“You are very conscious of those steps ! You are doing well in other parts of the dance, but you have to get the opening dance steps right”.
“You don’t need to move your hand to those levels. It is just a slight movement of the fingers.”
This is what happens when you ask your family to come and see your practice on the penultimate day of the program.
That night, I was wondering how I would make it to the first 1 minute in the dance programme. I had less than 24 hours to fix the steps, which I couldn’t get right after so many weeks of practice. I was fighting a belief inside me, which was cemented over a period of time, ” I am dumb when it comes to learning dance steps“.
I am not trained in dancing. But over the last few years, I have found a fascination for dancing. My first attempt was in 2000 with my office colleagues. Then, in Munich in 2006, there was a big gap within the community. Then, in 2020, at a birthday party and reception, and later at an office get-together, I was on stage for a few minutes. Also had a chance to do some steps with my younger daughter on a hilltop a couple of years ago. As Herve Kay said, ” You can dance anywhere, that is the beauty of the dance“. So when my apartment colleague invited me to be part of the men’s group for the function, I didn’t have any inhibitions about the same. The main challenge was to understand the steps and make them part of the muscle memory.
Our first task was to ensure we had songs and dances for the occasion. The Dance leaders commendably stepped in and assembled a good collection of peppy songs. I liked the filter they used to make it to the final list. We had a good collection of Kannada, Malayalam and Tamil songs. I wanted to dance on Rathi Pushpam in my life, and that was granted. The revelation was the Kalapakara song from the Kotha movie, and it had some entertaining steps, and that was my favourite from the lot. The final song had to be electric, and Alumo Doluma did that. During the practice sessions themselves, we used to get supercharged by this song.
We had the opportunity to see quite a lot of reels and decided on the steps, which were later improvised to suit age and stage. A special mention to the brave hearts in their 50s who dominated the troupe. Their spirits were truly admirable, and that lifted the other two, who were in their mid-30s, I guess. We had a perfect time during the practice sessions. Personally, I had a challenge with the steps of the starting song. I was not comfortable, and when my family commented, I was not surprised. I decided to do it a couple of times on the final day before the program. I was travelling two days before the program and was missing two days of practice. My left leg was aching during my travel. How much balm did I apply to get it right? After all passion moves us forward. We had a lot of fun, great camaraderie, and some push-pull moments over the last one and a half days with the Danks team members. We were all committed to practising the steps, doing our best, and leaving the rest. The throwaway line was “If you stumble, make it part of the dance“.
My elder daughter had ordered half a dozen whistles on Blink-It to make sure they had all the fun when I was dancing on stage. It came in all the rainbow colours and they had distributed them to all their friends. Such was the euphoria around the dance I was planning to do after 12 years, ever since I had stayed in this apartment. Initially, I was low and slow, and finally, I was high and fast. I was in the moment, that is when I overcame my limiting belief that I would not be able to pull those steps.
We were dressed right for the occasion, and that lifted the mood as well. Our philosophy was “Together we dance and together we shine,” which we finally achieved. In the process, we painted the town red with the Danks team.
