Like no one is watching
Daniella Cortez | Posted: Thursday, March 21, 2013 10:09 am
My natural habitat is in front of a computer screen. This is the plight of the writer; we live a primarily sedentary lifestyle that, while filled with information and beauty in its own way, can often be devoid of physical activity. As a group we aren’t known for our dancing ability.
I’ve been to a handful of dance performances this year, including two shows by Pulse Dance Company in the last few months. So when Pulse announced their “Play with Pulse” dance series, I thought it would be a good opportunity for me to unearth those mad movement skills I assumed had just been laying dormant my entire adult life. If nothing else, it would get me out from behind the computer screen for a few hours.
The series takes place once a year and, according to Pulse founder and creative director Stephanie Wonchala, it’s become a way for the company’s dancers to interact with the community.
“I really liked the idea of creating a safe place to explore movement at an extremely affordable rate. No judging, and no intimidating financial prerequisites,” said Wonchala.
In addition to my mostly sedentary lifestyle, I’m also only known for my one signature dance move — The Awkward Squid. It’s all loose shoulders, waggling arms and a slight but always out of sync hip swivel (I’m very popular at dance parties, obviously). However, when I was a kid the dream was either to be a best selling author or one of Janet Jackson’s back-up dancers. A class with Pulse could be my ticket into the dance scene. With a suggested donation of $5 and an affirmed judgment-free atmosphere, there appeared to be no downside to trying it out.
The class I attended, “Shaka-la-ka with Wonchala,” was a basic modern dance class that focused on movement and simple choreography.
“Honestly, this class [Shaka-la-ka with Wonchala] is to just feel good. It’s going to be a pretty broad scope of experience levels, and I want everyone to feel comfortable participating. Two goals: no one is allowed to feel self conscious, and everyone should just have fun,” Wonchala said.
Class participants came from a variety of backgrounds, from zero dance experience to performing members of Pulse’s company. Wonchala opened up the class with a brief introduction and a few rules: do the best you can and if you can’t do a move just “boogie through it.” Wonchala is an engaging and encouraging instructor. She started the class out with some stretches and warm ups set to some popular dance music, accompanied by Wonchala’s energetic cheerleading.
Despite coming prepared in my super cute dance outfit, complete with hot pink mini skirt and coordinating sports bra, I was not fully able to master all the moves.
Dance of any kind, but especially the “shake your booty and throw yourself on to the floor” kind, is not for shrinking violets. The stragglers (myself, the poor friend I forced to come with me and a few others who didn’t have a lot of dance experience) tended to stay toward the back of the room. We watched the more experienced dancers move through the steps a few times before attempting it ourselves, with mixed success.
My attempts to fade into the crowd did not go unnoticed, and Wonchala made me join her at the front of the room to practice one of the more complicated bits of choreography. I think we both learned our lesson after that and I was allowed to return to the back after I massacred the moves.
I did pick up a few basic dance terms like “turn out”— to move the hips or leg and foot outward instead of facing forward. Then there were more complicated and French-sounding dance terms like chaines, which is really just a simple twirling motion, elbows up and out, that moves you across the floor. This was one of the few moves I mastered during the class. I can twirl like a champion.
Individually the motions were simple, but the real magic seemed to be in remembering how to put them all together into a seamless bit of choreography. The better dancers did this easily, connecting the movements beautifully and moving together through them. By the time my row’s turn came up, however, we did a lot of flopping around on the floor trying to keep our spandex covering the important bits while remembering when to chaines and when to turn, turn, step.
Pulse has been doing the dance classes since 2010, making this the fourth Play with Pulse series. According to Wonchala, year’s series was the most successful so far, with packed classes during all four sessions.
After the class I asked some of the other “back of the room” students why they came. They each echoed similar sentiments as mine; they’ve always been interested in dance but didn’t know how to start. One student told me that she’d always wanted to dance, since she was a little girl. “This is like a four day dream come true,” she said.
In addition to getting a pretty complete work out — a day later my entire body still felt sore—the class netted me a few new moves for the next time I’m letting loose on a barroom dance floor. There’s a really fun booty shake I can do now and a super sassy variation on the jazz hands: one hand on the hip, the other rotating from the elbow in front of your face like a window opening and closing. Those, I think, I’ll definitely employ in the future.
While I have put to bed any dance-related delusions of grandeur (I don’t think Janet Jackson will be calling on me to back her up any time soon) it certainly strengthened my resolve to move more and expand my repertoire beyond the awkward squid.
For more information about Pulse Dance Company, including when they will be offering classes in the future, check them out online at pulsedancecompany.com
