I’m trying to catch my breath at the moment, and am mildly wondering what, if anything, my next door neighbor may be thinking.
For anyone who happened to see Atomic Blonde with Charlize Theron, and fell in love, as I did, with that stupidly terrific curation of Eighties music, you can relate.
As I get ready to leave for Indonesia, I was in the process of adding some albums to my iPod. Suddenly I remembered how much I loved this sound track, and promptly added it to my mix.
A few minutes ago I popped my headphones on and The Politics of Dancing, which is the backdrop music to the intense lesbian love scene, filled my head. I was up and dancing my ass off in seconds.
Now. Let me set the stage here.
I am going to be 66 next week. But here’s the thing: before you laugh your butt off, baby I can dance.
I have studied dance my entire life. Ballet, jazz, modern. I’ve danced since I could walk. Studied moves and put them into routines, worked my rear off at gyms on slick wood floors, taken endless lessons in Latin styles, classic ballroom.
No. Please. I can dance.
Because I’m an athlete, I can still move in ways that rather shock my elderly German neighbor to my north, for whom I am an endless source of entertainment. I can dance for hours.
It occurs to send her a monthly entertainment bill.
All you need is great music.
Most of the decade that this driving, magnificent music was popular, I was hitching my way around Australia, staying in hostels. We had bulky, clumsy cassette players, and the compilation tapes were the Big Deal. I used them for my aerobics classes. Listened to them endlessly as I stood with my left thumb out on the roadside. Sometimes if I busted a move I had a better shot at copping a ride.
This music takes me back to Geelong and Cairns and Adelaide and Melbourne, the long white beaches north of Brisbane, the endless shores of the far west north of Perth.
Above all, the intensity of it gets you up to move. No decade that I have lived through produced better dance music, but I’m totally prejudiced. It was a decade where I lived totally out loud, in another country. That pounding, powerful music rips me right out of my Colorado kitchen to put me back into downtown Melborne watching the street buskers.
These were some of the headliners from that time, and keep in mind that Australia produced superb talent of its own.https://www.thetoptens.com/greatest-80s-bands/ Their music filled all the bars, informed the times, and shaped my tastes for years to come. Kindly, Thriller? 1982.
From the time I was sixteen I snuck into bars to dance. I never drank, only danced. Sometimes you just gotta move, honey. A lot.
All it takes is great music.
As I sit here, the album is pulling me out of my seat to leap and dance around my dining room, which thank god, doesn’t have many obstacles.
When I was new to Denver, I found all the best places, and frequented them every Friday and Saturday. I frankly didn’t care about the men. I wanted to MOVE.
One night in a particularly upscale place I spotted a woman who was clearly in her fifties. She wore a flowing tunic and pants, was lithe and graceful. I thought, right. What on earth is she doing here?
Then someone asked her to dance.
I’ll never forget how that woman moved. The way she interpreted and anticipated the music, its moods, and adjusted her angles and flows to respond to it. Dear God, she was mesmerizing.
Age has nothing to do with it.
All it takes is great music.
Lest you might have missed this little YouTube video, let me remind you: dancing is for all of us, forever, no matter our age:
Now if you’ll pardon me, I’m going to crank the volume up and let fly.
Comments powered by Talkyard.