Dance My Love
It was St. Valentine’s Day and I was far from home. Some friends dragged me to the local night club. I had to accept my good luck. It does not happen all the time!
And you know what? I went home to sleep at five in the morning. I had danced until my ribs ached and my feet were sore. In fact my whole body ached in many places. Chiefly because I could not sit while the music played! I just got down to it and danced and danced. And then I danced some more, a lot more. Until five!
They say somebody fell in love with the DJ? Well! This time the DJ fell in love with my dancing. He played my kind of music. Remember my kind of music is any good music. Whoever cares to sing good music is a friend of mine! Whether from Brazil, Congo, Cabo Verde or Southern Africa! Or from Europe, America, the Caribbean or the Far East. The lot! I just love music.
I cannot understand people who say they hate this or the other type of music. Just give me danceable music from any corner of the globe and I will dance to it. Give me pop or jazz or country or blues or traditional rhythms. I just love them. I love each song, each rhythm on its own- using its very parameters. So I love choir, ballads and all those heartthrobs.
I love dancing too, too much! I love the twist, the rock’n’roll. I get down to the slow jam and the reggae (original leg-gay?) just as I would with kwassa kwassa and zouk. That is why I was so happy and on my feet until five!
Of course, I had my usual two beers. But each beer took a long time to drain. In fact, the last sip tasted like warm tea- without sugar. And all because I was dancing the night away!
But, I noticed some unhappy faces, quite a few, I would say. They sat for long periods while I danced, almost oblivious. They talked in muted tones about ‘these songs.’ They looked at me as if I was not just one of the joy seekers. Some rose and walked to the door, as if to warn the club owner that they might just leave, though it was still too early by local standards. Then they came back and elbowed their way to the counter to suggest a change of music to the well-known tunes and styles.
The jovial DJ just nodded and continued offering exactly what he had planned for the night. And that suited me just fine. So, I danced on and on and on… Nothing could stop me!
Even when the DJ dared play Oliver Mtukudzi and Tomas Mapfumo from Zimbabwe, I found myself totally enthralled and wiggling and shaking exactly, if not better than the great Zimbabwe dance gurus and marimba dance wizards!
Then the DJ played the most popular songs in Mozambique. I loved them so much. If anybody expected me to retire to a seat or the counter or elsewhere, they were wrong. I exploded in dance and dared them to out- dance me. I swung my almost non-existent hips to the zouk and got away with it!
However, I could not help looking around to see what was new in the dance. I mean, everybody converged on the dance floor like football fans at a free entry gate that had opened just after the game had started. All those people I had seen wearing long faces suddenly smiled like Mr Smiles as they joined in the march. All of a sudden the whole floor was taken up and some were dancing just wherever they were. And the music blared away into the night!
You should have seen me! Better still, you should have seen those young couples swinging rapidly this way and that and others pirouetting on that floor. I feared it might be stiletto-ed to dust! And the legs! You should have seen how they executed those fine movements in tune with the songs and presumably the singers thousands of kilometres across the continent or even across the seas. No wonder time moved so fast- almost with the swinging crowd!
Three zouk versions and everybody was ready for the inevitable change to other music with different dance styles. Only, they would not go along. The DJ played kwassa kwassa and ndombolo. But few of us remained on the floor. It was time for a few more long faces. But long faces could not stop the music! It blared on and we danced like inspired robots…till five!
So, dance my love! Don’t get stuck with zouk or whatever. Dance is dynamic stuff. After all, even an old woman is not old in a song she dances well!
End.
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