a beer in their hand. To avoid. One, they are annoying, two, they spill the beer.

The girl beside the blind man has left, he is alone. The floor around him is free, safe. I hike up my courage, I'll try. Who knows. I go and touch his elbow, and I ask if he dances. Yes!

Remarkable, he gets up, and he really knows. A little off-beat, but this has nothing to do with sight - but he knows how to dance, even with hand-led turns - he anticipates my moves, he leads, he knows what he is doing. I am near tears. Most people were standing with their back to him. I too know what it's like to be "different" and excluded. And I know what it's like to be given a chance!  He is blind, invisible, but he exists, and he can dance - which I couldn't have imagined. 

I remember the African man with an impossible accent that I insisted to my boss that we hire. He could write impeccable English, and he knew how to do the job. My boss passed him on to me, as only I was willing to try and understand what he was saying. I even told the man of an accent training course after a while, and he wasn't offended.  I don't think he has taken it yet... He was cute, he kept kissing me on the cheek whenever I helped him - nobody has ever kissed me in the office, neither before or after.

I go back to the "action", and I bump into a guy that I vaguely remember to be good. We dance, he is excellent. He holds me in the close embrace, with my cheek on his and my nose in his big, curly, Brazilian hair. It's a gorgeous hold to dance in, but it's also very precise - any hesitation, any trip-up, you feel it straight away. He dances with small steps and fluid, contained moves. I close my eyes, because this way I feel his body precisely, and I know which way he will go, and I have the clear sensation that we have become together an animal with four legs, totally co-ordinated, who know exactly how to fit together - I step between his feet, he between mine. An animal that moves to the music, feet that step to the rhythm. And curly, soft fur. 

I read somewhere about the sound waves that guides whales or dolphins when they migrate from one sea to another, on long distances between continents - the song of the whales. Or something like that. This is like the song that I and him, with our four legs, are moving to, right now. There are some guys in the front with accordions playing it. 

He lets me go, and I look around for another. There is a short latino, curly hair and tanned skin, who dances with a very tall girl. It's funny, his nose reaches her cleavage. He doesn't abuse it, but it's still funny - and he keeps going back to her, although partners are rotating. 

One of the boys is restful, we dance something slow, and he tells me it's called "xote". In his arms I take a deep breath and relax. Each dancer is different. 

I dance with another one, and it is as easy as if I was swimming and there are sea water waves, pulsating softly to the rhythm, but yielding to my touch after a delicate resistance of a milli-second. A totally invisible guy otherwise, bald or shaven, with a grey t-shirt, short and puny. It doesn't matter, it's the sensation that matters to me.

These are all sensations. I forget the men whose arms I've been in, dancing, and the sensations, but somewhere their harmony remains, a longing when it isn't there, a flow when it is. They are all different sensations, and different degrees of harmony, but when I can close my eyes and perfectly co-ordinate with someone else, with another body, and with music, this is the closest thing to flying. I mean, comfortable flying, pleasant and restful, not on a broomstick without gas, in the rain, with altitude drops.

I head to the corner where I left my coat, to leave, and there are 2-3 guys sitting down and talking among themselves. At least one is a body-builder and he looks spectacular, but he doesn't seem at ease, "gabble-gabble" in a corner, with everybody else around dancing, in sweaty ecstasy, with skirts flowering around them. 

It's a relaxed dance, forro, the girls come in flats, some dance barefoot. It's a beach music, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, rhythmical with a drum and a triangle.

Sometimes I remember them, and after 10 years we recognise each-other. These are those with high chemistry - good dancers and compatible, and if there is sexual attraction, all the better. There isn't every time - there can be harmony without sexual chemistry, pure compatibility of the way to move and understanding the music, or to feel it in our bodies. Because when we dance we are not thinking - we know the steps, the muscles and elements of our bodies answer directly to the music and to the other body connected to mine in dance. We feel the music in our stomach, in our hips, in our feet, in our shoulders.

I know who to dance with, and whom to avoid. There is something in the eyes. I know, at parties, those isolated dancers sitting down obediently next to their prematurely aged husbands or wives, who eat and drink and chat, oblivious to the tingle pulsing through their partner's body to the beat of the music. I see that pulse in their eyes, the keen, attentive look they have, searching the empty dance floor for an excuse to get up, for a rescuer, or watching intently the feet and bodies of dancers, for tips on new moves.

When I go dancing, I watch for that keen, intent look. It's settled but willing, open, a look that says to me "Let's have some fun together", "Don't you love this song?", "Don't you love this beat?", "Let's enjoy it together."

You can't dance this alone. Or you can, but it's less than half the fun.


You know a dancer by the smile in their eyes and sometimes on their face. It's a "Let's play" smile.

And there's a difference to the chat-up, assessing look. The one that says "I want to eat you", "I want to grab you and show you how good I am in bed". The sleazy look, or the over-saturated look of lonely fantasising, hoping you may just take them on for the night.

You want to be in the arms of the dancer who'd close his eyes, even for a second, and take a deep breath, breathe in the pleasure of music and of their own body, swimming on its harmony. A synchronous swim that moves your body together with his, out of their own volition and independent of what you say to yourself in your mind - if anything at all.

If you are curious, here's the music and where to dance it - www.forro.co.uk.